Day 8: Instant Political Knowledge, Just add soundbite.. (Or, why the 'Don't Knows' should rule the day)

This weekend is a very special weekend in the U.K. It is this weekend that suddenly, everyone in the country instantly knew everything there is to know about Australian politics.

It's amazing how it happens. Up until a few weeks ago, few people knew anything about the Australian political machine, save for the fact that there seemed to be some fairly underhand dealing going on and a lot of behind the scenes kingmaking.. now, well.. everyone knows simply everything... Oh and it's just a coincidence that it follows a high profile election...

Maybe I'm just unlucky here. Maybe there was some kind of software upgrade that included the 'Everything about The Australian Political Machine' datapack that was uploaded last night and I missed it because I was at a particularly grim nightclub, almost bereft of any human hope despite flirting with a rather attractive lady... Maybe I'm just dumb.

Incidentally I know the guy seems a douchebag... and I don't agree with what his 'reported' policies are.. but let's be honest, world leaders are a weird breed anyway. They're either cartoon Supervillans like Putin or The North Korean Holy Trinity, Shifty Salesmen/Marketing types like our lot, or just grey Management types... even Obama, who let's face it IS sexy, well, his record hasn't been quite as christ-like as we'd all hoped.

So yeah, New Australian leader is a douche, and there's some amazing Youtube footage of him proving it, but I know even less about their power struggles than our own. That said he is supported by both Murdoch and Cameron, so he probably isn't going to do much I can really get behind.. but still.. I'm in the 'don't know category'.. like nearly everyone else.

This happened with Syria. Now this is a lot less frivolous than the simple changing of a state figure-head. This is thousands of people dying. The Assad regime is murderous scum, they are also being backed and supplied by dodgy regimes, like us. The rebels are a band of various disparate groups who we know little about. Some may be shadowy and backed/sponsored by dodgy regimes... like us. 

So do we go in there, and on whose side. Or do we just stand between them and try and stop the slaughter.

I don't know.

I'm not an expert in the region, I'm not a military strategist, I'm not an expert in Civil wars. Some people are citing clauses and sub-clauses in international laws and treaties to push opinions towards their preference. I am not a working lawyer... And neither are they, for the most part they are recycling the sound-bites of others.

So, should I just be a passive observer?

No of course not. The worlds political process falls apart without engagement. But there are actual real experts on all of these things, they aren't infallible by any means, but they have the base knowledge. If I want to get involved I would try and apply some loose scientific method of gathering evidence. If it goes against one of my own beliefs, that's too bad.. you have to go where the evidence leads you (I used to be a strictly non-interventionist pacifist, which I've had to compromise several times)

Unfortunately I don't have evidence to form my own directed opinion for either of the two political situations detailed above. I just can't form that instant opinion and tout it around. I might make a gag or two, but that's it... I wouldn't protest Syria in the same way as I might, Russia's LGBT thing.. which seems fairly cut and dried on a 'Human' level, but is probably acres more complicated on a political level...

I know it sounds elitist, and everyone hates that because 'balance' or something and you have to give a Hippy GM agitator equal time to a Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Science on news shows, but, there are people who have spent lifetimes studying something... they are a literal elite in that field... which is FINE by the way.  'Elites' are a good thing in specialised fields. I'm sorry for saying this, but it happens to be true.

And if the pursuit of balance means that my blithering content free brain burp about Syria being stacked against the opinion of someone who has studied the culture/politics/military history of the area, then I'm quite happy to withdraw it completely...

Sometime saying I don't know is a strong and noble opinion. It's almost certainly an honest one.

(Postscript: Yeah.. I KNOW I am guilty of doing exactly this on any number of occasions. But I do try and point out constantly and consistently that I am 'Stultifyingly Ill-Informed')