[I] The XXXXian Election
8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon
watching the television coverage of the Australian vote
tallying.
Well, not quite. But I did keep it within earshot most
of the time, and I have a genuine "Wow!" feeling about
the way it's turned out. I have never heard of another
election in an established democratic society in which
the following is _so true_ as it was tonight, that both
sides simultaneously scored a victory of historic
proportions.
That's not political rhetoric - I'm not a politician -
it's an honest, unbiased summary of what we in Australia
have just observed. The Liberals have won a historic
victory because they came to the Australian people with a
plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
campaign - And Yet They Won. As Australians have been
told over and over, this in itself is a historic
achievement. By world standards. And yet, even though
the Liberals have technically won, *if* the election
results were counted in the way one would count a
referendum (i.e. if this really were a referendum on the
GST) then the negative vote - the vote for Labor - would
have been absolutely convincing. Person by person, over
51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
The reason the Liberals won has to do with the
distribution of votes in terms of seats; the Labor gain
was mostly in strong Labor areas of the country. But
what was Labor's historic victory? Kim Beazely's speech
listed quite a few; the one that stood out to me was
this, in Australian politics there has never before been
so great a swing against a first term government (i.e.
the Liberals). Actually, when it came speech time
tonight, the defeated opposition leader Kim Beazely
looked fired up with enthusiasm beyond belief, whereas
the victorious prime minister John Howard almost seemed
distinctly disappointed with the fact that he had won.
It's going to make things difficult the coming
parliamentary term, because members of both sides have
been given substantial moral rights to fight very hard
for their respective causes - which is NOT a good thing
for the country because it's going to mean a lot of
harmful controversy. But I still believe that it is a
result for one to ponder.
As for Pauline Hanson - the *majorly* controversial
politician who has been so prominent that she even scored
an annotation in The Last Continent - and her party,
One Nation - which scared the heck out of everyone both
here and abroad - here's the news. Pauline Hanson is
no longer in Parliament, she lost her seat; and it looks
like her party will end up with but a single individual
left in the political process at all, and not one single
person in the lower house.
You heard it on alt.fan.pratchett. I thank you, and
goodnight.
--
Here and there I like to preserve a few islands of sanity
within the vast sea of absurdity which is my mind.
After all, you can't survive as an eight foot tall
flesh eating dragon if you've got no concept of reality.
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
>My eyes were glued to the screen tonight, intently
>watching the television coverage of the Australian vote
>tallying.
I've spent many an election night glued to the screen. Mind you, the
last three parliamentary elections, I've been busy working at the same
time. I specialize in election theory.
>Well, not quite. But I did keep it within earshot most
>of the time, and I have a genuine "Wow!" feeling about
>the way it's turned out. I have never heard of another
>election in an established democratic society in which
>the following is _so true_ as it was tonight, that both
>sides simultaneously scored a victory of historic
>proportions.
Or at least in the words of the commentators and the combatants.
>That's not political rhetoric - I'm not a politician -
>it's an honest, unbiased summary of what we in Australia
>have just observed. The Liberals have won a historic
>victory because they came to the Australian people with a
>plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
>everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
>this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
>deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
>to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
>campaign - And Yet They Won. As Australians have been
>told over and over, this in itself is a historic
>achievement. By world standards.
The small liberal party in Denmark, the Radical Left[1], used the same
kind of technique in the last election. They talked about raising
taxes and cutting benefits. They managed to do quite well.
> And yet, even though
>the Liberals have technically won, *if* the election
>results were counted in the way one would count a
>referendum (i.e. if this really were a referendum on the
>GST) then the negative vote - the vote for Labor - would
>have been absolutely convincing. Person by person, over
>51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
>Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
liberals.
<snip>
>
>It's going to make things difficult the coming
>parliamentary term, because members of both sides have
>been given substantial moral rights to fight very hard
>for their respective causes - which is NOT a good thing
>for the country because it's going to mean a lot of
>harmful controversy. But I still believe that it is a
>result for one to ponder.
Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
system for destributing seats.
>As for Pauline Hanson - the *majorly* controversial
>politician who has been so prominent that she even scored
>an annotation in The Last Continent - and her party,
>One Nation - which scared the heck out of everyone both
>here and abroad - here's the news. Pauline Hanson is
>no longer in Parliament, she lost her seat; and it looks
>like her party will end up with but a single individual
>left in the political process at all, and not one single
>person in the lower house.
Hurrah! Let all canons salute! There is hope still for the Bruces and
Sheilas! Now, if the Merkins could do the same to Gingrich and his
followers, we could really get some improvements started.
/Kristoffer
[1] So called because they are neither Left-wing nor Radical.
The large liberal party is called Left. They are Right-wing AND
radical. Or at least rabid.
--
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, for I was
not a Communist; next they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
for I was not a Jew; then they came for the Homosexuals, and I did not
speak out, for I was not a Homosexual;...and finally they came for me;
and there was no-one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon
^
| The small liberal party in Denmark, the Radical Left[1], used the same
| kind of technique in the last election. They talked about raising
| taxes and cutting benefits. They managed to do quite well.
But Denmark doesn't count ;-). ISFA you have to have lived
there to have any idea about the political environment.
Small, obscure countries are bound to break the rules from
time to time, but in terms of countries that Australians have
a fair chance of knowing anything you can't find on a map, it
was a pretty significant undertaking. Especially after 1993.
^
| >Person by person, over
| >51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
| >Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
| Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
| liberals.
v
Not necessarily - if you score 100% in one seat and 49% in
two other seats, you've got most of the votes but only one
third of the seats - which is what happened.
Anathema
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> wrote in article
> The small liberal party in Denmark, the Radical Left[1], used the same
> kind of technique in the last election. They talked about raising
> taxes and cutting benefits. They managed to do quite well.
> [1] So called because they are neither Left-wing nor Radical.
> The large liberal party is called Left. They are Right-wing AND
> radical. Or at least rabid.
that's kinda like how the nazi party were the "National Socialists" - yet
conducted Communist and Socialist purges straight after they got power,
were paranoid of communism/socialism, and worked contrary to all socialist
principles.
Incidentally, speaking of our buddy Pauline, we went to anti-rascism rally
(me and my friends, not me and Pauline) and were later described by david
Oldfield (hanson's right hand-man, may he rot in hell) as emulating
the"fascist brownshirts of socialist Mussolini". Hmm? heard of the
political spectrum, david? And funny, cause it was a peaceful student
rally.
tata
--
Anathema
--the Kappamaki , a whaling research ship, was currently researching the
question, "How many whales can you catch in one week?"--
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Incidentally, speaking of our buddy Pauline, we went to anti-rascism rally
> (me and my friends, not me and Pauline) and were later described by david
> Oldfield (hanson's right hand-man, may he rot in hell) as emulating
> the"fascist brownshirts of socialist Mussolini". Hmm? heard of the
> political spectrum, david? And funny, cause it was a peaceful student
> rally.
I'd have to agree with David Oldfield on this one, but for different
reasons. It was radical organisations like Resistance (which organised
rallies like the one you went to) which gave One Nation its credibility.
If it hadn't been for the hype they produced (and the resulting sympathy
for PHON from people who saw Resistance as sh!t-stirring rabble) One
Nation would have faded into the Wilderness. Instead, they have one
Queensland senator, twelve members of the Qld parlaiment, and where d@mn
close to getting senators in NSW, WA and SA.
--
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
Na*i H*ll Sm**f
Meg, the Magpie
<morgan...@netyp.com.au> said :
>My eyes were glued to the screen tonight, intently
>watching the television coverage of the Australian vote
>tallying.
<grin> So were mine. First time in yonks that WA has actually been at
all important in an election.
<snip>
>The Liberals have won a historic
>victory because they came to the Australian people with a
>plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
>everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
>this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
>deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
>to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
>campaign - And Yet They Won.
<mode="cynical" level="political promise">
I can forecast the next three years.
Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise, and
Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
ready ASAP. At the moment, the Liberal/National Coalition have been
re-elected on a *very* narrow majority, and the Senate results are yet
to be decided, which means that there are really two options open.
Either John Howard can decide to try to stick it out for the full 3
year term (or try for an extension of the term to get 4 years), or he
can start bringing out all the old controversial legislation to try
and get a Double Dissolution, and see if that gets him a better
result.
Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
level being a "core promise" either.
This will all happen within the first six months of the new
parliament. The rest of the term will be spent with the Government
busily applying the equivalent of a small dairy surplus to the voters,
in an effort to get re-elected for a third term... because at about
the three year mark, the GST's effects are going to start to bite.
Inflation will rise, and all the little practical details of
administering a GST will start to surface. Not good publicity.
<snip>
>Actually, when it came speech time
>tonight, the defeated opposition leader Kim Beazely
>looked fired up with enthusiasm beyond belief, whereas
>the victorious prime minister John Howard almost seemed
>distinctly disappointed with the fact that he had won.
The reason Big Kim was grinning so hard is that he knows that the next
election (barring catastrophes) has just been handed to him on a plate
- and he made it clear in this campaign that a Labor government
*wouldn't* remove the GST once it was added in. This is the other
reason that John Howard is looking worried. He knows that he's got
this second term, but that's gonna be *it*.
>It's going to make things difficult the coming
>parliamentary term, because members of both sides have
>been given substantial moral rights to fight very hard
>for their respective causes - which is NOT a good thing
>for the country because it's going to mean a lot of
>harmful controversy. But I still believe that it is a
>result for one to ponder.
Well, it all depends on where things go in the Senate. If the
Coalition doesn't have a straight majority there, they're far more
likely to pull out the Wik legislation, bring down a budget with the
GST in it, refuse to compromise on either, and aim for a double
dissolution. Then they get to try their luck again, and hope for a
better showing on the next run. It's risky, especially considering
the current state of things for the Liberal party, and they could
stand to lose more than they'd win, but I'd say that if they picked
their time right (especially if there happens to be a bit of
infighting within the ALP) they could come out of it with an even
bigger margin.
>
>As for Pauline Hanson - the *majorly* controversial
>politician who has been so prominent that she even scored
>an annotation in The Last Continent - and her party,
>One Nation - which scared the heck out of everyone both
>here and abroad - here's the news. Pauline Hanson is
>no longer in Parliament, she lost her seat; and it looks
>like her party will end up with but a single individual
>left in the political process at all, and not one single
>person in the lower house.
Pauline Hanson quite honestly was a fool not to try for the Senate.
One Nation will be back, sadly enough - they got about 8 - 10% of the
primary vote overall, which for a small party on its first showing is
damn good - certainly they did a lot better than the Democrats did. I
wouldn't write One Nation off yet... I've a feeling that they'll be
back, especially if there's a double dissolution election. Remember,
the platform of One Nation was basically built on the combination of
harnessing voter irritation at being ignored by the two main parties,
and a platform which appealled to the more conservative elements in
the right wing (you know, the types who are still a bit dubious about
this "fire" thing). Those elements will still be out there, and if a
double dissolution is called early, they'll be more than willing to
exploit the whole "voter dissatisfaction" angle. Also, they'll
probably run a more media-savvy campaign next time around - Pauline
Hanson may be as thick as two short things, but her minders aren't.
I think it's definitely going to be "interesting times" in XXXXia for
the next three years, quite honestly.
Meg the Magpie (afpolitical correspondent <grin>).
--
Meg, The Magpie (afpiance to several, afprelative to a few more)
mag...@megabitch.tm | http://users.wantree.com.au/~magpies
Meg, the Magpie
<earn...@curtin.edu.au> said :
>I'd have to agree with David Oldfield on this one, but for different
>reasons. It was radical organisations like Resistance (which organised
>rallies like the one you went to) which gave One Nation its credibility.
>If it hadn't been for the hype they produced (and the resulting sympathy
>for PHON from people who saw Resistance as sh!t-stirring rabble) One
>Nation would have faded into the Wilderness. Instead, they have one
>Queensland senator, twelve members of the Qld parlaiment, and where d@mn
>close to getting senators in NSW, WA and SA.
>
Hmm... I'd disagree with you on that one - certainly, the anti-One
Nation rallies didn't actually *hurt* One Nation's popularity, but
quite honestly, the chief stirrers in the whole thing were the media,
from the moment that Pauline Hanson left the Queensland Liberal party
because they wouldn't support her as a candidate. Pauline Hanson
picked up quite early that the thing that the media loves is a good
bunfight, and she gave it to them - especially the commercial TV
networks (she declined to appear on the ABC quite early on in the
piece, possibly because she knew that Kerry O'Brien could make
mincemeat of her in no time flat).
From the very start of her political career to the very end of it,
Pauline Hanson was about giving the media a good run for its money.
Even when the media were kicked out of the final One Nation address,
it was good publicity for them - on the principle that *any* publicity
was good publicity. One Nation isn't dead yet, and only a fool would
write them off, especially considering that they achieved 8 - 10% of
the primary vote across Australia - which isn't a mean feat for a
small party, a new party, and quite frankly, a crackpot party. Also
remember that Pauline Hanson *remains* the head of One Nation, even
though she doesn't have a parliamentary say any more - she *cannot* be
voted out of her position of party leader, simply because she
literally *owns* the party.
One Nation, as a party, is an entity which is based on massive voter
disenchantment with the major parties, and also on a highly
conservative membership base. It is worthwhile to note that the party
which suffered *most* from the rise of One Nation was the National
party, which suffered a greatly reduced margin in all the seats it
held. As such, my own feeling is that the brains trust at the back of
One Nation are more than likely planning a more media-savvy campaign
for the next round of elections, although Pauline Hanson will still be
there, and still be stirring. She's not going to go away quietly.
Her job for the next few years is to keep One Nation's profile high,
and to keep on calling to the disaffected. I wouldn't write them off
yet.
Meg the Magpie (afpolitical correspondant)
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
>Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
> ^
> | >Person by person, over
> | >51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
> | >Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
> | Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
> | liberals.
> v
>
>Not necessarily - if you score 100% in one seat and 49% in
>two other seats, you've got most of the votes but only one
>third of the seats - which is what happened.
You missed the point. In a democracy, you don't have the british
first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
proportional representation.
/Kristoffer
--
The truth is out there. But so is the Goodyear blimp. Don't get them
confused.
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Hmm... I'd disagree with you on that one - certainly, the anti-One
> Nation rallies didn't actually *hurt* One Nation's popularity, but
> quite honestly, the chief stirrers in the whole thing were the media,
> from the moment that Pauline Hanson left the Queensland Liberal party
> because they wouldn't support her as a candidate. Pauline Hanson
> picked up quite early that the thing that the media loves is a good
> bunfight, and she gave it to them - especially the commercial TV
> networks (she declined to appear on the ABC quite early on in the
> piece, possibly because she knew that Kerry O'Brien could make
> mincemeat of her in no time flat).
This was true at the begining and the end, but not in the middle. The
sensationalist media swooped on her maiden speach because of the "racist"
element, and introduced the other five states to her. When she formed One
Nation it was groups like Resistance which created the story which kept
Hanson in the news. If all her meetings, rallies and public speaches
hadn't been targeted by such groups she would have faded into obscurity.
Instead she got front page coverage in the newspapers and several minutes
of air-time on each network after nearly every meeting.
It is hard to split the blame between the media and the socialist groups.
The media did it for the sensationalism (which the socialists in turn
played on to get there message out), and the socialists where concerned
about the spread of ultra-right sentiment in Australia. In truth, neither
could have created One Nation as we know it without the other.
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Odd. I've always wondered why anyone would use a proportional system,
> since it's practically guaranteed to hand a wildly disproportionate
> share of influence and power to the tiny parties that hold the balance
> of power on voting on legislation. It's even sillier than first-past-
> the post.
Proportional Representation is good when controlled. The biggest argument
against it is Hitler- the NSDAP would never have been elected if it
hadn't been able to get members in with a very small fraction of the
vote, and then build a reputation from within parlaiment. But that was
with PR and a parlaiment of about 500 members- so you only needed 0.2% of
the vote to get a member elected.
In Australia, PR is used within each state to determine the Senate. Six
senators are elected in each state each election- so you need a
substantial 14% to get a senator.
When you are representing 14% of the population you have a legitimate
right to hold some sway in the political process. When you side with the
government, it represents your voters siding with their voters- for a
total exceeding 50%. The same is true when you side with the opposition.
Remember that when the govt and opposition agree on something they get
it, regardless of the opinions of the minor parties.
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> <grin> So were mine. First time in yonks that WA has actually been at
> all important in an election.
And we still didn't make a change. All we achieved was keeping the rest
of the country up another couple of hours.
> >The Liberals have won a historic
> >victory because they came to the Australian people with a
> >plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
> >everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
> >this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
> >deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
> >to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
> >campaign - And Yet They Won.
