Federal election in Australia today. Conservative government kicked out, new centre-left govt to be formed, probably involving Greens party in coalition.

Everybody (voting is compulsory) goes up to the local primary school on a Saturday morning or afternoon, is given a pencil and a couple of voting papers. Local school parents sell 'democracy sausages' and cakes to raise funds for the school.

Elections are run by an independent national commission, according to standardised national rules. Voting officials cross your name of the list, ask if you've already voted today (no, of course not). Takes 10 minutes and is very pleasant easy experience.

Vote counting starts at 6pm, results become known within a few hours, outgoing Prime Minister rings the new one to concede and wish him and his party well. New PM makes a gracious speech. No court cases. Governor swears in the new government within a couple of days, life goes on.

New government has been told by the electorate to focus on climate change policy, as well as cost of living and more respect for women. In three years time, we'll see if they listened.

I like it! Best wishes to all Australians today.

Such a system is possible in a country where the citizenry is onboard with the ideals of democratic representative government, rejecting authoritarianism outright.

But things have changed.

Unlike the US, the Australian right wing isn't a cult. There weren't huge "MORRISON 2022" flags everywhere, and deranged religious nuttery isn't as prevalent Down Under. Now will you please take the Murdochs back before they destroy us all?

No Supreme Court involvement? What fun is that?

it is nice that the queen of england allows OPie to play with they imaginary democracy ~

I'm sure the Queen is proud of the role the royal family played in sending only England's Best and Brightest to settle in Australia!

Hey, that’s my family you’re talking about there. We were a precocious bunch, Irish sent to Georgia. When Georgia became unavailable for the storage of troublesome Irish, Australia was Plan B.

proof that all white people are not bad ~


just the irish ~

For good reason. Australia was mostly a nasty barren place full of poisonous snakes and spiders surrounded by sharks. What better prison than that?

A kangaroo government keeps the subjects happy and they can be blamed for the problems and not the monarch. What a brilliant system!

In 1975 the Queen meddled with Australian democracy and it has never been forgotten. Since then she has kept a very low profile and our imaginary democracy seems to work just fine.

The trouble with most nations is that if people sort themselves out left and right and through all the sub categories, the left usually can muster up the largest group (because of a lot of fake promises that young people believe like forgiving student debt) democracy is bad for conservatives,

Look at how strict and horrible the lockdown was in Australia, freedom out the door, non compliers punished. I wish them the best and that they can keep a tolerant perspective towards diversity and masks or vaccines or whatever it is.. we'll see what happens next.

Yep, freedom out the door, well, except for the freedom inherent in staying alive. They had a tenth the death rate the US had.

College kids in general don’t vote for anyone in the US. College graduates do. Look up the list of states by college degrees per capita, or GDP per capita. The lists are about the same except for the three states that are high GDP per capita because they have lots of oil and no people. See how they voted, especially recently.

You really need to update your stereotypes.

He'll get right to it--just after he figures out how spellcheck works.

Australia has had less than 1% of U.S. deaths. Even if you take it as a ballpark figure, as of today,

Deaths from Coronavirus 19:

U.S.A.: 1,028,769
Australia: 8,076

Deaths as a percentage of total population puts Australia at about 10% of U.S. deaths.

Australia pulled off a remarkable achievement, that is, if you purport to value human life.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

...Maca believes that the Right to die by being dumb is a fundamental and absolute Right that must never be infringed?

Which I would grant to him, if only he and his peers use methodologies that do not imperil those of us with foresight, or in his lingo, "the ability to connect the dots".

Maca Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> democracy is bad for conservatives,
===============================

Is there the suggestion conservatives cannot compete in the field of ideas?

Didn't used to be the case.
Since 1854, nineteen presidents have been conservative; only fourteen liberal. (But thems just da facts)

So, -- what happened?

What's truly appalling in Maca's statement is the implied notion that democracy should change--or even be eliminated--rather than that conservatives should change.

Once again he shows that he's a closet totalitarian. That's not unique among RfM posters, but he is the one most likely to say the quiet part out loud.

He's our resident Marjorie Taylor Greene

                  WOW!

                          That's gotta hurt!

I know, but Taylor Greene is used to it by now.

    You HOPE so, because now you're worried that being compared to MACA might be more than she can handle...  I'll hope with you.

>...but he is the one most likely to say the quiet part out loud.

Maybe he needs to hear that the first rule of cocaine fueled orgies is not to talk about cocaine fueled orgies.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> implied notion that democracy should change--or
> even be eliminated--
===============================

. . . on whether Jefferson was correct with his ponderous “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

Sooo, lookin' around -- are we gonna make it?

Isaac Asimov-
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Asimov saw the cults of today. Scientists always see further along in time by following the data trends. The data trend in America is leading to a horrible place. I am afraid without some type of socio-political watershed event, fascism is at our door. He is wearing a MAGA hat, bible in one hand, noose in the other, wearing a t-shirt that says "protect our border (southern one only of course)", and draped by a Confederate flag.

HH =)

The lockdown was particularly painful for Melbourne, and there has been some electoral blowback against the federal govt there. The rest of the country largely approved of how the pandemic was managed (by states and federal govt).

