{"id":67,"date":"2010-07-22T10:36:19","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T15:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/?p=67"},"modified":"2012-02-22T10:45:10","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T16:45:10","slug":"a-note-from-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/2010\/07\/a-note-from-down-under.html","title":{"rendered":"A Note from Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><em>&#8220;Sent to us courtesy of Mr. Louis Cook of Victoria, Australia.&#8221;<\/em><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dear Reader,<\/p>\n<p>This commentary is sent to folk on a worldwide list for information because it seems every western country is faced with the same problem&#8230; <strong>your parliamentary representation is poor or non-existent;<\/strong> your are told you live in some type of democracy but you see it is out of control, or is it? Perhaps it is all going to plan but not the plan you would like!<\/p>\n<p>Some or all of the following may be applicable to your situation.<\/p>\n<p>However, this message is particularly aimed at Australian voters who will go to the polls on the 21<sup>st<\/sup> of August to vote for a new Federal government.<\/p>\n<p>If Australians can \u201cshake the crap\u201d out of the major political parties at this election then I feel sure it would echo around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Did somebody say Truth is the first casualty in war? Well I can tell you Truth is a casualty when political candidates are out on the hustings trail!<\/p>\n<p>Voting in Australia is compulsory and some think because of this it is democratic but the system militates against democracy with its compulsion. You certainly cannot say it is <strong>responsible voting<\/strong> for even the \u201cvillage idiot\u201d is compelled to vote and it most likely fosters the \u201cdonkey vote\u201d. (Marking your paper in consecutive order, up or down i.e. 1 2 3 4 5 etc)<\/p>\n<p>The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) usually runs advertisements urging voters \u201cto make their votes count\u201d\u2026 sure, you vote for the candidate of your choice but then you have to consecutively number all the candidates so that when counting concludes, if your first choice is unsuccessful, your vote is likely to be counted for the person you like the least when you would rather not give them a vote at all.<\/p>\n<p>So you see, the system works in favour of the major parties and compulsory voting gives them a legitimacy they do not deserve.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So where do you go from here? <\/strong><br \/>\nThere is <strong>\u201cHobson\u2019s Choice\u201d<\/strong>\u2026 where you are free to choose with only one option offered, the sort of situation I believe was the hallmark of Soviet style democracy, where you had to\u00a0 \u201ctake it or leave it\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the <strong>\u201cfalse dilemma\u201d<\/strong> which can arise intentionally; when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a limited choice when in this instance, <strong>don\u2019t vote at all<\/strong> should be an option\u2026 but YOU MUST vote because it is compulsory.<\/p>\n<p>Chess players would be familiar with <strong>\u201czugzwang\u201d, <\/strong>(of Germanic origin) it\u2019s your move, and whatever you do\u2026 you lose.<\/p>\n<p>Isn\u2019t \u201czugzwang\u201d a lovely word? It really sounds like its meaning\u2026 \u201cYou have had it mate!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you choose your candidate by <strong>\u201cvoting for the lesser of the evils on offer\u201d<\/strong> but then you are still voting for evil!<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you do, you should satisfy your conscience and this could include destroying your ballot paper but your frustration should be communicated to the candidates and their masters and one way to do this is to follow the suggestion on the attached pamphlet and leave a message on the ballot paper.<\/p>\n<p>Scrutineers closely examine all votes and reports are made for it is here information for an electoral challenge can be found.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now you are making YOUR OWN AGENDA\u2026 wonderful!<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nWhat else can you do?<\/p>\n<p>A \u201cLanger Vote\u201d (by voting 1,2,2,2 etc) is an option politicians don\u2019t like and this can be \u201ctarted up\u201d by giving the sitting member first position.<\/p>\n<p>This is an informal vote in Australia but it lets the candidate know they <em>might<\/em> have had your vote. It is better to vote that way than screw your ballot paper up or write rude words across it because it sends a message that you will not be dictated to by politicians and bureaucrats.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More than anything, politicians fear a campaign of \u201cputting the sitting member last\u201d, unfortunately it could mean some good representation is lost but the good representatives are little in number so this is a small price to pay and it will certainly send a message to ALL politicians that will be difficult to counter.<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nIt also means it will be much harder for the entrenched bureaucrats to mold the ministers to their liking which is generally Socialistic.<\/p>\n<p>Another issue that needs close attention is that of <strong>\u201csafe seats\u201d<\/strong>\u2026 there should be no such thing as a \u201csafe seat\u201d because the \u201cseats\u201d belong to the voters not the political parties.<\/p>\n<p>After the elections, no doubt the leading incumbent will claim a mandate for this or that to justify some radical change so they should be soundly disabused of such an idea whenever possible.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition to the mandate is based on an essential element of true freedom and that is <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">the freedom to choose or refuse, one thing at the time.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\nThe politician\u2019s promise is a \u201cpackage deal\u201d and it contains policies voters do not want such as financial inflation\u2026 would you vote for increased inflation or higher taxes?<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think it is necessary to go into the various policies being promoted as it is all blatant vote-buying and there are other issues demanding attention if we are going to survive <strong>the immigration invasion.<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>It is up to us to make it an issue but don\u2019t <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">you<\/span> leave it to the other bloke!<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\">Election comment authorized by Louis Cook, Nathalia Road, Numurkah, Victoria<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">< ahref=\"http:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/pamphlet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">WHEN YOU CAST YOUR VALID VOTE LET YOUR OPINION BE KNOWN (PDF)<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"vertical\" data-url=\"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/2010\/07\/a-note-from-down-under.html\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Sent to us courtesy of Mr. Louis Cook of Victoria, Australia.&#8221; &nbsp; Dear Reader, This commentary is sent to folk on a worldwide list for information because it seems every western country is faced with the same problem&#8230; your parliamentary representation is poor or non-existent; your are told you live in some type of democracy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oOxx-15","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}