Heh? I don't remember a single Liberal party ad about the GST. The
advertising for the GST was done before the campaign started, by the
Treasury- which John Howard insisted wasn't political campaigning.
> Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
> waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise, and
> Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
> ready ASAP. At the moment, the Liberal/National Coalition have been
> re-elected on a *very* narrow majority, and the Senate results are yet
> to be decided, which means that there are really two options open.
> Either John Howard can decide to try to stick it out for the full 3
> year term (or try for an extension of the term to get 4 years), or he
> can start bringing out all the old controversial legislation to try
> and get a Double Dissolution, and see if that gets him a better
> result.
You may also find that granting the money to the states, removing the
diesel fuel excise, removing wholesale sales taxes and cutting income tax
where also "non-core" promises. Its a pity the ALP didn't take advantage
of that line.
> Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
> introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
> level being a "core promise" either.
"As soon as possible" will probably be never. The Democrats won't budge,
and nor will the Libs. In short, it won't get through the Senate. Anyone
remember '75?
> This will all happen within the first six months of the new
> parliament. The rest of the term will be spent with the Government
> busily applying the equivalent of a small dairy surplus to the voters,
> in an effort to get re-elected for a third term... because at about
> the three year mark, the GST's effects are going to start to bite.
> Inflation will rise, and all the little practical details of
> administering a GST will start to surface. Not good publicity.
Harradine can't even spell GST- so I can't see it getting passed before
the changeover.
However, I can see the Libs future right now. The ALP gets returned in
the next election- which we'll assume for the sake of argument is after
the GST is passed but before it comes into effect. Under Labor, the
effects of the GST bite hard. The Libs campaign in 2003 is "look at
what's happened under Labor" when most of the problems are created by the
GST. The electorate has forgotten that it was the Libs who introduced the
GST, and they get back into power.
> The reason Big Kim was grinning so hard is that he knows that the next
> election (barring catastrophes) has just been handed to him on a plate
> - and he made it clear in this campaign that a Labor government
> *wouldn't* remove the GST once it was added in.
I'd say its more a case of "can't" than "wouldn't." If the Libs do direct
the GST revenue to the states, then any government would have a hard time
removing it. It'd be like trying to buy back the Commonwealth Bank or
Telstra. If however, the GST revenue isn't given to the states (that may
still be a non-core promise) all any government could do is to try and
gradually phase it out. Although people will be glad to see the end of
the GST, they will be far more pi$$ed off with rising Income and
Wholesale taxes to compensate.
> Pauline Hanson quite honestly was a fool not to try for the Senate.
> One Nation will be back, sadly enough - they got about 8 - 10% of the
> primary vote overall, which for a small party on its first showing is
> damn good - certainly they did a lot better than the Democrats did. I
> wouldn't write One Nation off yet... I've a feeling that they'll be
> back, especially if there's a double dissolution election. Remember,
> the platform of One Nation was basically built on the combination of
> harnessing voter irritation at being ignored by the two main parties,
> and a platform which appealled to the more conservative elements in
> the right wing (you know, the types who are still a bit dubious about
> this "fire" thing). Those elements will still be out there, and if a
> double dissolution is called early, they'll be more than willing to
> exploit the whole "voter dissatisfaction" angle. Also, they'll
> probably run a more media-savvy campaign next time around - Pauline
> Hanson may be as thick as two short things, but her minders aren't.
If we had a DD, she'd have picked up 2-3 Queensland senators and probably
one each in NSW, SA and WA. That's 5-6 out of 76- a definate force. All
One Nation needs is some real policy and some people who actually know
how politics works and they may be able to make a genuine contribution to
XXXXian politics. Given time and maturity they may even set themselves up
as the "alternative right" party in the same way that the Democrats are
moving towards being the alternative left-wing party.
Stewart Tolhurst
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> wrote in
article <3616a1a8...@news.lspace.org>...
> On 3 Oct 1998 14:20:12 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
<snip>
> Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
> system for destributing seats.
This is exactly the reason we had a conservative governemt for 18
years. The really worrying thing is that going on the votes cast at
the 1992 election the Lib Dems would have been the largest party in a
hung parliment (a fair bit ahead of the Labour party and miles ahead
of the party who actually won the election). (this would have made me
very happy) They have also campagined on a "sensible taxation"
policy for years now - i.e. 2p on the pound for education and extra
tax on cigarettes and alchol for the NHS. Looks like we're not going
to get any sort of PR system for a good long while (Tony Blair is
against it - and given the landslide win at he last election who can
blame him) we'll have to wait and see how the Scottish and Welsh
parilments pan out.
Stewart
--
Stewart Tolhurst - http://users.ox.ac.uk/~musf0012/
Remove everything from the . to the @ to email me
AFPCode 1.1a AC$/Mus-UK d s+:s+ a- UP+ R+ F+ h- P-- OSD: ?C M---
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Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<julia...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3616a1a8...@news.lspace.org>, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
><Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> writes
>>Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
>>system for distributing seats.
>
>Odd. I've always wondered why anyone would use a proportional system,
>since it's practically guaranteed to hand a wildly disproportionate
>share of influence and power to the tiny parties that hold the balance
>of power on voting on legislation. It's even sillier than first-past-
>the post.
As a matter of fact, it doesn't. That only happens, if you limit the
number of parties to much by demanding a high proportion - say five
percent - of the total number of votes to get in. In Denmark, the
center parties do have quite a lot of influence, but any one of them
is expendable in an agreement. Thus, you don't have the problem. Of
course, you'd still have them in most of the agreements, as the
agreements usually are across the centre to get a majority without
letting the wings decide anything. It will often _appear_ to be the
small parties that have that kind of power, but really they're just on
the natural meeting ground for the decisions. The results would be the
same even without them - as it often has been demonstrated in
Denmark[1].
/Kristoffer
[1] Mind you, it gives the oldest of the Center Parties, Det radikale
Venstre, a shock everytime it happens ;-)
--
Windows 95: n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit
patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit
microprosser, written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of
competition.
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<julia...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <36178fd7...@news.lspace.org>, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
><Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> writes
>>As a matter of fact, it doesn't. That only happens, if you limit the
>>number of parties to much by demanding a high proportion - say five
>>percent - of the total number of votes to get in.
>
>That is a fairly popular form of proportional representation...
But the level differs. In Denmark we have a two percent rule, but you
can circumvent it by two other rules. So far, the two percent has been
the easiest to pass.
Like I said, it is not always the small center parties that rule. We
have also had a coalition between Labour and the Liberal Party, that
essentially left the rest of the parliament without influence. That
didn't change the actual policy, mind you. Like I also said, the small
center parties are parked on the common ground.
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<julia...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <36174732...@news.lspace.org>, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
><Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> writes
>>You missed the point. In a democracy, you don't have the british
>>first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
>>proportional representation.
>
>Nope, in a democracy you try not to hand disproportionate power to
>minority groups that are disliked by 90% of the electorate. So you use a
>transferable vote system, where you may get into power even if you're
>not the first choice of the majority, but it is difficult to get a seat
>if more than half the electorate actively dislike you. Hare-Clarke,
>anyone?
The transferable vote system, such as the one practised in Germany, is
indeed interesting. However, I don't like the concept of a "negative"
vote as in Russia. It makes it difficult to get unpopular minorities
represented.
The Single Transferable Vote (STV or Hare-Clarke, call it what you
like) can easily get unwieldy, if used in larger constituencies. On
the other hand, if you only use small constituencies, you get the
problem of handling the proportionality.
The German way is to use it on two levels. Personally, I like it. I
still wouldn't change the Danish system, as a change cannot help but
give a period of instability, while the political system adapts.
I can remember this discussion from some time ago - I believe it was
New Zealand that had an election. If I recall correctly, the problem
there was a mix of systems that meant, that the political system was
essentially torn in two opposite ways. Can anyone remember?
/Kristoffer
--
Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when
nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, *then*
is the time to buy a house on the next continent.
--- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
Emma of XXXXia
"Meg, the Magpie" wrote:
>
> Okay, so on 3 Oct 1998 14:20:12 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> said :
>
> >My eyes were glued to the screen tonight, intently
> >watching the television coverage of the Australian vote
> >tallying.
>
> <grin> So were mine. First time in yonks that WA has actually been at
> all important in an election.
>
I was sitting in a bar with the great-grandson of XXXXia's WWII Labour
PM (Meg, sound familiar?) and a Labour party friend (very nice of me,
considering I am a supporter of the Democrats, whose leader defected to
Labour earlier this year).
> <snip>
> >The Liberals have won a historic
> >victory because they came to the Australian people with a
> >plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
> >everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
> >this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
> >deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
> >to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
> >campaign - And Yet They Won.
>
> <mode="cynical" level="political promise">
>
> I can forecast the next three years.
>
> Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
> waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise, and
> Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
> ready ASAP. At the moment, the Liberal/National Coalition have been
> re-elected on a *very* narrow majority, and the Senate results are yet
> to be decided, which means that there are really two options open.
> Either John Howard can decide to try to stick it out for the full 3
> year term (or try for an extension of the term to get 4 years), or he
> can start bringing out all the old controversial legislation to try
> and get a Double Dissolution, and see if that gets him a better
> result.
>
The instructions to introduce the GST Bill have apparently already been
given. Little Johnnie said on tonight's news he would convene Parliament
to consider the GST Bill before Xmas this year. And the Democrats
baited the Double Dissolution possibility before the election by saying
that if they had Senate control and the GST Bill was put up, they would
not pass it without an amendment to exempt food from the tax, even if
that resulted in a double dissolution.
> Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
> introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
> level being a "core promise" either.
>
I'm not counting on the Social Security benefits to make GST-affected
living possible being core promises, either.
> This will all happen within the first six months of the new
> parliament. The rest of the term will be spent with the Government
> busily applying the equivalent of a small dairy surplus to the voters,
> in an effort to get re-elected for a third term... because at about
> the three year mark, the GST's effects are going to start to bite.
> Inflation will rise, and all the little practical details of
> administering a GST will start to surface. Not good publicity.
>
> <snip>
> >Actually, when it came speech time
> >tonight, the defeated opposition leader Kim Beazely
> >looked fired up with enthusiasm beyond belief, whereas
> >the victorious prime minister John Howard almost seemed
> >distinctly disappointed with the fact that he had won.
>
> The reason Big Kim was grinning so hard is that he knows that the next
> election (barring catastrophes) has just been handed to him on a plate
> - and he made it clear in this campaign that a Labor government
> *wouldn't* remove the GST once it was added in. This is the other
> reason that John Howard is looking worried. He knows that he's got
> this second term, but that's gonna be *it*.
>
Not to mention that Labour will have even more going for it if the
Jabiluka mine happens. I just can't believe they're going to mine in a
National Park, that is or at least should be World Heritage Listed, so
they can sell more uranium to people like the French and Indian
governments!
<snip>
> >As for Pauline Hanson - the *majorly* controversial
> >politician who has been so prominent that she even scored
> >an annotation in The Last Continent - and her party,
> >One Nation - which scared the heck out of everyone both
> >here and abroad - here's the news. Pauline Hanson is
> >no longer in Parliament, she lost her seat; and it looks
> >like her party will end up with but a single individual
> >left in the political process at all, and not one single
> >person in the lower house.
>
> Pauline Hanson quite honestly was a fool not to try for the Senate.
> One Nation will be back, sadly enough - they got about 8 - 10% of the
> primary vote overall, which for a small party on its first showing is
> damn good - certainly they did a lot better than the Democrats did. I
> wouldn't write One Nation off yet... I've a feeling that they'll be
> back, especially if there's a double dissolution election. Remember,
> the platform of One Nation was basically built on the combination of
> harnessing voter irritation at being ignored by the two main parties,
> and a platform which appealled to the more conservative elements in
> the right wing (you know, the types who are still a bit dubious about
> this "fire" thing). Those elements will still be out there, and if a
> double dissolution is called early, they'll be more than willing to
> exploit the whole "voter dissatisfaction" angle. Also, they'll
> probably run a more media-savvy campaign next time around - Pauline
> Hanson may be as thick as two short things, but her minders aren't.
>
Sadly, Evil Pauline has bought a house in the suburb next to mine in
Canberra, so I think she's planning on sticking around for a while yet.
> I think it's definitely going to be "interesting times" in XXXXia for
> the next three years, quite honestly.
>
You're right there!
Emma
Remove TT to email me. Cheese messages welcome.
Miq
e...@image.dk> wrote
>On 3 Oct 1998 23:22:16 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
><morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
>>Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
>> | >Person by person, over
>> | >51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
>> | >Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
>> | Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
>> | liberals.
>>
>>two other seats, you've got most of the votes but only one
>>third of the seats - which is what happened.
>
>first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
>proportional representation.
So, if I've understood correctly: if Australia were *your* idea of
a democracy, Pauline Hanson would now hold the balance of power?
Sometimes there's good reasons for things being the way they are.
--
Miq - afpiance to the pragmatic MEG
Afpcode 1.1: AEn/Hu d+ s: a U+ R+ F++ !h P--- OSD-:- ?C M- pp
L+ c B+ Cn? PT Pu64 5! !X MT e++>++ r% y- end
Miq
wrote
>Proportional Representation is good when controlled.
Errr...
Either you believe in democracy or you don't. The whole point -
the *only* point - of elections is that they cannot be controlled,
by anyone - not by government, or even by the media. If they
could, there'd be no point holding them.
>The biggest argument
>against it is Hitler- the NSDAP would never have been elected if it
>hadn't been able to get members in with a very small fraction of the
>vote, and then build a reputation from within parlaiment. But that was
>with PR and a parlaiment of about 500 members- so you only needed 0.2% of
>the vote to get a member elected.
I don't see how this is an argument against PR. The Nazis built
their reputation by achieving things that people agreed with.
What they did after gaining power was another matter.
--
Miq - afpiance to the fairminded MEG
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> I don't see how this is an argument against PR. The Nazis built
> their reputation by achieving things that people agreed with.
> What they did after gaining power was another matter.
The point is that if there hadn't been PR they wouldn't have had a voice
to begin with. With no voice they wouldn't have achieved anything and no
one would have said "they're doing a good job, let's vote for them."
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Not to mention that Labour will have even more going for it if the
> Jabiluka mine happens. I just can't believe they're going to mine in a
> National Park, that is or at least should be World Heritage Listed, so
> they can sell more uranium to people like the French and Indian
> governments!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Jabiluka mine ISN'T in a National
Park or World Heritage Area. And before you go slagging off at the French
(who killed some coral) and Indians, remember that the British/Australian
nuclear tests where the only ones every to kill civillians. (unless you
count Chernobyl is a "test")
Rodney Rutherfurd
> Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> wrote in
> article <3616a1a8...@news.lspace.org>...
> > <morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
> <snip>
> > Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
> This is exactly the reason we had a conservative governemt for 18
> years. The really worrying thing is that going on the votes cast at
> the 1992 election the Lib Dems would have been the largest party in a
> hung parliment (a fair bit ahead of the Labour party and miles ahead
> of the party who actually won the election). (this would have made me
> very happy) They have also campagined on a "sensible taxation"
> policy for years now - i.e. 2p on the pound for education and extra
> tax on cigarettes and alchol for the NHS. Looks like we're not going
> to get any sort of PR system for a good long while (Tony Blair is
> against it - and given the landslide win at he last election who can
> blame him) we'll have to wait and see how the Scottish and Welsh
> parilments pan out.
Well the government over here in Auz is no better. You may have heard how
Pauline Hanson has just lost her seat in Blair (my electoral district) yet
she got 45% of the votes. In the election earlier on in the year she got
twice as many votes as labour (approx) and labour got twice as many seats.
How the hell this can be allowed to happen I have no idea but the law
should be changed. I always used to think- the peson who gets the most
votes, wins! I guess that one just didn't occur to the the government.
#**The Scuba Diving Dipstick**#
Soul sib to Cecilia, soul-sib-in-law to Lyndal, apfiance to me and myself,
Head idiot of JMC, CEO of Space Corps-Dimwit Division, SOTM winner &
Master of the depraved divers.
Barry Vaughan
<mag...@megabitch.tm> writes
>Okay, so on 3 Oct 1998 14:20:12 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
><morgan...@netyp.com.au> said :
>
>>My eyes were glued to the screen tonight, intently
>>watching the television coverage of the Australian vote
>>tallying.
>
><grin> So were mine. First time in yonks that WA has actually been at
>all important in an election.
>
><snip>
>>The Liberals have won a historic
>>victory because they came to the Australian people with a
>>plan to introduce a Goods and Services Tax, did
>>everything in their power not to hide but to *emphasise*
>>this plan (in the wider context of tax reform),
>>deliberately broke all the strategic rules about trying
>>to be as non-controversial as possible in an election
>>campaign - And Yet They Won.