The main feature of this election is that a historically large number of greens and independents have won seats, forcing the two major parties to take account of climate change and local issues.

The Conservatives moved too far to the right, and their more moderate inner city members got smashed by smart, modern, educated mostly female independents.

Quite a historic night.

In reply to Maca above -

Yes, our lockdowns here in Oz were strict and some non compliers were indeed punished, especially those who flouted the law and infected others. However we still had the freedom to go out singly or in family groups for exercise, to go grocery shopping, seek medical treatment and care for others. In my neighbourhood there were street concerts where families sat in their front yards well isolated from other families and were entertained by a musical family living down the road. One of my daughters was allowed to go around distributing groceries, books and other necessities to the elderly and infirm in her suburb.

Lockdowns and the wearing of masks in public were certainly restrictive but not "horrid" for the majority of us who had the common sense to realise that we all had to play our part in beating this pandemic.

As for vaccines, six, triple vaxxed members of my family have tested positive for covid since the last lockdown ended, and they have only felt mildly ill for two days at the most.

So the lunatic fringe can squawk all they like about lockdowns, mask wearing and vaccinations being a horrid infringement of their rights and freedom, they really are a small price to pay for life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2022 04:16AM by silvergenie.

Yes! Thank you for that, silvergenie.

oldpobot Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Federal election in Australia today. Conservative
> government kicked out, new centre-left govt to be
> formed, probably involving Greens party in
> coalition.

Imagine that. A conservative government that left power merely because it lost an election.

How quaint!

Yes it is quaint, and charming. We find that most parties and politicians play by the rules here, probably because they are very simple and easy to follow.

Not to say that politics isn't brutal, it is. But the people strongly value respect for the democratic system.

Also it helps that no one mentions abortion at all in the political arena. We got through the gay marriage debate a few years ago, and that is all put to bed too. This time around there was dog-whistling around trans rights, but only by one candidate. It helps that the electors generally don't want politicians (let alone judges) meddling in moral matters. Federal politics is usually about economic management more than anything else.

Democracy is a culture more than a political system, comprising respect for other people, loyalty to the state and its institutions, a determination to play by the rules, and a willingness to accept defeat at the polls in the interest of the greater polity. You know that, I know that, but a vast number of American cultural conservatives (as opposed to political conservatives, who respected the achievements of the United States and wanted to preserve them) have forgotten it.

Or, more accurately, they have decided that democracy is not as important as white rulers, (Christian) prayer in schools, and who gets to sleep with whom. In order to dictate the outcome of those debates, the American populists have turned their backs on a civil society that produced what was for a century or so the greatest political, economic, and cultural force in the world. There is no small dollop of voodoo in this thinking, for they persuade themselves and the other Macas that keeping people of color out of the halls of government and gay people in the closet will magically transform the United States, against all political and economic logic, into a modern Rome (you know, before Rome turned liberal and collapsed).

It's pathetic, it's tragic, and it's today's USA.

True, that.

I guess supporting an authoritarian leader and his band of oligarchs seems like an OK trade if they encourage their supporters keep others down mired in culture wars. It's not like most of the people who are willingly destroying democracy will ever be billionaires themselves.

It's not about fairness or even doing what's best for oneself, it's about screwing the other guy at any cost.

That's the flaw in democracy and even constitutional republicanism: the assumption that people will dependently act on the basis of enlightened self interest. History presents us with many a democracy that collapsed in an orgy of self-immolation.

Humans are pathetic.

It's not too late to learn a musical instrument that you can play while the republic burns.

Where women glow and men plunder ...

Hey, we’ll sell you an electoral college cheap. Cash only. As is.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey, we’ll sell you an electoral college cheap.
> Cash only. As is.

:D

How much for your gerrymander and re-districting system? That sounds nice.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/uus4lq/the_labor_party_has_won_the_federal_election_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf


“Remember, only Australia can prevent tax evasion.”

-- Smokie the ‘Roo

...for blind people, those who can't hold a page, and Australian citizens who are basically shut-ins because of their particular disabilities, what accommodations are made so they can participate in the voting process.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2022 09:52AM by blindguy.

blindguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...for blind people, those who can't hold a page,
> and Australian citizens who are basically shut-ins
> because of their particular disabilities, what
> accommodations are made so they can participate in
> the voting process.

There are a number of accommodations in place to enable people with disabilities to vote in Australian elections. We have telephone voting, postal voting, information and instructions in braille if needed, as well as assistance at the polling booth. Some people like my intellectually disabled grand daughter may also be granted lifetime exemptions from voting. The following link will give more information -

https://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2019/05-07.htm

Some advantages, as I see it, of the parliamentary system. The change over of power is instant, it is easier to get things done, and there is a mechanism for the party in power to fall at any point during its term.

Yes it does have some good points, Kentish. By far the best attribute is an independent electoral commission. No power for elected politicians to gerrymander, one set of rules for running elections, very easy for everyone to vote, no court challenges.

No mucking around, down here. New guy voted in on Saturday night, sworn in on Monday morning, despite not having a confirmed majority, then on a plane later Monday to Japan to meet with President Biden Tuesday morning to strengthen Asia-Pacific alliances.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?