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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« A majority of voters somehow elects these representatives, but who elects the list of voters? »
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In the Australian democracy, the voters are “the people,” defined as those citizens of the local community, the state, or the country who are aged 18 years or more. Every Australian citizen aged 18 years or more has the legal obligation to vote since the federal parliament voted that law in 1924.

Voting in federal elections is compulsory for prisoners who are serving a sentence of less than three years. But prisoners serving a sentence of three years or more are not entitled to vote in federal elections. They are not considered to be good citizens.

As I indicated in one of my previous posts, the principle of democracy is “government by the people,” i.e., by all the citizens of the country except children and long-term prisoners.

Apart from those exceptions, everybody has not only the right but also the legal obligation to participate in the election of the members of parliament who vote on the laws of the country.

Political parties representing various interests and ideologies propose candidates for election to parliament, and each Australian citizen is asked to vote for whichever candidate he or she prefers, according to his or her own particular interest or ideology.

The candidate who obtains the greatest number of votes is deemed to have been elected — not just for those who voted for him or her, but for all of Australia.

That is how democracy works. It’s “winner takes all”. It obviously does not please the “losers” who voted for some other candidate, but it’s the best and fairest system we have managed to implement and successfully operate since it was invented about 2,400 years ago in Athens.

Federal elections in Australia take place every 3 years, so the “losers” don’t have to wait too long before they get another chance of winning.

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Dear Banjo,

What you described is merely the present factual situation:
that doesn't make it right, fair or morally justified and one doesn't need OLO for these details - one could simply find the information, these bloody grim facts, on the regime's official websites, which even a robot could recite.

There is no justification for turning people into "losers" unless they willingly entered some game for a chance to win, nor does a chance to play again and "win next time" provide any comfort for those who were never interested in playing with you and winning your games in the first place, including these silly majority games.

You seem to think of life as a game where people are the pawns.
The fact that you have not found a better game to play in 2,400 years is no excuse for making others suffer: playing with other people's lives is just not on!

BTW, even if democracy was somehow justified, which it is not, Australia's bizarre electoral system is anything but democratic, it is a grotesque mockery for show and tell.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« … even if democracy was somehow justified, which it is not, Australia's bizarre electoral system is anything but democratic, it is a grotesque mockery for show and tell »
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Democracy is generally regarded as the best form of government since it practices free elections, allows citizens to choose their elected representatives, and provides people with greater freedom of speech than any other political system.

Representative democracy, as we have in Australia, is the most often practiced kind of democracy. The least employed types of governments are anarchies and military dictatorships.

Democracy is the most popular form of government. More than half of the nations in the world are democracies. It comes in many forms (direct democracy, representative democracy, etc.), but each model is based on an electoral process where eligible citizens vote for their leadership.

The duties of governments are as follows :

• Law and order
• Protection from external attacks
• Economic stability
• Security
• Social welfare services
• Human Rights
• Income redistribution (via taxes)

What complicates voting in Australia is the system of preferential voting for the House of Representatives that was introduced in 1918. It’s a system where voters have to rank their preferred candidates from first all the way through to the last on their ballot papers. Numbers must be put in the boxes next to the candidates' names.

With preferential voting, candidates have to receive more than 50% of the total number of votes in order to be elected – not just the most number of votes of all candidates (“first past the post”).

Proportional Representation (PR) was introduced for Senate elections in 1948. Under PR, parties, groups and independent candidates are elected to the Parliament in proportion to the number of votes they receive.

In seeking to be more equitable, voting has become a bit of a gas factory – extremely complicated and practically incomprehensible for the average voter.

If you know of a country with a better system, Yuyutsu, please let me know.

Maybe we should go and live there.

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Dear Banjo,

«Maybe we should go and live there.»

Whatever I write here has nothing to do with my personal circumstances, but is about general principles.

Just because some people around me do wrong and violent things, doesn't mean that I should give in to their bullying by fleeing my home, more so when similar such bullies exist practically everywhere on earth.

I see it as my duty to point these bullies out and expose them for what they are: presently every state on this planet which I am aware of, is a bully organisation.

Had Australia openly been a dictatorship, then I would be exempt from pointing it out here because everyone would have already been aware of it, also because then whatever the dictator(s) did, would not be falsely claimed to be done "in my name", "for me" or "representing me". Had that been the case then it was clear that the dictator(s) do whatever they do for themselves. Period.

But presently, the Australian regime claims to be a democracy - so this I must debunk, making it is most clear that none of what it does is for me, in my name or represents me.

Thus I made two separate points:
1) That a democracy, even the truest democracy, is not necessarily just or morally legitimate.
2) That Australia is not a democracy.

So far I was mainly discussing my first point,
then in my last post I briefly mentioned the second, in a "BTW" clause.

You then chose to quote my "BTW" claim, then flood the discussion with all sorts of irrelevant details which, though I potentially could, I did not even yet discuss.

Instead of allowing the conversation to spread uncontrollably and be thinly dispersed, let me address just one of your points:

«Democracy is the most popular form of government.»

Popularity is not a measure of morality and rightness.
Masses have been known throughout history to be cruel and inhumane.
Gladiators were a popular form of entertainment in Rome.
Then there was the famous shout from the crowd: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him" [Luke 23:21]

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« I made two separate points:

1) That a democracy, even the truest democracy, is not necessarily just or morally legitimate.
2) That Australia is not a democracy. »
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As I wrote in one of my previous posts on this thread, the objective of democracy is justice. But justice is a moving target and extremely difficult to attain. That’s not the fault of democracy. It’s due to the difficulty we have apprehending and weighing up the intricacies and circumstances of a particular state of affairs, or events, some of which may be quite contradictory.

The task is difficult, and we humans have our limits and imperfections and are far from infallible.

Also, I consider that despite all its imperfections, democracy, defined as “government by the people” (OED), is much more morally legitimate than all other forms of government that exist in the world today.

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Dear Banjo,

«the objective of democracy is justice»

The stated objective of democracy is to minimise the injustice caused by government, by reducing the maximal number of victims to no more than a half.

The "demo" part is thus supposed to mitigate the "cracy" part, and in theory under [non-existing] ideal conditions, reduce its damage to no more than half.

Yet "cracy" remains, where some people (even if they are a majority of some arbitrary cohort) violently impose their will on non-consenting others.

«But justice is a moving target and extremely difficult to attain.»

Well of course - and as you noted yourself, humans are not equipped or meant to create justice.
Only divine justice is infallible.

«Also, I consider that despite all its imperfections, democracy, defined as “government by the people” (OED), is much more morally legitimate than all other forms of government that exist in the world today.»

This claim is difficult to ascertain because there is no true democracy in existence today, only technical resemblances.

Apart from the faults due to the technicalities of electoral systems, the fundamental difficulty is in the ease of abusing the above definition.
You see, "government by the people" does not define WHICH people, so this definition still allows any dictator (or elite) to select and link together an arbitrary cohort of people to suit their selfish goals, people who otherwise may not know or wish to relate with each other.

Being told that you must lose what is dearest to you because "the majority" so decided, is no comfort at all when you never agreed to belong or have anything to do with the cohort out of which that majority emerged. As far as the loser is concerned, "the People decided" is no better than "the King decided".