>
><mode="cynical" level="political promise">
>
>I can forecast the next three years.
>
>Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
>waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise, and
>Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
>ready ASAP.
>Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
>introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
>level being a "core promise" either.
>
What's the GST? Is it the same thing as the British VAT? That
runs at 17.5%.
And yes, that did cause inflation. (Last Tory government
raised VAT and lowered income tax and saw inflation rise - Doh!)
Barry.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes I lie awake at night, thinking that we're dead.
That all this is just Death's last joke. That we're living
one last dream before the lights go out.
And then I think, so what's new?
-Death, The Time of your life - Neil Gaiman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ba...@samael.demon.co.uk
Barry Vaughan
<julia...@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>x-no-archive: yes
>
>In article <3616a1a8...@news.lspace.org>, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
><Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> writes
>>Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
>>system for destributing seats.
>
>since it's practically guaranteed to hand a wildly disproportionate
>share of influence and power to the tiny parties that hold the balance
>of power on voting on legislation. It's even sillier than first-past-
>the post.
FPtP was a wonderful system when MPs were just individuals
sent to represent their local constituancy and each borough
just had to pick the right man (no women allowed at that time)
for the job on a 'who got the most votes' basis.
It looks a little clumsy in the modern world where every MP
is a member of a nationwide party. The PR system favoured by
the LibDems would guarentee them (the smallest party) a share
in power 'til the end of time unless one of the parties
got more than 50% of the vote and even then they'd need the
LD's help for some contraversial legislation.
If I were inventing the system I'd have an FPP system in
which the MP would need to get 50% of the vote in order to
win the seat. If they did so, the rest of the votes would be
discarded. If no individual got more than 50% then the votes
would go into a national pot that would select the rest
of the MPs by simple PR to fill the seats not filled by outright
winners.
This would stop a party from winning a massive majority with
a small vote but would retain the ability of a constituency
to choose an independant candidate without the vote getting
wiped out by the fact that their proportion of the national
vote was tiny. It's hard to imagine how The Man In The White
Suit could have been elected under PR.
Anyway, I'm in the 'wait for Jenkins' crowd at the mo.
I might vote for it.
Barry Vaughan
<earn...@curtin.edu.au> writes
And what were they protesting about anyway? Did they think
she shouldn't have the right to hold those opinions? Or just
not to talk about them in public?
Pauline Hanson didn't invent racism in Australia, she just
said what a lot of people thought. Shutting her up won't
make the problem go away.
Barry Vaughan
Tolhurst <97344209...@brookes.ac.uk> writes
>
>
>Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristo...@image.dk> wrote in
>article <3616a1a8...@news.lspace.org>...
>> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
><snip>
>> Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
>> system for destributing seats.
>years. The really worrying thing is that going on the votes cast at
>the 1992 election the Lib Dems would have been the largest party in a
>hung parliment (a fair bit ahead of the Labour party and miles ahead
>of the party who actually won the election).
How do you work that out? They only got about 15%-20% of the vote,
the Tories got over 40% and the Labour party in the high thirties.
In fact, in 1992 the Lib Dem vote collapsed, the Tory vote was
unchanged from 1988 and the gap was only closed by the Labour
part getting more seats 'cause the ex-Lib Dem vote went to them.
>(this would have made me
>very happy) They have also campagined on a "sensible taxation"
>policy for years now - i.e. 2p on the pound for education and extra
>tax on cigarettes and alchol for the NHS.
Sensible Taxation? Sounds like just plain MORE taxation to me.
Sensible taxation would be a return to higher direct tax and
lower indirect tax, not an increase in both. The Lib Dems
come from the school of thought that says if you spend more
money on something it will make it OK.
This kind of tosh is exactly why no-one voted LD in 1992.
Barry Vaughan
>>politician who has been so prominent that she even scored
>>an annotation in The Last Continent - and her party,
>>One Nation - which scared the heck out of everyone both
>>here and abroad - here's the news. Pauline Hanson is
>>no longer in Parliament, she lost her seat; and it looks
>>like her party will end up with but a single individual
>>left in the political process at all, and not one single
>>person in the lower house.
>Sheilas! Now, if the Merkins could do the same to Gingrich and his
>followers, we could really get some improvements started.
>
What the Americans do to their right wing is the worst thing
possible.
Pauline Hanson has exercised her right to free speech, used
the democratic process to take her political views to the
people and had them soundly, but fairly, rejected.
I think the world needs people like her to voice the opinions
of those so frustrated by their problems that they are tempted
to blame them on minority groups. By bringing them out into the
open they can be examined and shown to be without basis in
fact, diffusing some of the tension that was building up.
Let's face it, if she lost her seat then a lot of the people
that voted for her last time, didn't this time. Their concerns
over immigration have obviously been nullified, or at least
reduced to the point where they're no longer a voting issue.
In the US, standing on a pro-white ticket will get you silenced
for not being politically correct enough. That doesn't make
the racism go away, it makes it fester. Many people who feel
they can't speak out on the matter of race end up hiding in the
mountains with several dozen automatic weapons. Recently I heard
a story of a newspaper in the US that was closed down for printing
an article voicing concern over the number of Jews in the
foreign office, asking whether they could really make unbiased
decisions towards the middle-east and why no investigation
had been made into why a manager had been allowed to hire people
only from his own ethnic/religious group, something that
would have been investigated had a white male employed only
white males.
I don't know whether the accusations were true (though given
US policy in the middle-east I can guess) but I do know that
forcing the paper out of business instead of giving a coherent
answer to the points raised has only caused the problem to get
worse. Many people who were slightly worried about the situation
have now become completely paranoid and distrustful of all
Jews.
So when you go out to vote against her, spare a thought for
Pauline Hanson and the good she has unwittingly done for race
relations in Australia.
Rodney Rutherfurd
> Pauline Hanson has exercised her right to free speech, used
> the democratic process to take her political views to the
> people and had them soundly, but fairly, rejected.
Well thats definitely wrong. There is nothing fair about lsing an
election when you got most of the votes.
> I think the world needs people like her to voice the opinions
> of those so frustrated by their problems that they are tempted
> to blame them on minority groups.
So true.
By bringing them out into the
> open they can be examined and shown to be without basis in
> fact, diffusing some of the tension that was building up.
> Let's face it, if she lost her seat then a lot of the people
> that voted for her last time, didn't this time. Their concerns
> over immigration have obviously been nullified, or at least
> reduced to the point where they're no longer a voting issue.
The things she said (if they were true) are still about because every
other group was to afraid to have the same veiws as her so if she said
something everyone else said something else.
SNIP
> a story of a newspaper in the US that was closed down for printing
> an article voicing concern over the number of Jews in the
> foreign office, asking whether they could really make unbiased
> decisions towards the middle-east and why no investigation
> had been made into why a manager had been allowed to hire people
> only from his own ethnic/religious group, something that
> would have been investigated had a white male employed only
> white males.
This is terrible. Anyone should be allowed to say anything! As long as
you don't force your veiws on someone else then you should be allowed to
voice them. Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism? Why is
it that racism can only occur to minority groups? It is now compulsory
for workplaces hiring a set number of people to have a set number of black
people. What if you can't find any black people qualified for the job?
do you hire unqualified blacks instead of a qualified white? These rules
are blatantly racist! Why should a black man get precedence for a job? I
was actually going to syudy at uni to become a forest ranger but the
instant I saw that out of the seven cources recommended to me by the
Department of Natural Resources I changed my preferences to the fisheries!
Out of the seven courses, 2 were four year courses with special tuitorials
for Aboriginals and the other 5 were 5 year courses with a 3 year
reduction for Aboriginals! The three years were for a white person to
spend in an Aboriginal settlement. Why is that not considered Racist?
why should an Aboriginal not be required to have spent three years in an
Aboriginal settlement? I know heaps of Aboriginals who have never seen a
settlement. I am friends with two tribal elders on the Kowanyama
settlement and even they tell me that all the young blokes are just a
bunch of ****heads. The publican (the man who owns the pub) is doing a
massive trade but has seen what the booze is doing to the settlement so he
is thinking of leaving.
> I don't know whether the accusations were true (though given
> US policy in the middle-east I can guess) but I do know that
> forcing the paper out of business instead of giving a coherent
> answer to the points raised has only caused the problem to get
> worse. Many people who were slightly worried about the situation
> have now become completely paranoid and distrustful of all
> Jews.
A jew is a person. A lot of people who's decendants come from Jerusalem
have no ties with the beleifs of their forefathers. A person should be
taken on who they are, not what they are.
> So when you go out to vote against her, spare a thought for
> Pauline Hanson and the good she has unwittingly done for race
> relations in Australia.
I voted for her because I go for the underdog. No-one gives the woman a
break. Senator Colston ripped off the RSL and got caught but all he got
was a slap on the wrist. He's still in parliament. What kind of a
government allows Senators to do such things?
Anathema
Revd. Ryan P Arndt <earn...@curtin.edu.au> wrote in article
<36179F...@curtin.edu.au>...
> Anathema wrote:
>
> > Incidentally, speaking of our buddy Pauline, we went to anti-rascism
rally
> > (me and my friends, not me and Pauline) and were later described by
david
> > Oldfield (hanson's right hand-man, may he rot in hell) as emulating
> > the"fascist brownshirts of socialist Mussolini". Hmm? heard of the
> > political spectrum, david? And funny, cause it was a peaceful student
> > rally.
>
> I'd have to agree with David Oldfield on this one, but for different
> reasons. It was radical organisations like Resistance (which organised
> rallies like the one you went to) which gave One Nation its credibility.
What i was alluding to was that David Oldfield was goddamn contradicting
himself by calling the brown shirts fascist and socialist all in the one
phrase. He also displayed his utter and complete lack of a clue.
I don't see how saying that Resistance caused the rise of One Nation is
agreeing with david Oldfield.
That is a compliment.
Rob Smiley
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen wrote in message
<3618cffa...@news.lspace.org>...
>The German way is to use it on two levels. Personally, I like it. I
>still wouldn't change the Danish system, as a change cannot help but
>give a period of instability, while the political system adapts.
>
You're not kidding about that!
Britain is currently in going through the agonies of "do we switch or don't
we?"
Whilst the Government(Labour) and the second opposition party(Liberal
Democrats) are discussing changing the rules for the national parliament,
the elections for the European parliament will be a form of PR for the first
time instead of 'first past the post'.
This has upset alot of people, myself included, for the following reasons.
Firstly, the old constituencies, each representing about 200,000
constituents, are to be scrapped and replaced by 'voting regions', which
will represent over 1.5 million constituents each.
Secondly, each party will have a list of candidates, ranked in order of
preferance, and depending on the proportion of votes polled, fill a number
of seats for that region in the order set out in their candidate list.
Each party can win a theoretical seven seats in each region.
Unfortunately, the region I live in (North West England) has EIGHT Labour
Party Euro MPs.
To whittle down the number to seven, the Labour Party balloted its members,
to find out who would be supported by the membership.
My current Euro MP ranked 3rd in that ballot but will still not be on the
list of candidates for my region!
Not only do alot of people feel their representation is being diluted in
some way, but some of us who should have a say in what candidates we would
like to represent us are being ignored as well.
And that's democracy?
rcsm...@yahoo.com
"Mention the Lord of the Rings just once more,
And I'll more than likely kill you."
T J Wilkinson
(Jens Kristoffer Nielsen) wrote:
>On 3 Oct 1998 14:20:12 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
><morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
<snip>
>>It's going to make things difficult the coming
>>parliamentary term, because members of both sides have
>>been given substantial moral rights to fight very hard
>>for their respective causes - which is NOT a good thing
>>for the country because it's going to mean a lot of
>>harmful controversy. But I still believe that it is a
>>result for one to ponder.
>Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
>system for destributing seats.
Because in NZ, whose last election was done under MMP, NZF, a party
with 17% of the vote (IIRC) got to choose which of the two big parties
would be in power. And they then choose the National Party, which
most of their supporters did not want, and after they campaigned on
the basis of "vote for us, it's the only way to get National out of
power". In fact, from anecdotal evidence a large number of National
supporters did not want National to go into coalition with NZF.
Nor were we asked about the break-up of the coalition, and National
continuing with a rag-tag of independents (having left the parties who
they were elected for, despite most of them getting in entirely on the
basis of the list, not by winning a seat) and another small party.
Under MMP us Kiwis get even less of a choice in their government than
we did under FPP.
All in all, a system in which a party with a bit less than 50% of the
vote gets all of the power strikes me as more democratic than my own
country's. Most of the rest of my country appears to agree with me.
In fact it's quite hard now to find someone who voted for MMP in the
referendum on the topic, despite it getting something like 53% support
in 1993.[1]
Tracy
[1] I didn't. I was too young to vote then.
--
tajw...@ihug.co.nz
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tajwileb/
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Meg, the Magpie
<funky...@hotmail.com> said :
>"Meg, the Magpie" wrote:
>I was sitting in a bar with the great-grandson of XXXXia's WWII Labour
>PM (Meg, sound familiar?)
Hmm... somewhat... could you describe him? <grin>
>> <snip>
>> <mode="cynical" level="political promise">
>> Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
>> waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise, and
>> Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
>> ready ASAP. At the moment, the Liberal/National Coalition have been
>> re-elected on a *very* narrow majority, and the Senate results are yet
>> to be decided, which means that there are really two options open.
Quick update - the majority expected is between 7 and 10 seats, which
is described by the Liberal party as a "working majority". Problem
for them is that the National Party has a total of about 17 seats in
their coalition, which means that they have to work with the Nationals
a lot more. Don't expect to see the full sale of Tel$tra any time
soon, or at least, not without some *major* sweeteners for rural
voters. The Nationals lost about 5% of their voters to One Nation,
even though they held onto their seats (albeit with a reduced
majority), and they're not taking that risk again in a hurry.
>> Either John Howard can decide to try to stick it out for the full 3
>> year term (or try for an extension of the term to get 4 years), or he
>> can start bringing out all the old controversial legislation to try
>> and get a Double Dissolution, and see if that gets him a better
>> result.
>>
>The instructions to introduce the GST Bill have apparently already been
>given. Little Johnnie said on tonight's news he would convene Parliament
>to consider the GST Bill before Xmas this year. And the Democrats
>baited the Double Dissolution possibility before the election by saying
>that if they had Senate control and the GST Bill was put up, they would
>not pass it without an amendment to exempt food from the tax, even if
>that resulted in a double dissolution.
>
>> Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
>> introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
>> level being a "core promise" either.
>>
>I'm not counting on the Social Security benefits to make GST-affected
>living possible being core promises, either.
Oh, quick explanation on this "core" and "non-core" bit. The Liberal
Party came up with this terminology to explain why they weren't
keeping some of their election promises after the previous election -
the ones they weren't keeping were the "non-core" promises. Therefore
a "non-core" promise is one that's *not* likely to be kept, and the
voters don't get to find out which ones are core and non-core until
*after* the election.
Meg the Magpie (afpolitical correspondent)
--
Meg, The Magpie
Meg, the Magpie
<Ba...@samael.newantispam.demon.co.uk> said :
>Pauline Hanson has exercised her right to free speech, used
>the democratic process to take her political views to the
>people and had them soundly, but fairly, rejected.
>
>I think the world needs people like her to voice the opinions
>of those so frustrated by their problems that they are tempted
>to blame them on minority groups. By bringing them out into the
>open they can be examined and shown to be without basis in
>fact, diffusing some of the tension that was building up.
>Let's face it, if she lost her seat then a lot of the people
>that voted for her last time, didn't this time. Their concerns
>over immigration have obviously been nullified, or at least
>reduced to the point where they're no longer a voting issue.
Small, but significant, correction: Pauline Hanson was not standing
for the same seat that she was originally elected to. She was
originally elected in the seat of Oxley, but stood for re-election in
Blair, due to a redistribution of the boundaries. This may have been
the crucial mistake, as the sitting member tends to get slightly
better odds of re-election.
Mind you, her *real* mistake was in not trying for a Senate seat.
Meg, the Magpie
<s37...@student.uq.edu.au> said :
>Well the government over here in Auz is no better. You may have heard how
>Pauline Hanson has just lost her seat in Blair (my electoral district) yet
>she got 45% of the votes. In the election earlier on in the year she got
>twice as many votes as labour (approx) and labour got twice as many seats.
>How the hell this can be allowed to happen I have no idea but the law
>should be changed. I always used to think- the peson who gets the most
>votes, wins! I guess that one just didn't occur to the the government.
>
I think what you're forgetting here is preferences.
ObPrimer for those who don't know the XXXXian system:
Lower House (House of Representatives) - Preferential voting, first
candidate to get 50% +1 vote wins.
