>
>This vote or shut-up argument is rubbish. Voting is not a solution to career politicians and human greed. It is a fallacy to believe that one should not have a right to complain unless they vote. Government should act to the benefit of the people of a country. Government are there to serve a nation, not the other way around. Whether one votes or not is irrelevant to that larger mission.
>
>A better measure as to whether one has the right to complain is whether one contributes to society by way of taxes, charity work, military service, and so forth. I am not a citizen of SA yet I work, pay taxes, employ, contribute, educate, and help. May I not complain? Voting and elections has become a type of sport for the masses and a way for politicians to keep themselves in power.
Ok, you can complain <g> But practically speaking politicians listen to those who vote. That's why they are much more likely to visit homes for senior citizens. But in your case they will listen because they know that you will vote, eventually.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham