The always-interesting marketing guru Seth Godin wisely alerts citizens of democracies who fail to exercise their franchise because they claim to hate politicians to an important fact they have probably overlooked: many politicians want them not to vote:

Political TV advertising is designed to do only one thing: suppress the turnout of the opponent’s supporters. If the TV ads can turn you off enough not to vote (“they’re all bums”) then their strategy has succeeded.

That’s not true, but it is insightful; though my main disagreement with the rest of his blog post is that, as I have often said to political nihilists visiting PooterGeek, if you really do hate all the options available to you, then spoiling your ballot paper is a valid protest that must be recognized by the state. That is, if you don’t like the choices offered to you, then make sure that the signal you send to your fellow citizens is that you don’t like the choices offered to you; don’t allow them to assume that you are pretty much happy with the way things are. If you can’t be bothered to do that, then keep your whining to yourself; not only am I deaf to your objections, they don’t deserve to be heard.