Upper House (Senate) - Proportional representation, 12 senators per
state, 2 per territory. As individuals pass the level for quota, they
are elected.
Now, Pauline Hanson in the seat of Blair got a total primary vote of
21217 votes, which was 35.5% of the primary vote. She was scads ahead
of her nearest rivals (14493 votes to the ALP (24.2%), 12458 votes to
the Liberal party (20.8%)). This leaves 19.5% of the votes going to
other candidates. Nobody has 50% +1 vote, so the candidate with the
lowest number of primary votes is eliminated, and their votes
distributed amongst the remaining candidates according to their second
preference. *This* is the point where Ms Hanson starts to lose the
seat. The eventual winner was actually the Liberal party candidate,
who started with 20.8% of the votes, and managed to gain another 29.2%
+1 vote, which won him the seat.
This was for a House of Representatives seat, and each preference vote
counted the same as for a primary vote.
In the Senate, the system of counting is slightly different, with the
primary vote counting as 1 vote, the second preference counting as
less than that, third less than 2nd and so onwards. Senate counting
usually takes a *long* time, and nobody's really expecting results in
the Senate ballot until about this time next week.
Meg the Magpie (afpolitical correspondant)
--
Meg, The Magpie... AFPlump, AFPetite, AFPerth...
afpiance to several, afprelative to a few more
(and why *shouldn't* I have all the fun?)
[mail me at mag...@megabitch.tm]
Meg, the Magpie
<Ba...@samael.newantispam.demon.co.uk> said :
>What's the GST? Is it the same thing as the British VAT? That
>runs at 17.5%.
GST = Goods and Services Tax - a value added tax on all goods and
services imposed at point of sale. Replaces wholesale sales taxes
(shyeah, right!) and is offset by cuts in income tax (hoooyeah! I
believe that one... and that flying pig just did a barrell roll).
It's supposed to be introduced at a rate of 10% (and if you believe
that one, there's this bridge I've got in Sydney that I'd *love* to
sell you), which can only be changed by agreement from all the state
governments. As was pointed out in the opposition campaign, this
would take something in the order of microseconds, especially
considering that the entire revenue from the GST is going to the
states in lieu of the standard Commonwealth grants.
.Nisaba Merrieweather
Meg, the Magpie <mag...@megabitch.tm> wrote in article
<36170831...@news.wantree.com.au>...
> I can forecast the next three years.
So can I.
> Firstly, the Liberal party is going to decide that the bit about
> waiting until 2000 to introduce the GST is a "non-core" promise,
Definitions. "Core promise": a commitment you have to think about a bit
before breaking in order to have a justification to break it.
"Non-core promise": total bullscheisse that no one expects you to fulfill
at any time.
> and
> Peter Costello will receive instructions to have a budget prepared and
> ready ASAP.
It's probably already in a school exercise book in his bedroom, awaiting
only the word-processor.
> ..... or he
> can start bringing out all the old controversial legislation to try
> and get a Double Dissolution, and see if that gets him a better
> result.
I hope that certain voters will come to their senses.
> Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
> introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
> level being a "core promise" either.
"L-A-W law, remember? Since when *haven't* politicians on both sides of the
Great Divide lied to us? They're all morally bankrupt. I used to think that
Cheryl Kernot was the only one with integrity, then she defected from her
high moral ground to join the wolf-pack. <sigh>
> I think it's definitely going to be "interesting times" in XXXXia for
> the next three years, quite honestly.
That's what we're all afraid of.
--
.Nisaba Merrieweather
nis...@tac.com.au
Meg, the Magpie
<earn...@curtin.edu.au> said :
>Meg, the Magpie wrote:
>
>> Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
>> introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
>> level being a "core promise" either.
>
>"As soon as possible" will probably be never. The Democrats won't budge,
>and nor will the Libs. In short, it won't get through the Senate. Anyone
>remember '75?
Oh, not personally, (I was only 4) but I did 2 years of a politics
degree, and the Whitlam dismissal was the last major political event
in Australian political life, I learned a lot about it. This is why
Peter Costello is probably being told to prepare a budget which is
*guaranteed* to piss off the Democrats, Greens and Labor. John Howard
is well aware that he's likely to wind up with a hostile senate, and
he may well be keeping the notion of a double dissolution in reserve,
so to speak. Certainly, he's been trumpeting the notion that he has a
"mandate" for the GST very loudly ever since Saturday night.
<snip>
>> I wouldn't write One Nation off yet... I've a feeling that they'll be
>> back, especially if there's a double dissolution election. Remember,
>> the platform of One Nation was basically built on the combination of
>> harnessing voter irritation at being ignored by the two main parties,
>> and a platform which appealled to the more conservative elements in
>> the right wing (you know, the types who are still a bit dubious about
>> this "fire" thing). Those elements will still be out there, and if a
>> double dissolution is called early, they'll be more than willing to
>> exploit the whole "voter dissatisfaction" angle. Also, they'll
>> probably run a more media-savvy campaign next time around - Pauline
>> Hanson may be as thick as two short things, but her minders aren't.
>
>If we had a DD, she'd have picked up 2-3 Queensland senators and probably
>one each in NSW, SA and WA. That's 5-6 out of 76- a definate force. All
>One Nation needs is some real policy and some people who actually know
>how politics works and they may be able to make a genuine contribution to
>XXXXian politics. Given time and maturity they may even set themselves up
>as the "alternative right" party in the same way that the Democrats are
>moving towards being the alternative left-wing party.
Well, I'd say that no matter *what* happens with regard to the GST,
One Nation are in with a chance at getting a few more seats. Either
way they win the "dissatisfied" mob.
Emma of XXXXia
"Revd. Ryan P Arndt" wrote:
>
> Emma of XXXXia wrote:
>
> > Not to mention that Labour will have even more going for it if the
> > Jabiluka mine happens. I just can't believe they're going to mine in a
> > National Park, that is or at least should be World Heritage Listed, so
> > they can sell more uranium to people like the French and Indian
> > governments!
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Jabiluka mine ISN'T in a National
> Park or World Heritage Area. And before you go slagging off at the French
> (who killed some coral) and Indians, remember that the British/Australian
> nuclear tests where the only ones every to kill civillians. (unless you
> count Chernobyl is a "test")
>
> --
> Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Na*i H*ll Sm**f
Even more reason why we shouldn't be mining uranium - we didn't even
learn from our own mistakes. My point was not to slag off the makers of
the nuclear weapons, but to slag off the Australian government for
perpetuating the production of nuclear weapons by selling uranium to
countries it knows damn well will use it for that purpose. We really
should know better. I don't support our government, I put them second
last on the ballot paper (and One Nation last), so all I can do now is
slag off at them for doing the stupid things they have and will continue
to do to this country.
Emma of XXXXia
Barry Vaughan wrote:
<snip>
> What's the GST? Is it the same thing as the British VAT? That
> runs at 17.5%.
>
> And yes, that did cause inflation. (Last Tory government
> raised VAT and lowered income tax and saw inflation rise - Doh!)
>
> Barry.
Newsflash: the Democrats and Labour say that when the GST Bill goes to
Senate (likely to happen before Xmas as Little Johnnie PM has already
said he'll convene Parliament for that purpose before Xmas) they will
refuse to pass it unless it is amended to exempt food. Little Johnnie's
reply? Well the GST will have to be 13%, not 10% as promised!
Ravi
way out through strong leadership and since so many people saw what had
gone before with the Weimar republic The Nazis represented a good way out
as did communism , however vthey Nazis were able to capitalise on the
ground swell better than the communists because the Nazis gave people a
scapegoat.. The Jewish people
My view noone elses
Rav
ra...@hotmail.com
--
I feel so extraordinary....
Revd. Ryan P Arndt <earn...@curtin.edu.au> wrote in article
<3618E3...@curtin.edu.au>...
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
>
>I don't support our government, I put them second
> last on the ballot paper (and One Nation last), so all I can do now is
> slag off at them for doing the stupid things they have and will continue
> to do to this country.
That's brave. I put the Libs last- I figured someone with no idea is
better than someone with bad ideas (BTW, I live in Tangney, and was
voting against the Attorney General- not that it was ever going to make a
difference in a safe Liberal seat).
--
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
Na*i H*ll Sm**f
--
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
Na*i H*ll Sm**f
*Read the FAQ at http://www.sheppard.demon.co.uk/rgmw_faq/rgmw_faq.htm
*Read the FPT at http://www.trail.com/~moebius/links.html
*Boycott Games Workshop Products
*Play Warzone and Chronopia
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Oh, not personally, (I was only 4) but I did 2 years of a politics
> degree, and the Whitlam dismissal was the last major political event
> in Australian political life, I learned a lot about it.
You're one up on me there. I wasn't born until 2 1/2 years later.
This is why
> Peter Costello is probably being told to prepare a budget which is
> *guaranteed* to piss off the Democrats, Greens and Labor.
As opposed to the last three, which just p!$$ed off the entire country?
John Howard
> is well aware that he's likely to wind up with a hostile senate, and
> he may well be keeping the notion of a double dissolution in reserve,
> so to speak. Certainly, he's been trumpeting the notion that he has a
> "mandate" for the GST very loudly ever since Saturday night.
Another beautiful term Howard likes to use. If you read this, Mr Howard,
please remember that you have a mandate to implement all the non-core
promises from '96.
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> And what were they protesting about anyway? Did they think
> she shouldn't have the right to hold those opinions? Or just
> not to talk about them in public?
Not just that she shouldn't express those views, but they also protested
against the rights of people to hear her, and that no one should have the
right to right-wing views. As I said, it was through media coverage of
Resistance's activities and protests that One Nation got most of its
publicity until just before the current campaign.
> Pauline Hanson didn't invent racism in Australia, she just
> said what a lot of people thought. Shutting her up won't
> make the problem go away.
However, race has been a dead issue in Australian politics since the
demise of the ANM in the mid 80s. (Though the RSL are understandably
upset about Japanese and Vietnamese immigration). Without the media hype
over Hanson's maiden speach, and the protests of Resistance, she and the
issue would have faded away. Many people will still hold racist
sentiment, but they wouldn't have voted on it.
Kheldar
Anathema wrote:
<snips>
> What i was alluding to was that David Oldfield was goddamn contradicting
> himself by calling the brown shirts fascist and socialist all in the one
> phrase.
Em? No he wasn't: if you're referring to Mussolini's lot they were socialists,
just as later on Hitler's lot were socialists. Fascisti was a nickname based
on the Italian governmental symbol of executive authority, not a political
definition: politically they were socialists (DO NOT READ 'COMMUNISTS': this
could get you shot in interwar Europe. Everyone who wasn't Royalist was
Socialist, but only a very very few were Communist. And alot of people who
were ANY of the above were also Nationalist)
~Chris
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
Jens.Kristo...@image.dk wrote:
> On 3 Oct 1998 23:22:16 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
> <morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
>
> >Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
> > ^
> > | >Person by person, over
> > | >51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
> > | >Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
> > | Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
> > | liberals.
> > v
> >
> >Not necessarily - if you score 100% in one seat and 49% in
> >two other seats, you've got most of the votes but only one
> >third of the seats - which is what happened.
>
> You missed the point. In a democracy, you don't have the british
> first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
> proportional representation.
Not in American democracy, where everything comes down to votes in the
electoral college. It's strictly a matter of coincidence that we've never
had a president *lose* the popular vote, but win because of the distribution
of electoral votes.[1]
--Elocutus
[1]Before you pedant, notice that I was specific about causes. Losing because
an election is throw into Congress doesn't count.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
wrote:
>
>Jens Kristoffer Nielsen wrote in message
><3618cffa...@news.lspace.org>...
>
>>The German way is to use it on two levels. Personally, I like it. I
>>still wouldn't change the Danish system, as a change cannot help but
>>give a period of instability, while the political system adapts.
>
>You're not kidding about that!
>
>Britain is currently in going through the agonies of "do we switch or don't
>we?"
Well, in your case the present system led to more years than strictly
necessary with Margaret Thatcher. I can easily understand a wish to
change on that basis :-D
>Whilst the Government(Labour) and the second opposition party(Liberal
>Democrats) are discussing changing the rules for the national parliament,
>the elections for the European parliament will be a form of PR for the first
>time instead of 'first past the post'.
PR exists in a large number of variations. For a systematic overview,
see "Seats & Votes - The effects & determinants of electoral systems"
by Rein Taagepera and Matthew Soberg Shugart, Yale University Press,
1989.
>This has upset alot of people, myself included, for the following reasons.
>Firstly, the old constituencies, each representing about 200,000
>constituents, are to be scrapped and replaced by 'voting regions', which
>will represent over 1.5 million constituents each.
Sounds reasonable.
>Secondly, each party will have a list of candidates, ranked in order of
>preferance, and depending on the proportion of votes polled, fill a number
>of seats for that region in the order set out in their candidate list.
Oops! I hate that version. It is allowed in Denmark too, but most
parties (except the left wing) have abandoned that kind of lists.
>Each party can win a theoretical seven seats in each region.
>Unfortunately, the region I live in (North West England) has EIGHT Labour
>Party Euro MPs.
>To whittle down the number to seven, the Labour Party balloted its members,
>to find out who would be supported by the membership.
>My current Euro MP ranked 3rd in that ballot but will still not be on the
>list of candidates for my region!
>Not only do alot of people feel their representation is being diluted in
>some way, but some of us who should have a say in what candidates we would
>like to represent us are being ignored as well.
That is one of the problems with that variation - and one of the
reasons it is not preferred in Denmark, even though it is still an
option for the parties.
>And that's democracy?
Well, yes. It is still better than the old system, but I would have
preferred an equal standing for all candidates.
/Kristoffer
--
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's
funny ..."
-- Isaac Asimov
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
>On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristoffer.Niels
>e...@image.dk> wrote
>>On 3 Oct 1998 23:22:16 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
>><morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
>>>Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
>
>So, if I've understood correctly: if Australia were *your* idea of
>a democracy, Pauline Hanson would now hold the balance of power?
No, usually the extremists are left totally without influence. That
has been the case both in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany. If you
choose to cooperate with an extremist party, you loose voters the next
time.
>
>Sometimes there's good reasons for things being the way they are.
And sometimes not. In a PR system, math isn't all it's cracked up to
be ;-)
/Kristoffer
--
[...] "What is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it. CATS. he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<Ba...@samael.newantispam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>FPtP was a wonderful system when MPs were just individuals
>sent to represent their local constituancy and each borough
>just had to pick the right man (no women allowed at that time)
>for the job on a 'who got the most votes' basis.
Which is why many countries left that system in the start of the
century[1].
>It looks a little clumsy in the modern world where every MP
>is a member of a nationwide party. The PR system favoured by
>the LibDems would guarentee them (the smallest party) a share
>in power 'til the end of time unless one of the parties
>got more than 50% of the vote and even then they'd need the
>LD's help for some contraversial legislation.
No, that is a fallacy. You think that the number of parties is a
constant. In Denmark, we had five parties till the start of the
seventies, now we've got ten. In a multi-party system you can get a
majority with a mix of parties.
>If I were inventing the system I'd have an FPP system in
>which the MP would need to get 50% of the vote in order to
>win the seat. If they did so, the rest of the votes would be
>discarded. If no individual got more than 50% then the votes
>would go into a national pot that would select the rest
>of the MPs by simple PR to fill the seats not filled by outright
>winners.
You've actually managed to come up with something not covered in the
textbooks! Congratulations! I've got to think a bit about that one. It
seems tempting, but there are some practical problems to be figured
out.
>This would stop a party from winning a massive majority with
>a small vote but would retain the ability of a constituency
>to choose an independant candidate without the vote getting
>wiped out by the fact that their proportion of the national
>vote was tiny. It's hard to imagine how The Man In The White
>Suit could have been elected under PR.
Take care. The remnant of FPtP in the Danish system led to the
election of a stand-up comedian in 1994. He managed to get enough
votes to get a seat all by himself.
/Kristoffer
[1] Denmark abandoned First-past-the post in 1920.
--
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world
The unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
(T J Wilkinson) wrote:
>On Sat, 03 Oct 1998 22:30:05 GMT, Jens.Kristo...@image.dk
>(Jens Kristoffer Nielsen) wrote:
>
>>Yes, it really makes you wonder why anyone uses a non-proportional
>>system for destributing seats.
>
>Because in NZ, whose last election was done under MMP, NZF, a party
>with 17% of the vote (IIRC) got to choose which of the two big parties
>would be in power. And they then choose the National Party, which
>most of their supporters did not want, and after they campaigned on
>the basis of "vote for us, it's the only way to get National out of
>power". In fact, from anecdotal evidence a large number of National
>supporters did not want National to go into coalition with NZF.
