Parable of the sower applied to politics

The Parable

Christians will know and others may know, the Parable of the Sower. The sower casts seeds in the paddock. Some of them grow and some don’t. There is probably a lot we can learn from various faiths and cultures.

But you may not know that it was the parable of the sower that enabled us to develop the Votergram concept for how democratic  governments can function far better for the citizens of any democratic  country.

Sowing seeds

It is all very well to elect a good team to govern, but elected representatives need voter feedback to do the job well. Often organisations form and seek donations to convey public opinion to the elected representatives. However, it is more effective if the voters use that money to send Votergrams , very brief messages, to all their elected representatives saying what they want done and why. Organisations do not have any voting power with which to back up their requests. Votes are key in democracy.

The Votergram alternative

The reason it is more effective for voters to communicate with their whole body of elected representatives, is explained by the parable. When we developed Votergrams we were just trying to make government work better. Nobody was more surprised than we were. The concept was based on the Congregational Church concept of having to convince the church meeting if as youth group we wanted to arrange a dance or music evening in the church hall.

The Link

It was decades before we became to understand that one of the reasons Votergrams worked so well was that voters were sowing seeds of an idea in parliament and some of those seeds would bear fruit and have the idea adopted. Some would not for reasons explained in the parable.

The task is enormous but the workers are few

Different democratic countries have different bodies and systems, but the Votergram concept applies in any genuine democracy. It is about voters working with their elected representatives rather than sitting on the fringes, led by daily media judgement and criticism of the poor unfortunate politicians who are trying to do an extremely difficult job. In most democracies that is made more difficult by the bribery and bullying of big business to suck profit out of the public pockets and pay the very minimum of taxes to create corporate billionaires. Politicians can best ignore such pressure when voters stand shoulder to shoulder with them in doing so. In Australia each politician represents around 100,000 people with quite different views on many topics. Putting those views directly into parliament enables the Members of Parliament to make better decisions.

There are other stories told by Christ thousands of years ago on which Votergrams are also based. More of them another day. It is truly amazing to learn how democracy really works as opposed to our fairly tale view that relieves us of any responsibility for what goes wrong with government services, laws and policies.