>
>Nor were we asked about the break-up of the coalition, and National
>continuing with a rag-tag of independents (having left the parties who
>they were elected for, despite most of them getting in entirely on the
>basis of the list, not by winning a seat) and another small party.
>Under MMP us Kiwis get even less of a choice in their government than
>we did under FPP.
You have to remember one little detail. It always takes time to change
an electoral system. You must expect a period of instability when
changing systems. The degrees of freedom for the parties have changed,
and you can expect the voters to punish some parties and reward others
as a result.
/Kristoffer
--
"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm
for the rest of his life."
Jingo, by Terry Pratchett
Darin Johnson
> ObPrimer for those who don't know the XXXXian system:
Personally, I'm a bit partial to the US system, despite its
faults. The biggest advantage is that very very often, the legislature
and the president are of opposing parties (thus few laws get passed,
and those that do tend to be those approved by both major parties).
Of course, both parties complain when this happens because they're
hampered in passing legislation.
I always wonder how those governments where the majority party chooses
the executive. Doesn't this give them the power to ramrod through all
the most radical ideas with the minority parties having little
tempering effect?
Of course, a true representative legislature would be great too, and
would give those tertiary parties much more say, push the major
parties closer to the middle, and encourage cooperation in order to
get power.
--
Darin Johnson
da...@usa.net.delete_me
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
>In article <36174732...@news.lspace.org>,
> Jens.Kristo...@image.dk wrote:
>>
>> You missed the point. In a democracy, you don't have the british
>> first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
>> proportional representation.
>
>Not in American democracy, where everything comes down to votes in the
>electoral college. It's strictly a matter of coincidence that we've never
>had a president *lose* the popular vote, but win because of the distribution
>of electoral votes.[1]
American democracy - that's a new one. I must admit, I don't consider
Merkia a democracy. That is mainly because you don't have a majority
of the actual population forming the electorate. It makes it a bit
difficult to really know the people's choice rather than just those
registered to vote's choice.
Mind you, I'm not advocating mandatory voting. I just advocate
mandatory registration for voting.
/Kristoffer
--
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and
Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with
me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?"
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
<da...@usa.net.removethis> wrote:
>Personally, I'm a bit partial to the US system, despite its
>faults. The biggest advantage is that very very often, the legislature
>and the president are of opposing parties (thus few laws get passed,
>and those that do tend to be those approved by both major parties).
>Of course, both parties complain when this happens because they're
>hampered in passing legislation.
>I always wonder how those governments where the majority party chooses
>the executive. Doesn't this give them the power to ramrod through all
>the most radical ideas with the minority parties having little
>tempering effect?
>Of course, a true representative legislature would be great too, and
>would give those tertiary parties much more say, push the major
>parties closer to the middle, and encourage cooperation in order to
>get power.
Bingo! That has been the effect in the Scandinavian countries. Works
very well. Most laws have a nice majority of about 90% behind them
when passed, and they are almost always compromises, not dictates.
/Kristoffer
--
The Dane's mission in life is to help the rest of the world to see
just how wonderful Denmark is.
Xenophobe's guide to the Danes
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
"Revd. Ryan P Arndt" <earn...@curtin.edu.au> wrote:
> Emma of XXXXia wrote:
>
> > Not to mention that Labour will have even more going for it if the
> > Jabiluka mine happens. I just can't believe they're going to mine in a
> > National Park, that is or at least should be World Heritage Listed, so
> > they can sell more uranium to people like the French and Indian
> > governments!
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Jabiluka mine ISN'T in a National
> Park or World Heritage Area. And before you go slagging off at the French
> (who killed some coral) and Indians, remember that the British/Australian
> nuclear tests where the only ones every to kill civillians. (unless you
> count Chernobyl is a "test")
Actually, the American tests also killed civilians. They just did it real
slow-like.
--Elocutus
Barry Vaughan
<earn...@curtin.edu.au> writes
They might not have voted on it this time, but they might have
harboured a grudge for a long time. I think it's best to get
these things out into the open. If she polls 8% now then it gives
her no real power but gives the other parties plenty of opportunity
to defend the immigration laws and hopefully diffuse the racism
issue before it builds up to the point where a racist party would
get 20% of the vote.
Barry.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes I lie awake at night, thinking that we're dead.
That all this is just Death's last joke. That we're living
one last dream before the lights go out.
And then I think, so what's new?
-Death, The Time of your life - Neil Gaiman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ba...@samael.demon.co.uk
Barry Vaughan
Rodney Rutherfurd <s37...@student.uq.edu.au> writes
>On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Barry Vaughan wrote:
>
>> Pauline Hanson has exercised her right to free speech, used
>> the democratic process to take her political views to the
>> people and had them soundly, but fairly, rejected.
>
>election when you got most of the votes.
>
I believe she got 8%, which isn't most. ;-) I suppose you're
refering to the voting system in Aus which, like most systems,
can lead to a candidate getting a larger or smaller percentage
of the seats than its percentage of the votes. Unfortunate, but no
system is perfect.
>> I think the world needs people like her to voice the opinions
>> of those so frustrated by their problems that they are tempted
>> to blame them on minority groups.
>
>So true.
>
>
>> a story of a newspaper in the US that was closed down for printing
>> an article voicing concern over the number of Jews in the
>> foreign office, asking whether they could really make unbiased
>> decisions towards the middle-east and why no investigation
>> had been made into why a manager had been allowed to hire people
>> only from his own ethnic/religious group, something that
>> would have been investigated had a white male employed only
>> white males.
>
>This is terrible. Anyone should be allowed to say anything!
I would agree to a point, if you add the words: As long as it
is not directly intended to encourage violence against an
innocent person/group.
> As long as
>you don't force your veiws on someone else then you should be allowed to
>voice them. Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
>male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism? Why is
>it that racism can only occur to minority groups?
I'm pretty sure the law covers all incidents of racism, it's just
that there will be fewer non-whites making decisions on who to
employ, therefore fewer whites rejected by non-whites and many
fewer cases of suspected racism where a white person is the victim.
I have heard of cases though.
> It is now compulsory
>for workplaces hiring a set number of people to have a set number of black
>people.
This is ridiculous and impossible to maintain for the reasons you list.
> What if you can't find any black people qualified for the job?
>do you hire unqualified blacks instead of a qualified white? These rules
>are blatantly racist! Why should a black man get precedence for a job?
It's supposed to counter racism by restoring the balance. In theory,
if you set targets, you will employ the best of the black people
and the best of the white people and over all it will even out.
In reality, social differences mean that particular jobs will be
popular with particular groups and there may not be sufficent
qualified people from a specific minority.
> I
>was actually going to syudy at uni to become a forest ranger but the
>instant I saw that out of the seven cources recommended to me by the
>Department of Natural Resources I changed my preferences to the fisheries!
>Out of the seven courses, 2 were four year courses with special tuitorials
>for Aboriginals and the other 5 were 5 year courses with a 3 year
>reduction for Aboriginals! The three years were for a white person to
>spend in an Aboriginal settlement. Why is that not considered Racist?
It makes the assumption that all aboriginals live on settlments,
in other words that all aboriginals are the same. The very basis
of racism.
>why should an Aboriginal not be required to have spent three years in an
>Aboriginal settlement? I know heaps of Aboriginals who have never seen a
>settlement. I am friends with two tribal elders on the Kowanyama
>settlement and even they tell me that all the young blokes are just a
>bunch of ****heads.
>> I don't know whether the accusations were true (though given
>> US policy in the middle-east I can guess) but I do know that
>> forcing the paper out of business instead of giving a coherent
>> answer to the points raised has only caused the problem to get
>> worse. Many people who were slightly worried about the situation
>> have now become completely paranoid and distrustful of all
>> Jews.
>
>A jew is a person. A lot of people who's decendants come from Jerusalem
>have no ties with the beleifs of their forefathers. A person should be
>taken on who they are, not what they are.
My point is that by denying public examination of a possible problem
a serious rift has been created between two groups of people that
ought to be able to take each other on who they are not what they are,
but now can't.
>
>> So when you go out to vote against her, spare a thought for
>> Pauline Hanson and the good she has unwittingly done for race
>> relations in Australia.
>
>I voted for her because I go for the underdog. No-one gives the woman a
>break. Senator Colston ripped off the RSL and got caught but all he got
>was a slap on the wrist. He's still in parliament. What kind of a
>government allows Senators to do such things?
>
Did Pauline Hanson make that kind of problem[1] an election issue?
Barry.
[1] Ripping off the RSL.
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
Jens.Kristo...@image.dk wrote:
>
> American democracy - that's a new one. I must admit, I don't consider
> Merkia a democracy. That is mainly because you don't have a majority
> of the actual population forming the electorate. It makes it a bit
> difficult to really know the people's choice rather than just those
> registered to vote's choice.
>
> Mind you, I'm not advocating mandatory voting. I just advocate
> mandatory registration for voting.
I don't advocate either. There are enough people voting with little or no
information as it is. Anything that obligates the apathetic to get closer to
voting is just not a good thing.
By far, the majority of American adults have the right to vote if they want.
The fact that they choose not to does not invalidate the democratic process.
Annette Fraser
Rodney Rutherfurd <s37...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
>On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Barry Vaughan wrote:
>
>> Pauline Hanson has exercised her right to free speech, used
>> the democratic process to take her political views to the
>> people and had them soundly, but fairly, rejected.
>
>Well thats definitely wrong. There is nothing fair about lsing an
>election when you got most of the votes.
>
votes than any other one candidate. Most people voted against her by voting
for other candidates. So, she got 45% (or whatever the actual number was) of
primary votes. 55% of the people *didn't* vote for her.
Annette
--
===+===+===+===+===+===+ am.f...@qut.edu.au +===+===+===+===+===+===
==+ The Merchandise Queen | Kheldarian | Stark raving mad Pterryist+==
===+===+===+===+===+= Annette's Word of the Week =+===+===+===+===+===
vampyrarchy -- derisive description from the 1820s for a parasitic
group of politicians -- From "Forgotten English" by Jeffrey Kacirk
===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+==+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===
"I will Taunt the happy penguin" - MegaHal
Jonathan Amery
might have written - I think:
> Okay, so on Mon, 5 Oct 1998 02:27:38 +0100, Barry Vaughan
> <Ba...@samael.newantispam.demon.co.uk> said :
>
> >What's the GST? Is it the same thing as the British VAT? That
> >runs at 17.5%.
>
> GST = Goods and Services Tax - a value added tax on all goods and
> services imposed at point of sale. Replaces wholesale sales taxes
> (shyeah, right!) and is offset by cuts in income tax (hoooyeah! I
> believe that one... and that flying pig just did a barrell roll).
> It's supposed to be introduced at a rate of 10% (and if you believe
> that one, there's this bridge I've got in Sydney that I'd *love* to
> sell you), which can only be changed by agreement from all the state
I'll swap you for this pile of Gold Bricks...
Jonathna.
Gid Holyoake
decided to share with us:
> That _is_ exactly what I meant; for some people there just
> is no such choice. I mean, listening to one lawyer talk for
> five minutes and the being able to decide "guilty" may be
> acceptable for most people, but for some, especially for the
> self-employed, the risk of running into a trial that takes
> days, during which they're not supposed to be influenced by
> newspapers and whatnot, may simply not be affordable.
> _I_ can easily say "sorry, guys, but it's the law - see you
> next week", but if you lose your market-share that way, you
> can't say that. My argument is not about lazy, no-good, bums,
> it's about people who _have_ to work. These are most often
> very socially responsible, productive people.
In the UK, it is possible to exempt yourself from Jury Duty on the
grounds of self-employment.. all you have to do is notify the clerk of
the court that fulfillment of your Jury Duty would cause undue stress to
your business, and you are exempted.. similarly, you can also be
exempted if you have a holiday booked within the likely time of the
trial..
Gid
--
The Most Noble and Exalted Peculiar , Harem Master to Veiled Concubines
Guardian of the Sacred !!!!!'s , Defender of the Temple of AFPdoration
Click on http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~gidnsuzi/ for The Irrelevant Page
Michael Caldwell
>>Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
>> | >Person by person, over
>> | >51% of voting Australians voted Labor in preference to
>> | >Liberal, and this is more or less true in all six states.
>> | Which, in a democracy, would have left them with more seats than the
>> | liberals.
>>Not necessarily - if you score 100% in one seat and 49% in
>>two other seats, you've got most of the votes but only one
>>third of the seats - which is what happened.
>You missed the point. In a democracy, you don't have the british
>first-past-the-post system of election. You make sure to have
>proportional representation.
Oooohhh, you mean a "democracy". I though those were the ones where you get
all the free landowning males over a certain age and get them to drop
pebbles in a barrel to pick a tyrant.
--
"Everyone thinks a democracy will do what's best, what they forget is that
people are stupid, mean, and evil - especially when you take large numbers
of them."
Michael Caldwell
>I can remember this discussion from some time ago - I believe it was
>New Zealand that had an election. If I recall correctly, the problem
>there was a mix of systems that meant, that the political system was
>essentially torn in two opposite ways. Can anyone remember?
Well... The last one we had down here didn't really end up it it tearing
both ways, but it did take about 6 months for them to form a govt. The
center party (New Zealand First) held the balance of power, and couldn't
decide whether to go right or left (In this case self-centered might be a
better description than centre - Ego all the way).
It all worked out in the end, and the country IMHO ran better for the six
months we didn't have govt screwing it up (but then I'm an anarchist, so I
would think that).
The NZ system's actually quite sane on paper, you have about half the seats
in parliament won by local first past the post elections for your local MP.
The other half of the seats are awarded via direct proportional votes for
the party. In order to get any seats in parliament a party must either win
5% of the proportional vote, or win a local seat. This system has the
advantage of
A/ Produceing an exact proportional result.
B/ Leaving you with a local MP.
C/ Being very very simple indeed (although we've had a few wrinkles since -
if you're apointed as a list MP of a party, and later leave that party, you
remain an MP even though you weren't voted for per-se, and the proportion is
slightly skewed.)
--
Michael Caldwell
Anathema
> > So when you go out to vote against her, spare a thought for
> > Pauline Hanson and the good she has unwittingly done for race
> > relations in Australia.
>
> I voted for her because I go for the underdog. No-one gives the woman a
> break. Senator Colston ripped off the RSL and got caught but all he got
> was a slap on the wrist. He's still in parliament. What kind of a
> government allows Senators to do such things?
So it is better to have Senators (well...one senator, really) who horde
funds collected from a hostile right-wing minority, who are hostile enough
to send funds?
I go for the underdog myself, but in things like sporting events, when
there's a trophy and some status to be won - not the right to run our
country. In that case I look at their policies, their ideals, their ability
to lead a country.
Hmm..let's see...One Nation's policies:
Why don't the govt. just print more money? Oh, sorry, I think someone
informed Hanson that that wasn't a good idea before it could become policy,
right?
Easytax..
Zero net immigration, although we have a serious lack of skilled people in
the computer industry, and Y2K is a little bit too close for us to start
training people now. Just ignore the fact that for every skilled immigrant
that enters this country 6 new jobs are created, and our economy would fall
into a downward spiral if we didn't have positive net immigration.
Noone gives Pauline Hanson a break for a reason. But I agree that someone
like her had to come out into the open, and her supporters had to come out
into the open, so we know what issues we have to deal with as a country,
before they fester and ruin us.
--
Anathema
--the Kappamaki , a whaling research ship, was currently researching the
question, "How many whales can you catch in one week?"--
Anathema
> However, race has been a dead issue in Australian politics since the
> demise of the ANM in the mid 80s. (Though the RSL are understandably
> upset about Japanese and Vietnamese immigration).
Understandably?
The Vietnamese suffered more than anyone else during the Vietman War -
especially since it was a war primarily caused by the USA's communist
paranoia, (which our govt. supported despite the overwhelming arguments
against the war's very existence)
To discriminate against them and their descendants is hardly
understandable. It is shortsighted and willfully unfair.
I have a lovely quote on this topic if only I can find it...
Got it...
"..she found herself remembering from the Second World War who had once
spat on Wind's feet. To the soldier Wind was Asian therefore he was evil.
That was the sort of simplistic thinking governments encouraged in
soldiers. How else could so many millions of men be persuaded to kill one
another? Perhaps all that made anyone a hero and not a villian was winning,
because it enabled you to impose your idea of right and wrong."
- Darkfall by Isobelle Carmody (don't knock it, it is a young adults
book)
pd3...@my-dejanews.com
National Park. The fact that it is not technically a part of the Park is,
naturally, a technicality. PHYSICALLY the mine site is surrounded by Kakadu
National Park, and hence PHYSICALLY is within the geographic land mass known
as Kakadu National Park. The fact that beauracratic cronies managed to put a
swifty through and zone the land outside the national park is irrelevant. In
PHYSICAL sense, which is what we are all based on (ask Einstein) it is within
the Kakadu National Park.
In article <3618E5...@curtin.edu.au>,
"Revd. Ryan P Arndt" <earn...@curtin.edu.au> wrote:
> Emma of XXXXia wrote:
>
> > Not to mention that Labour will have even more going for it if the
> > Jabiluka mine happens. I just can't believe they're going to mine in a
> > National Park, that is or at least should be World Heritage Listed, so
> > they can sell more uranium to people like the French and Indian
> > governments!
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Jabiluka mine ISN'T in a National
> Park or World Heritage Area. And before you go slagging off at the French
> (who killed some coral) and Indians, remember that the British/Australian
> nuclear tests where the only ones every to kill civillians. (unless you
> count Chernobyl is a "test")
>
> --
> Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Na*i H*ll Sm**f
>
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
T J Wilkinson
<s37...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
> Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
>male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism?
Yes. In NZ over, IIRC, some of Wanganui Polytechnic courses which
were, by all accounts, highly discriminatory of non-Maoris. Although
quite a few pakeha women and some Maoris also complained about it at
the same time.
Tracy(currently racking her brain for dates and more info)
--
tajw...@ihug.co.nz
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tajwileb/
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
T J Wilkinson
Magpie) wrote:
>Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
>introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
>level being a "core promise" either.
>
>This will all happen within the first six months of the new
>parliament. The rest of the term will be spent with the Government
>busily applying the equivalent of a small dairy surplus to the voters,
>in an effort to get re-elected for a third term... because at about
>the three year mark, the GST's effects are going to start to bite.
>Inflation will rise, and all the little practical details of
>administering a GST will start to surface. Not good publicity.
Hold on a moment. I happen to live in NZ and can (just) remember the
introduction of GST. There was a sharp jump in the price level for
that year (also caused by the introduction of fees for many government
services) but it caused no long term inflation. Yes, they did raise
the level from 10% to 12.5% but governments raise the level of all
sorts of taxes.
I haven't heard of any problems with administrating it[1]. Presumably
there are some but they're not big enough to make news. The only one
I can think of is that IRD has started visiting local markets to check
if the retailers are actually paying GST. It's considered a good tax
since it is on everything so people don't put much effort into
avoiding it and it covers more people since even drug dealers and tax
lawyers tend to buy their groceries from the local shop[2]. About the
only problem is that if you buy something directly from overseas
you're meant to wander down to customs and pay them the GST. I doubt
if many people do this.
Overall if you have to have taxes then GST, at least as it is in New
Zealand, is not a terrible thing. Yes, it does apply to everything
the poor buy as it does to the rich but charging people different
amounts for a packet of chips based on their income would cause the
odd administrative difficulty[3]. I assume that XXXX is keeping a
graduated income tax system to ease tax burdens on the poor somewhat.
Tracy
[1] Despite having an aunt who worked for IRD. Before, that is, my
uncle met her. And the cousin who's a mayor was brought up away from
the family so we can't be held responsible for her actions. Oh, damn
it, there's no excuses, my family no longer has any claims to
respectability, no matter how much we support the local pub
singlehandedly, send church groups running, poach fish, etc, etc,
we'll never be able to hold our heads up again, my family's honour is
ruined, sob, sob, sob...
[2] I hope no one objects to the idea that if you're going to have a
tax then it should be applied as fairly as possible and that drug
dealers and tax lawyers are not likely to be desperately in need of a
tax break.
[3] And make vending machines impossible which, for someone who has
survived the odd all-nighter on those things, is rather scary.
Cyclops
> In alt.fan.pratchett
> on Mon, 05 Oct 1998 16:10:14 GMT,> Sorry, not so. Not as the term is understood today,
> and i'm reasonably sure not as it was understood then.
> Socialism is the notion that factories and similar are
> owned by everyone, for the benefit of everyone.
>
> Hitler's lot (and perhaps Musso's too) created a state
> in which factories and similar continued to be owned
> privately, not publically, and the owners enjoyed
> political power commensurate with their wealth rather
> than their numbers.. A system disquietingly like
> what's going on in the US today, in fact. Right down
> to an ever-expanding prisons system being used as a
> cheap-labor pool for business.
>
I have deleted Kheldar's post so I can't check this [1] but I thought that
was his point - i.e. that Hitler's lot were only socialists in that they
called themselves socialists. Or am I thinking of a different post?
IIRC [2] when Goebbels (sp?) joined the National Socialists he believed in
the socialist part of the name and was involved in an early plot to depose
or kill Hitler because he realised that the party wasn't really socialist.
[1] Well there is DejaNews but I can't be bothered!
[2] It's a while since I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich [3]
[3] I was standing at a bus stop reading it and a German girl came along
and started chatting me up! [4] I quickly put the book away!
[4] This doesn't normally happen to me, BTW.
--
Cyclops - NB: Don't forget to take the "p" out of my e-mail address!
NB: Don't e-mail from hotmail.com, aol.com, xoom.com or juno.com addresses
AFP Code version 1.1a AGo-UK d s-: a U+ R F++ !h P++ OS--: C+++ M-- pp! L
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in...@fdhoekstra.nl
>
> In article <362027bf...@news.lspace.org>,
> Jens.Kristo...@image.dk wrote:
> >
> > American democracy - that's a new one. I must admit, I don't consider
> > Merkia a democracy. That is mainly because you don't have a majority
> > of the actual population forming the electorate. It makes it a bit
> > difficult to really know the people's choice rather than just those
> > registered to vote's choice.
> >
> > Mind you, I'm not advocating mandatory voting. I just advocate
> > mandatory registration for voting.
>
> I don't advocate either. There are enough people voting with little or no
> information as it is. Anything that obligates the apathetic to get closer to
> voting is just not a good thing.
>
> By far, the majority of American adults have the right to vote if they want.
> The fact that they choose not to does not invalidate the democratic process.
IIRC many people choose not to vote because there's a
downside to registration as well, getting called for
jury duty or something. I'm afraid that if this is true,
you're getting a far smaller electorate than you should
have, and the worst of it is that the kind of person who
can't afford to lose a day's work is also the kind who
can't afford to vote. Thus one gets a plutocracy.
Richard
in...@fdhoekstra.nl
> Personally, I'm a bit partial to the US system, despite its
> faults. The biggest advantage is that very very often, the legislature
> and the president are of opposing parties (thus few laws get passed,
> and those that do tend to be those approved by both major parties).
> Of course, both parties complain when this happens because they're
> hampered in passing legislation.
This does, though, have the disadvantage that a law that
would actually be a good thing, but happens to come at a
politically wrong moment, is voted out of the house just
to spite the president, or perhaps the other way round.
> I always wonder how those governments where the majority party chooses
> the executive. Doesn't this give them the power to ramrod through all
> the most radical ideas with the minority parties having little
> tempering effect?
Only when one party gets an actual majority of the
votes. In a system where you have more than two major
players, this is actually quite rare. Most often,
governments have to be alliances of two or more parties,
making compromises necessary.
Richard
Kheldar
Margaret Tarbet wrote:
> In alt.fan.pratchett
> on Mon, 05 Oct 1998 16:10:14 GMT,
> Kheldar <cna...@highwayone.net> wrote:
>
> >just as later on Hitler's lot were socialists.
>
> Sorry, not so. Not as the term is understood today,
> and i'm reasonably sure not as it was understood then.
> Socialism is the notion that factories and similar are
> owned by everyone, for the benefit of everyone.
em. At a very simplistic level: and more importantly, 'understood
today?' They didn't understand it today. They understood it then, which
was part of the point of my original post. In the political world and
with the political definitions and connotations that operated at the
time, Mussolini set up a 'socialist' state... though even he was seen to
be bending the rules with it.
Based on the campaigns and policies, and within the definitions of the
time, the NSDAP <fx: looks at the S> were a socialist group. What they
DID of course was slightly out of line with the policies of socialism:
though convincing alot of idealogue socialists of that would have been
hard. Come to that, what the archetypal socialists (Lenin's Russia; by
the time Stalin had appeared, it's hard to support the claim that he was
even trying for socialism by the original rules) actually did was very
different from ideal socialism. Cos life wasn't ideal at the time. I am
personally more[1] sympathetic to the actions of Russian Bolshevism
under Lenin than those of Hitler's Germany, cos the Russians had a war
of extinction going on against them pursued by the armies of several
major Western nations as well as their own Royalists. This put them in
situations where they're idealist policies simply weren't going to
work... Hitler could at least have attempted some of the socialist
elements in his manifestos, rather than just the nationalist ones.
On a slightly broader note, the combinations of D and S had become so
familiar in Weimar and most of the rest of interwar Europe that the
concepts had blurred. To be a socialist was to believe in democracy,
welfare concepts of state government, etc. To be a COMMUNIST was
something else altogether: it connoted the holding of a specific
collection of ideological and practical viewpoints about government
which had been constructed by Engels from the economic analyses of Marx,
and furthered by the political thoughts of Lenin and Trotsky among
others.
Sorry about all of that, once I started writing it all just flowed
straight from the 'Course Notes' section of my mind...
>
> Hitler's lot (and perhaps Musso's too) created a state
> in which factories and similar continued to be owned
> privately, not publically, and the owners enjoyed
> political power commensurate with their wealth rather
> than their numbers..
They did indeed.. but this doesn't make them not socialists... as it was
not socialism but communism (see the name) which dicated communal
ownership... Socialism was developing the welfare ideas that later
appeared in several places in the west... And both Hitler and Mussolini
established (quite impressive, actually) welfare machines for their
nations (short term, admitedly...). Only for the bits of the nation that
they wished well too, of course, but they still set up such
institutions. Even financed them for a while <fx: looks at Tony Blair's
lot...>
> A system disquietingly like
> what's going on in the US today, in fact. Right down
> to an ever-expanding prisons system being used as a
> cheap-labor pool for business.
If you blame that on the Fascists, you don't know British history... Who
came up with the idea of race-based concentration camps for recent
history? We did, in the Boer war...and the Germans picked up the idea
from there. This is not a joke: the race concentration concept can be
directly traced towards the writings of various Boers and German
reporters who witnessed the British camps in the 1890s. Equally so slave
labour of the interned... that's how we settled the Empire.
Sorry for any unintentional ranting, and I was sufficiently relieved to
see that Margaret had even *replied* to me (I was beginning to feel like
the phantom thread-stopper of alt-fan on pratchett (goon reference there
(spot the programmer *8-))) that I went into spiel mode without thinking
about it. I'll go get my coat now, shall I? Yes that one, the trench
coat...
~Chris
[1] note the word 'more' ... I'm still not sympathetic to a group who
knocked off a number of their own supporters for political reasons
during their first two years in power...
Kheldar
Cyclops wrote:
<snip margaret's post replied above>
> I have deleted Kheldar's post so I can't check this [1] but I thought that
> was his point - i.e. that Hitler's lot were only socialists in that they
> called themselves socialists.
Almost... there was an element of that, but also and more predominently the
fact that *by*the*lights*of*their*times* they could be legitimately called
socialists, at least in intention. They din't actually do it, but then if
parties who didn't do what their name suggested weren't called by that name
English politics would be a very confusing place....
All right a MORE confusing place.. happy now? *8-) See above for greater
detail.
> Or am I thinking of a different post?
> IIRC [2] when Goebbels (sp?) joined the National Socialists he believed in
> the socialist part of the name and was involved in an early plot to depose
> or kill Hitler because he realised that the party wasn't really socialist.
this is if I recall true...
> [2] It's a while since I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Wooooooooo!! possibly the most ponderous work of propaganda ever written *8-)
I loved it, partly because I read it at the same time as reading AJPTaylor's
wonderful 'The Causes of WWII', which was the opposite in every way (it was
fast paced, well written, scholarly rather than journalistic, contraversial
rather than conventional, impartial, and about a quarter of the length. Also
partly rhetorical guff, but very FUN rhetorical guff). Shirer's Berlin
Diaries, on the other hand, written for himself and not the great Clean Merkin
Public whose perceived viewpoints so badly distorted his work in TRAFOTTR, are
one of the great works of our century, very well written, very detailed, very
accurate and fascinating as the personal record of a man who knew all the
players in a period of historical gambits unmatched even by the manouevres of
the cold war, and who lived in Berlin through all the headlines of 1934-40.
Sorry, I rather liked them.
> [3] I was standing at a bus stop reading it and a German girl came along
> and started chatting me up! [4] I quickly put the book away!
wise *8-)
> [4] This doesn't normally happen to me, BTW.
it NEVER happens to me.. but then I've been with the same person since I was
16 *8-)
Kheldar
Anathema wrote:
> > that's kinda like how the nazi party were the "National Socialists" - yet
> > conducted Communist and Socialist purges straight after they got power,
> > were paranoid of communism/socialism, and worked contrary to all
> socialist
> > principles.
Zigactly. Though those were party purges: as above, socialism didn't mean
communism as you have implied above. The purges were not directed solely at
C/S; two 'Nationalist' parties who refused to be subsumed by Nazism were
arrested en masse in '37 [1]
~Chris
[1] Not a very big mass... something like 20/30 ppl each party...
Kheldar
in...@fdhoekstra.nl wrote:
>
> This does, though, have the disadvantage that a law that
> would actually be a good thing, but happens to come at a
> politically wrong moment, is voted out of the house just
> to spite the president, or perhaps the other way round.
Which happens a hell of a lot: recent american history prior to Clinton
displays it quite well. So did Lincoln's pre-war experience of politics,
come to that...
~Chris
Kheldar
Anathema wrote:
> (which our govt. supported despite the overwhelming arguments
> against the war's very existence)
Along with the British, French and several other governments (would you believe, the
SA's even got a bit of it) who didn't at *any*time* have special forces in Viet Nam. Or
Laos and Cambodia. Not at all. Ever.
Honest.
~Chris
Kheldar
Barry Vaughan wrote:
<snippage>
> >> a story of a newspaper in the US that was closed down for printing
> >> an article voicing concern over the number of Jews in the
> >> foreign office, asking whether they could really make unbiased
> >> decisions towards the middle-east and why no investigation
> >> had been made into why a manager had been allowed to hire people
> >> only from his own ethnic/religious group, something that
> >> would have been investigated had a white male employed only
> >> white males.
>
<minor snip>
> I would agree to a point, if you add the words: As long as it
> is not directly intended to encourage violence against an
> innocent person/group.
>
Indeed. The point is here though: while technically racism is racism is racism,
in practice in the west, racism can only be directed from WASP to 'other ethnic
group'... somthing like chauvanism being an effectively male preserve in the
equal opportunities structures of the west. More on both later...
> Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
> >male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism? Why is
> >it that racism can only occur to minority groups?
>
> I'm pretty sure the law covers all incidents of racism, it's just
> that there will be fewer non-whites making decisions on who to
> employ, therefore fewer whites rejected by non-whites and many
> fewer cases of suspected racism where a white person is the victim.
>
> I have heard of cases though.
There are cases indeed. Almost none with the caveat 'successful'. There have
been lots of cases of the occurance though, many well documented, where the
discriminatrix took legal advice and was told they didn't have a snowballs
chance in a supernova of getting it carried through. Even more dramatically in
the case of 'sexism' though this one has finally seen a coupla breaks recently.
Even the situation dramatised in 'Philadelphia' (brilliant film btw... Tom
Hanks CAN act, he just usually doesn't[1]) brings up this one.
> <snippage>
> > What if you can't find any black people qualified for the job?
> >do you hire unqualified blacks instead of a qualified white? These rules
> >are blatantly racist! Why should a black man get precedence for a job?
>
> It's supposed to counter racism by restoring the balance.
<rant>
Ah, positive discrimination. A big and rapidly growing problem in England,
where for example I knew a guy who happened to look Indian (he was actually
not, but that's co-incidence) and used it to travel free on English public
Transport for 3 years while I knew him: in taht time he paid two penalty fairs,
cos every other time he got accosted/stopped/checked/etc he shouted 'racism'
very loudly and ticket attendents, and even regularly policemen, backed off
rapidly because it was more than their job was worth. There are more dramative
cases.
And then there was the whole 'affermative action' thing prompted by the ERA
campaigns, which spread very rapidly. It's not enough that women be given the
chance to be judged on their merits for employment positions. There must be
active enforcement of policies that ensure that they get the job whatever. This
is not a PC statement, but is is a pretty accurate summation of what actually
has happened for the last 15 odd years in UK/USA. It is still happening...
there were two high-profile cases (on got to the Hague) here recently, where a
wasp male was able to eventually prove beyond reasonable doubt that he had been
rejected for a post for which he was ideally qualified in favour of a younger,
less experienced, less qualified and less competent candidate, on the grounds
that the company could not be seen to emply him when there was a woman on offer
(in the case which went to the Hague, a black woman.. he managed to get
substantial damages on three causes, sexist/agist/racist. First case where
something has actually been done effectively about this one).
</rant>
Sorry. Positive discrimination, on ANY grounds get's my goat. I believe in
equal opportunity, not equality. Equality is where the communists missed it:
people aren't equal. They do, however, deserve equality of opportunity to be
what they are. Having been an ethnic minority for most of my life in a country
where my nationality were for years the 'colonial oppressors' and having been
treated with great courtesy and respect for who I was, regardless of race
issues, I feel rather strongly about it. As much so the 'feminist' issue,
because I examined the legal state of protection in the UK in 1993 when I first
came back to live here and discovered that I was living in a female chauvinist
state [2]. This annoyed me and I've been ranting ever since. It is not quite
the case any longer: but even now, you try get industrial or workplace action
on the basis of sexual harrassment of a junior by an execuitive female and
you'll get laughed, even as they're admitting that it happens. They just say
'We can't do a thing, or we'll be branded as anti-feminine'. I have since
investigated workplace practice codes in some detail, and found that in a
disturbing number of them a male worker has absolutely NO statutory protection,
not only if a woman harrasses him, but if she accuses him. Whether he did or
did not harrass, he's still screwed (pardon the pun) because effectively the
rules, geared to protecting vulnerable women, pretty much prevent him from
being believed if he disagrees with her.
Apologies again. I guess I didn't properly disengage rant mode.
</RANT>
O right, ok, I'm normal now. Ish. IGMC.. YTOOT
~Chris
Sam
tj...@student.canterburyDOTcoDOTnz (T J Wilkinson) put digit to
keypad, in order to say:
>On Sun, 04 Oct 1998 06:04:49 GMT, mag...@megabitch.tm (Meg, the
>Magpie) wrote:
>>Either way, Australia will *definitely* have a Goods and Services Tax
>>introduced as soon as possible. Oh, and I wouldn't count on the "10%"
>>level being a "core promise" either.
>>
>>This will all happen within the first six months of the new
>>parliament. The rest of the term will be spent with the Government
>>busily applying the equivalent of a small dairy surplus to the voters,
>>in an effort to get re-elected for a third term... because at about
>>the three year mark, the GST's effects are going to start to bite.
>>Inflation will rise, and all the little practical details of
>>administering a GST will start to surface. Not good publicity.
>
>Hold on a moment. I happen to live in NZ and can (just) remember the
>introduction of GST. There was a sharp jump in the price level for
>that year (also caused by the introduction of fees for many government
>services) but it caused no long term inflation. Yes, they did raise
>the level from 10% to 12.5% but governments raise the level of all
>sorts of taxes.
>
We in the UK call it VAT (Value Added Tax) and it was at 15% and
jumped to 17.5%. Again, this caused no long term inflation, merely
a blip.
>I haven't heard of any problems with administrating it[1]. Presumably
>there are some but they're not big enough to make news. The only one
>I can think of is that IRD has started visiting local markets to check
>if the retailers are actually paying GST. It's considered a good tax
>since it is on everything so people don't put much effort into
>avoiding it and it covers more people since even drug dealers and tax
>lawyers tend to buy their groceries from the local shop[2]. About the
>only problem is that if you buy something directly from overseas
>you're meant to wander down to customs and pay them the GST. I doubt
>if many people do this.
>
>Overall if you have to have taxes then GST, at least as it is in New
>Zealand, is not a terrible thing. Yes, it does apply to everything
>the poor buy as it does to the rich but charging people different
>amounts for a packet of chips based on their income would cause the
>odd administrative difficulty[3]. I assume that XXXX is keeping a
>graduated income tax system to ease tax burdens on the poor somewhat.
>
VAT or GST is a regressive tax and shifts the burden of taxes from
the wealthy who can afford to pay them to the poor who cannot. It
is not a good idea. Here in Britain, the number of elderly people
who died from the cold the year they introduced VAT on fuel was
a fair increase on previous years.
>
>Tracy
>
>[1] Despite having an aunt who worked for IRD. Before, that is, my
>uncle met her. And the cousin who's a mayor was brought up away from
>the family so we can't be held responsible for her actions. Oh, damn
>it, there's no excuses, my family no longer has any claims to
>respectability, no matter how much we support the local pub
>singlehandedly, send church groups running, poach fish, etc, etc,
>we'll never be able to hold our heads up again, my family's honour is
>ruined, sob, sob, sob...
>
>[2] I hope no one objects to the idea that if you're going to have a
>tax then it should be applied as fairly as possible and that drug
>dealers and tax lawyers are not likely to be desperately in need of a
>tax break.
>
I object to the idea that tax lawyers can fiddle the system and that
drug dealers exist at all. If laws are being broken, these people
should be put in jail, not taxed because they buy groceries.
>[3] And make vending machines impossible which, for someone who has
>survived the odd all-nighter on those things, is rather scary.
>
No it wouldn't, the machines would just have to be wired into a
big government computer (hereafter known as "BBroth") which would
hold details of everyone's earnings over the previous tax year.
You would carry an identicard with you which would need to be
inserted into the machine before vend. To prevent people cheating
and using someone else's card[4] the machines would also have a
retinal scanner.
[4] The poor could make a mint!
--
"Sometimes I might get drunk
walk like a duck
and smell like a skunk"
B Dylan
Margaret Tarbet
on Mon, 5 Oct 1998 13:44:26 +1000,
Rodney Rutherfurd <s37...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
> ... Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
>male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism?
>...
In the US? Yes indeed. His name was Bakke, and his
lawsuit essentially put paid to the concept of
affirmative action. It also, mirabile dictu, dropped
the number of black and hispanic students in
professional schools right back to 1950s levels.
Equal opportunity in adulthood is meaningless unless
there's been equal opportunity through childhood. As
W. Edwards Deming pointed out, systems act as filters,
accelerating the progress of favored individuals and
groups and retarding the progress of those not favored.
Exceptional individuals can overcome much of this
filtering action, but by definition few people are
exceptional. As one person put it "Eq uality isn't
when a female Einstein gets tenure, it's when a female
schlemiel does just as well professionally as a male
schlemiel."
Individual ability is much less a determinant of
success than is the attitude of the system toward the
individual.
--
Margaret Tarbet / tar...@swaa.com / Cambridge Massachusetts USA
---------------------------------------------------------------
"You can't trust folk songs. They always sneak up on you."
Granny Weatherwax, in _Witches Abroad_
Suzi
>
> IIRC many people choose not to vote because there's a
> downside to registration as well, getting called for
> jury duty or something. I'm afraid that if this is true,
> you're getting a far smaller electorate than you should
> have, and the worst of it is that the kind of person who
> can't afford to lose a day's work is also the kind who
> can't afford to vote. Thus one gets a plutocracy.
But there is also the view that in order to benefit from society people
should also contribute *to* society... if they are not prepared to "join
in", why should they still get the benefits?
Suzi
--
(afpetitesister to Ross, Peter, Lottie & Selina and afpcousin to Thomas)
"You could turn it into Suzi, and it sounded as though you danced on
tables for a living.." Soul Music http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~gidnsuzi/
New to afp? mailto:new...@lspace.org and browse http://www.lspace.org/
in...@fdhoekstra.nl
>
> On Mon, 5 Oct 1998 00:52:38 +0100, Miq <Mi...@kew1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Jens Kristoffer Nielsen <Jens.Kristoffer.Niels
> >e...@image.dk> wrote
> >>On 3 Oct 1998 23:22:16 GMT, "8 ' Flesh Eating Dragon"
> >><morgan...@netyp.com.au> wrote:
> >>>Jens Kristoffer Nielson wrote:
> >
> >a democracy, Pauline Hanson would now hold the balance of power?
> No, usually the extremists are left totally without influence. That
> has been the case both in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany. If you
> choose to cooperate with an extremist party, you loose voters the next
> time.
And in the Netherlands. We had a racist party in the
parliament last time, one seat. Luckily we are blessed
with an absolute bloody idiot of a racist party-leader,
who, quite according to expectation, went on to make a
wonderful fool of himself, interrupting debates for
the mere sake of interrupting, voting against anything
the Green Party votes for even if it's according to his
own policy as well, that kind of thing.
He wasn't voted back in this time. Big surprise :-)
Richard
in...@fdhoekstra.nl
>
> in...@fdhoekstra.nl wrote:
> >
> > IIRC many people choose not to vote because there's a
> > downside to registration as well, getting called for
> > jury duty or something. I'm afraid that if this is true,
> > you're getting a far smaller electorate than you should
> > have, and the worst of it is that the kind of person who
> > can't afford to lose a day's work is also the kind who
> > can't afford to vote. Thus one gets a plutocracy.
>
> But there is also the view that in order to benefit from
> society people should also contribute *to* society... if
> they are not prepared to "join in", why should they still
> get the benefits?
That's a _very_ dangerous argument. It sounds reasonable,
of course, but who's to say that he who runs a whelk stall
he has to attend every day, ten hours a day, in order not
to go broke, contributes less to society than, say, a pen-
pusher at a government office? And the next step up would
be to say that because the whelk-seller contributes only
0.0000001% to the country's GNP, he doesn't contribute to
society. Or that people who can't find a job don't. And,
obviously, being a mother and keeping house aren't jobs.
So women shouldn't be allowed to vote. That's not how it
starts, of course, but it might be how it ends.
Besides, the whole point of a true democracy is that, to
as close an approximation as possible, _everybody's_
opinion counts, just as much as anyone else's.
Richard
Suzi
>
> Suzi wrote:
> > But there is also the view that in order to benefit from
> > society people should also contribute *to* society... if
> > they are not prepared to "join in", why should they still
> > get the benefits?
>
> That's a _very_ dangerous argument. It sounds reasonable,
> of course, but who's to say that he who runs a whelk stall
> he has to attend every day, ten hours a day, in order not
> to go broke, contributes less to society than, say, a pen-
> pusher at a government office? And the next step up would
> be to say that because the whelk-seller contributes only
> 0.0000001% to the country's GNP, he doesn't contribute to
> society. Or that people who can't find a job don't. And,
> obviously, being a mother and keeping house aren't jobs.
> So women shouldn't be allowed to vote. That's not how it
> starts, of course, but it might be how it ends.
> Besides, the whole point of a true democracy is that, to
> as close an approximation as possible, _everybody's_
> opinion counts, just as much as anyone else's.
<g> That was not what I meant... what I meant was that people who aren't
prepared to be put up for jury service and other "socially responsible
duties" should not whinge about not being able to vote! (And people who
don't vote shouldn't whinge about what they get to govern them - but
that's a different arguement <g>)
in...@fdhoekstra.nl
That _is_ exactly what I meant; for some people there just
is no such choice. I mean, listening to one lawyer talk for
five minutes and the being able to decide "guilty" may be
acceptable for most people, but for some, especially for the
self-employed, the risk of running into a trial that takes
days, during which they're not supposed to be influenced by
newspapers and whatnot, may simply not be affordable.
_I_ can easily say "sorry, guys, but it's the law - see you
next week", but if you lose your market-share that way, you
can't say that. My argument is not about lazy, no-good, bums,
it's about people who _have_ to work. These are most often
very socially responsible, productive people.
> (And people who don't vote shouldn't whinge about what they
> get to govern them - but that's a different arguement <g>)
Since that is a matter of choice, I quite agree with you
there. In fact, I've been known to use this argument myself
against the usual political whiners.
It is, in fact, one more reason to make sure that everybody
can afford to vote.
Richard
in...@fdhoekstra.nl
>
> In article <361A14...@fdhoekstra.nl>, in...@fdhoekstra.nl
> generously decided to share with us:
>
> > is no such choice. I mean, listening to one lawyer talk for
> > five minutes and the being able to decide "guilty" may be
> > acceptable for most people, but for some, especially for the
> > self-employed, the risk of running into a trial that takes
> > days, during which they're not supposed to be influenced by
> > newspapers and whatnot, may simply not be affordable.
>
> grounds of self-employment.. all you have to do is notify the clerk of
> the court that fulfillment of your Jury Duty would cause undue stress to
> your business, and you are exempted.. similarly, you can also be
> exempted if you have a holiday booked within the likely time of the
> trial..
That, of course, would be a great improvement. I still
think, though, that it's a Bad Thing to put any but the
most necessary conditions on what is, after all, the very
basis of democracy.
Richard
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
in...@fdhoekstra.nl wrote:
> Elocutu...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >
> > In article <362027bf...@news.lspace.org>,
> > Jens.Kristo...@image.dk wrote:
> > >
> > > American democracy - that's a new one. I must admit, I don't consider
> > > Merkia a democracy. That is mainly because you don't have a majority
> > > of the actual population forming the electorate. It makes it a bit
> > > difficult to really know the people's choice rather than just those
> > > registered to vote's choice.
> > >
> > > Mind you, I'm not advocating mandatory voting. I just advocate
> > > mandatory registration for voting.
> >
> > I don't advocate either. There are enough people voting with little or no
> > information as it is. Anything that obligates the apathetic to get closer
to
> > voting is just not a good thing.
> >
> > By far, the majority of American adults have the right to vote if they want.
> > The fact that they choose not to does not invalidate the democratic process.
>
> downside to registration as well, getting called for
> jury duty or something. I'm afraid that if this is true,
> you're getting a far smaller electorate than you should
> have, and the worst of it is that the kind of person who
> can't afford to lose a day's work is also the kind who
> can't afford to vote. Thus one gets a plutocracy.
It used to be that some states took their jury pools from the voting records.
The Supreme Court banned this in the late 1970s. I don't know of any place
that still does it.
--Elocutus
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Sam
put digit to keypad, in order to say:
>Gid Holyoake wrote:
Surely having a fair trial is part of a democracy. If so
you require a jury[1]. If there was no compulsion for jury
service whatever, then juries would be empty.
However to make jury service a condition of electoral
registration is not right. Both should be mandatory[4]
without a connection between the two.
Sam
[1] Unless you think that judges[2] can do the job
without?
[2] In England, pretty much all white elderly males
of the nobblier classes [3]
[3] Not exactly representative?
[4] Self-employed / genuine psychotics exempted...
Jens Kristoffer Nielsen
(Sam) wrote:
>Surely having a fair trial is part of a democracy. If so
>you require a jury[1]. If there was no compulsion for jury
>service whatever, then juries would be empty.
Why? We don't have mandatory jury service, juries are pulled from a
list submitted by the parties, all on the list are volunteers. An
attempt is of course made to make the jury representative, but that is
of course a lot easier in a mono-cultural society[1].
/Kristoffer
[1] Denmark is about 90% Danes and 10% "something". Most of the
"something" comes from other parts of the EU.
Cyclops
> Kheldar <cna...@highwayone.net> wrote:
>
> >...And then there was the whole 'affermative action' thing prompted by the ERA
> >campaigns, which spread very rapidly. It's not enough that women be given the
> >chance to be judged on their merits for employment positions. There must be
> >active enforcement of policies that ensure that they get the job whatever. This
> >is not a PC statement, but is is a pretty accurate summation of what actually
>
> My goodness! Fifteen years is a long time. The
> middle executive ranks of companies must just be
> overflowing with all those unfairly-hired women, eh?
>
No. BUT...
The most astoundingly stupid [1] Civil Servant I have ever met happens to
be a woman who freely admits she got promoted to the point where she was a
British diplomat in Barbados purely because she applied for jobs when
there weren't enough women in high places in Civil Service departments.
[1] CS driving a car: "But I don't want to go up the A11"
Passenger: "That says 'All Routes'!"
She also spent an entire week trying to get journalists to go to
Bangladesh and said that instead they wanted to go to the Arab-Israeli
peace talks in Lisbon for which she was also doing some work. The peace
talks were actually in Madrid.
CS after a hurricane flattened a large part of Jamaica: "They want a
Land Rover. Do you think they need one?"
Worrying aten't it.
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
tar...@swaa.com wrote:
> In alt.fan.pratchett
> on Tue, 06 Oct 1998 09:28:06 GMT,
> Kheldar <cna...@highwayone.net> wrote:
>
ERA
> >campaigns, which spread very rapidly. It's not enough that women be given the
> >chance to be judged on their merits for employment positions. There must be
> >active enforcement of policies that ensure that they get the job whatever.
This
> >is not a PC statement, but is is a pretty accurate summation of what actually
>
> My goodness! Fifteen years is a long time. The
> middle executive ranks of companies must just be
> overflowing with all those unfairly-hired women, eh?
Having worked at seven mid-to-Fortune-500-sized firms in the last five years,
I have to say that middle management seems pretty evenly mixed. Beyond that,
the women and the men seem pretty equally incompetent.[1]
--Elocutus
[1]Chalk this last bit of cynicism up to the fact that I am on my last day on
my current job, having quit in disgust.
Darin Johnson
duty" notion, it might need re-evaluation. This was a very common
idea held in the US, but I learned somewhat recently that at least
some states use drivers license registrations and other methods to
augment the lists.
So, I'd strongly suggest that before someone neglects to register to
vote for that reason, that they actually check with their registrar of
voters to see how the lists are really created. (of course, if you're
in a region with a high voter registration rate, there may be little
need to augment the lists)
--
Darin Johnson
da...@usa.net.delete_me
Darin Johnson
Really? Any examples? Of course, this is tempered by political views
too; some may think the democrats had great laws that were killed by
Reagan, others may think the republicans were coming up with great
laws only to have Clinton kill them. Personally, a lot of people
probably think some proposed laws are more important than they really
are in the big picture. Far more damage comes from passing laws than
from not passing laws.
I think the US works pretty well on autopilot, and lots of minor
adjustments aren't really necessary. Yeah there are lots of problems,
but I don't trust any political party enough to give them carte
blanche to fix them. Even moderate centrist politicians are hamfisted
when it comes to fixing things. If a program isn't working, it tends
to get abolished instead of reformed; if a program is needed, a giant
behemoth is created.
(Actually, I'm waiting for the day when someone proposes defends their
budgetary choices by showing the actual math involved. To often we
hear things like "my proposal saves us one billion dollars a year,
while my opponent's proposal will cost us that amount". Obviously,
one or both of the parties have done the math wrong, or are working
from different base assumptions. The math never gets shown and the
assumptions aren't laid out. So you have to rely on trust.)
--
Darin Johnson
da...@usa.net.delete_me
Darin Johnson
> Equal opportunity in adulthood is meaningless unless
> there's been equal opportunity through childhood.
Which was the problem with the way "traditional" affirmative action
has been carried out in the US. More effort was spent on quotas in
colleges and jobs, than in improving the situation of early schooling
and childhood.
Too often I get the feeling that "the ends justify the means" is used
as an excuse for having quotas. If the means are racist, how can one
have confidence in the ends?
Affirmative action should have done more with outreach programs,
improvement of schools in traditionally black regions, scholarships,
etc. Sure, if someone hired a white male who was less qualified than
other non white male candidates, then put pressure on that company;
but that's not the same as applying quotas. If the same amount of
money had been spent in other ways, how would things look today given
the same time frame?
(I'm not opposed to spending the tax money, I just want to see it
spent effectively.)
> As one person put it "Equality isn't
> when a female Einstein gets tenure, it's when a female
> schlemiel does just as well professionally as a male
> schlemiel."
There's just too many schlemiels :-) The problems arise when this
isn't the case. "Quotas" don't care about Einsteins or schlemiels!
Quotas care about numbers only. Quotas don't tell hiring managers to
prefer disadvantaged groups when all else is equal, they tell the
hiring managers "xx% blacks, no exceptions". That sort of attitude
can't ease racial tensions, it only increases resentment.
--
Darin Johnson
da...@usa.net.delete_me
Darin Johnson
> > To discriminate against them and their descendants is hardly
> > understandable. It is shortsighted and willfully unfair.
>
> Its easy for those of us who weren't there to say that. I think you would
> have quite a different attitude if you were there, at constant risk to
> your own life, and had lost close friends in the conflict.
But when does it end? Keep up the hate forever, for 20 years, 10,
what? I know people that still feel we shouldn't be trading with
Germany or Japan. Yugoslavia was going along just fine for decades,
and when it broke up all the suppressed indignities of WWII and
earlier bubbled back to the surface. Hate takes an active effort to
eliminate.
On the other hand, hindsight is 20-20. People today can criticize
Vietman, but people today have different ideas and a different set of
facts to work with. It's silly to criticize belief in the domino
effect when looking back, because at that time it was a very plausible
idea.
--
Darin Johnson
da...@usa.net.delete_me
Miq
>In alt.fan.pratchett
>on Tue, 06 Oct 1998 08:23:23 GMT,
>Kheldar <cna...@highwayone.net> wrote:
>
>>em. At a very simplistic level: and more importantly, 'understood
>>today?' They didn't understand it today. They understood it then, which
>>was part of the point of my original post.
>
>talking about it today, and by today's definition of
>the term "socialist", the nazis weren't socialist.
>And afaik the definition hasn't changed in the interim
>65 or so years.
I think the evidence rather says that it has. The Nazis were
socialist - well, okay, they were a party with 'socialist' in the
name, and they put that name on the ballot paper - which IMO gives
them a pretty good claim to define the word. If they weren't
socialist by today's standards, then that in itself kinda implies
that the word *has* changed.
>Sorry, you mean they _called_ themselves socialist? I
>quite agree with that, they did _call_ themselves
>socialist, for the reasons Anathema gave: socialism
>was deservedly popular. But in fact they weren't "a
>socialist group" because they didn't do what socialist
>groups do: hold the means of production in common.
Um - no - that's communism - the difference has already been
covered in this thread.
>Cooperative societies, such as the one i belong to that
>operates the supermarket i shop at, are socialist: we
>ourselves own the market at which we shop.
But do you only buy from communally-owned farms, and only earn
your money in communally-owned organisations? No? Then you're
just a part of the great fabric that Capitalism, by dint of its
immense versatility, has no problem in accommodating on its own
terms.
>>...Socialism was developing the welfare ideas that later
>>appeared in several places in the west... And both Hitler and Mussolini
>>established (quite impressive, actually) welfare machines for their
>>nations (short term, admitedly...). Only for the bits of the nation that
>>they wished well too, of course, but they still set up such
>>institutions. Even financed them for a while <fx: looks at Tony Blair's
>>lot...>
>
>Yes, that is as close as they came to being socialist.
>Which isn't very close, unless you want to claim that
>the New Deal US was socialist!
And you're still claiming that the word hasn't changed its
meaning?
> "Bad news, Newt, the pope's a liberal!")
(Now *there's* a word whose real meaning has been *completely*
abandoned - certainly in the USA, and to a lesser extent in the
UK...)
--
Miq - afpiance to the astute MEG
Afpcode 1.1: AEn/Hu d+ s: a U+ R+ F++ !h P--- OSD-:- ?C M- pp
L+ c B+ Cn? PT Pu64 5! !X MT e++>++ r% y- end
Miq
>GST = Goods and Services Tax - a value added tax on all goods and
>services imposed at point of sale.
So - on behalf of the entire population of Europe - what's the big
deal? We've had this tax for decades; it's not particularly
difficult to understand or administer, and it's no more onerous,
on balance, than any other tax.
--
Miq - afpiance to the confident MEG
Margaret Tarbet
on Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:38:43 +0100,
Miq <Mi...@kew1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I think the evidence rather says that it has. The Nazis were
>socialist - well, okay, they were a party with 'socialist' in the
>name, and they put that name on the ballot paper - which IMO gives
>them a pretty good claim to define the word. If they weren't
>socialist by today's standards, then that in itself kinda implies
>that the word *has* changed.
Mike, it doesn't imply anything of the sort! There
are no Truth In Advertising laws covering political
parties!. Do you really believe that "socialist" has
changed from "megalomaniacal genocidal nutters" to its
current meaning in 65 years? Or that any evil group
would call themselves by a truthfully descriptive name
rather than an innocuous or even attractive one? Pull
the other one!
>>Sorry, you mean they _called_ themselves socialist? I
>>quite agree with that, they did _call_ themselves
>>socialist, for the reasons Anathema gave: socialism
>>was deservedly popular. But in fact they weren't "a
>>socialist group" because they didn't do what socialist
>>groups do: hold the means of production in common.
>
>Um - no - that's communism - the difference has already been
>covered in this thread.
Do you think that Albert Einstein might possibly have
understood what "socialism" meant? Writing in 1949
(Monthly Review, New York, May 1949), he said
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate
these grave evils [i.e., of capitalism], namely through
the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied
by an educational system which would be oriented toward
social goals. In such an economy, the means of
production are owned by society itself ..."
That's in 1949. FOUR years after the curtain was
brought down on the genocidal NSDAP road show, SIXTEEN
years after they came to power. The meaning Einstein
understood for the term then, you will note, is the
same one i understand by it today, 49 years later.
The meaning has not changed.
>
>>Cooperative societies, such as the one i belong to that
>>operates the supermarket i shop at, are socialist: we
>>ourselves own the market at which we shop.
>
>But do you only buy from communally-owned farms, and only earn
>your money in communally-owned organisations? No? Then you're
>just a part of the great fabric that Capitalism, by dint of its
>immense versatility, has no problem in accommodating on its own
>terms.
And your point is? I am talking about that one
organisation, nothing more. It is socialist in its
principles and way-of-being. To the extent possible,
we buy from cooperative rather than capitalist
wholesalers, and they buy, to the extent possible, from
cooperative farm organisations. To the extent it is
possible in the relentlessly capitalist US, we are a
socialist organism.
>>Yes, that is as close as they came to being socialist.
>>Which isn't very close, unless you want to claim that
>>the New Deal US was socialist!
>
>And you're still claiming that the word hasn't changed its
>meaning?
Yes, i'm doing exactly that. Nobody but the mad
right-wingers would consider the US to have been
socialist under the New Deal -- the means of production
were owned by private capital --- that's what Einstein
was worried about!
>
>> "Bad news, Newt, the pope's a liberal!")
>
>(Now *there's* a word whose real meaning has been *completely*
>abandoned - certainly in the USA, and to a lesser extent in the
>UK...)
Oh yes, and what's that meaning?
Barry Vaughan
<tar...@swaa.com> writes
>In alt.fan.pratchett>>...And then there was the whole 'affermative action' thing prompted by the ERA
>>campaigns, which spread very rapidly. It's not enough that women be given the
>>chance to be judged on their merits for employment positions. There must be
>>active enforcement of policies that ensure that they get the job whatever. This
>>is not a PC statement, but is is a pretty accurate summation of what actually
>
>My goodness! Fifteen years is a long time. The
>middle executive ranks of companies must just be
>overflowing with all those unfairly-hired women, eh?
>
I believe what he's refering to is how the changes
in the law over the past fifteen years have led to
that situation.
Barry.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes I lie awake at night, thinking that we're dead.
That all this is just Death's last joke. That we're living
one last dream before the lights go out.
And then I think, so what's new?
-Death, The Time of your life - Neil Gaiman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ba...@samael.demon.co.uk
Barry Vaughan
<tar...@swaa.com> writes
>In alt.fan.pratchett
>on Mon, 5 Oct 1998 13:44:26 +1000,
>Individual ability is much less a determinant of
>success than is the attitude of the system toward the
>individual.
Ability aside, attitude of the individual is more
important than attitude of the system.
Barry Vaughan
<cna...@highwayone.net> writes
>
>
>Barry Vaughan wrote:
>
>
>Indeed. The point is here though: while technically racism is racism is racism,
>in practice in the west, racism can only be directed from WASP to 'other ethnic
>group'... somthing like chauvanism being an effectively male preserve in the
>equal opportunities structures of the west. More on both later...
>
>
>> Now I wounder, does anyone know an instance where a white
>> >male of caucasian decent has successfully filed a claim of racism? Why is
>> >it that racism can only occur to minority groups?
>>
>> I'm pretty sure the law covers all incidents of racism, it's just
>> that there will be fewer non-whites making decisions on who to
>> employ, therefore fewer whites rejected by non-whites and many
>> fewer cases of suspected racism where a white person is the victim.
>>
>> I have heard of cases though.
>
>There are cases indeed. Almost none with the caveat 'successful'.
There are actually very few successful cases of actions against
discrimination. I think the difference in the two situations
is that most white people that think they're victims won't bother
to complain.
>There have
>been lots of cases of the occurance though, many well documented, where the
>discriminatrix took legal advice and was told they didn't have a snowballs
>chance in a supernova of getting it carried through. Even more dramatically in
>the case of 'sexism' though this one has finally seen a coupla breaks recently.
>Even the situation dramatised in 'Philadelphia' (brilliant film btw... Tom
>Hanks CAN act, he just usually doesn't[1]) brings up this one.
>
>> <snippage>
>> > What if you can't find any black people qualified for the job?
>> >do you hire unqualified blacks instead of a qualified white? These rules
>> >are blatantly racist! Why should a black man get precedence for a job?
>>
>> It's supposed to counter racism by restoring the balance.
>
><rant>
>
>Ah, positive discrimination.
An oxymoron in my opinion.
I'm not supporting positive discrimination, just pointing
out that the reason behind it is not rascist, just poorly
thought out.
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
> Understandably?
>
> The Vietnamese suffered more than anyone else during the Vietman War -
> especially since it was a war primarily caused by the USA's communist
> paranoia, (which our govt. supported despite the overwhelming arguments
> against the war's very existence)
I wouldn't call it paranioa. The USA had a legitimate fear, remembering
that the Japanese had rolled through SE Asia barely twenty years earlier.
In the aftermath, people said that the "domino effect" was BS because the
communists got Vietnam, but didn't then push on into Thailand or
Malaysia- but they conveniently forgot that one of the reasons for this
was that they wouldn't want another ten year war to get it.
However, if I had been a soldier fighting to protect either my own or a
foriegn country, I would consider it a slap in the face for the
government to then relax immigration laws and allow the enemy into the
country. (Remember that the "enemy" where Chinese and Vietnamese, not
just Chinese).
> To discriminate against them and their descendants is hardly
> understandable. It is shortsighted and willfully unfair.
Its easy for those of us who weren't there to say that. I think you would
have quite a different attitude if you were there, at constant risk to
your own life, and had lost close friends in the conflict.
--
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
Na*i H*ll Sm**f
Revd. Ryan P Arndt
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Jabiluka Mine IS inside the Kakadu
> National Park. The fact that it is not technically a part of the Park is,
> naturally, a technicality. PHYSICALLY the mine site is surrounded by Kakadu
> National Park, and hence PHYSICALLY is within the geographic land mass known
> as Kakadu National Park. The fact that beauracratic cronies managed to put a
> swifty through and zone the land outside the national park is irrelevant. In
> PHYSICAL sense, which is what we are all based on (ask Einstein) it is within
> the Kakadu National Park.
Not quite. It is within the area most people associate with Kakadu, and
it is surrounded on three sides by the National Park. It also forms part
of the local eco-system which Kakadu was established to protect. Only the
third is a legitimate argument against the Jabiluka mine. But the mine is
certainly not within the borders of the park. To say that it is is like
saying that Papua New Guinea is part of Indonesia.
Rodney Rutherfurd
> In the US? Yes indeed. His name was Bakke, and his
> lawsuit essentially put paid to the concept of
> affirmative action. It also, mirabile dictu, dropped
> the number of black and hispanic students in
> professional schools right back to 1950s levels.
Well that's two I've heard about. Just think, two suits out of the many
hundreds of thousands of successful black against white suits. I'm not
saying that minority groups should not be allowed to fight against racism,
I just think that everyone should have the same right. The way I figure
it, if you hire a person due to anything about their nationality, you're
racist. If you hire a black person in a place such as Yarrabah (an
aboriginal settlement where a white man was recently hung) then you are
simply protecting your investment, there is a difference. Would you hire
a person who was was a (white or black) gang leader? In some areas this
could mean that your premises could get destroyed due to a gang war.
Imagine a book shop in the center of the Catholic community of Ireland.
Do you think that it would be wise for the proprietor to hire a
protestant? If he failed to hire the protestant due to his religion then
this is predjudice but if he failed to hire the protestant because he
didn't want his shop destroyed then that's a different matter. There is a
fine line between predjudice and self service.
> Equal opportunity in adulthood is meaningless unless
> there's been equal opportunity through childhood. As
> W. Edwards Deming pointed out, systems act as filters,
> accelerating the progress of favored individuals and
> groups and retarding the progress of those not favored.
> Exceptional individuals can overcome much of this
> filtering action, but by definition few people are
> exceptional. As one person put it "Eq uality isn't
> when a female Einstein gets tenure, it's when a female
> schlemiel does just as well professionally as a male
> schlemiel."
Well as I figure it, if you discriminate against a person due to anything
other than their qualifications and suitability for the job then that's
predjudice.
#**The Scuba Diving Dipstick**#
Soul sib to Cecilia, soul-sib-in-law to Lyndal, apfiance to me and myself,
Head idiot of JMC, CEO of Space Corps-Dimwit Division, SOTM winner &
Master of the depraved divers.