For the federal election, are we going to choose between good and bad? or do you believe that Sheikh Haron is right in his Fatwa regarding the election and actually is a choice between bad and worse?

http://www.sheikhharon.com/religious.html

I'm struggling to see this as an original thought. Who hasn't thought "Christ!, these are my options?".

I'm curious, are you baiting?. 'Cos this smells like burly to me.

How about instead of confusing yourself over whether they are good, bad, worse etc you just rank them in order of preference. That is all that is asked of you.

Lol

In order for there to be personal preferences, there initially needs to be a 1st personal preference. Without the existence of a 1st preference the rest cannot exist. Hence, "Christ!, these are my options?".

It's a bit like having to choose a device that you're gonna be tortured with. ;o)

you don't have to think your first preference is 'good' either. Just not as bad as the rest. Hence, you have to rank them, not rate them.

Ranking, rating whatever. You need to prefer one over the rest first. Mind you, what difference does choosing a "preference" make?. It doesn't necessarily end up where you closed your eyes and biffed the dart anyway.

Hi StG
I meant: would the majority consider the election as:
To choose between good and bad?
To choose between bad and worse?

Actually I've missed another option in the thread:
To choose between good and better?

So which one do you think it could be?

hi freediver
Even if I rank them in order of preference, still I have the same question that this list has any good? or all are bad and worse? You might even believe that all in the list are good or better. There is not any bad one. I like to know the opinion of you guys :)
so what is your opinion?

All they've got is smoke and no fire. They're both shoveling money around like it's the end of the world two weeks after the election, and speaking for myself, I've lost track of where all this cash is going.

There is no bad or worse, or good or better. There just 'is'.
One is equally as bad as the other. They just wear different suits. I was hoping (as was the vibe pre-election date setting) that Rudd was going to come through with some decent ideas. How hard is it to see what a society is craving from a leadership and creating a campaign based on those MASSIVE 'billboards' raised by the people and their struggles?. We all know what we need, how come they don't?.

A vote for 'liberal' is a vote for the 'bridesmaid'. That guy knows EVERYTHING about finance, but what do you think he knows about you and me?. Costello is a financial clinician. He's like one of those lab techs that experiments on monkeys. Eyes on the prize with ZERO compassion.

Labor?. Well, who knows?.

Well obviously you have to make some kind of choice. Turning up to the polls and saying 'screw it, I hate all politicians, give me another beer' isn't exactly fulfilling your civic duty is it?

What are you insinuating?. Because I don't like politicians I'm a yobbo drunk?

I'm insinuating that claiming an inability to distuinguish between the two major parties is a cop out.

A cop out from what?.

Don't insinuate it if you don't have the guts to say it.

Freediver wrote;

“Well obviously you have to make some kind of choice. Turning up to the polls and saying 'screw it, I hate all politicians, give me another beer' isn't exactly fulfilling your civic duty is it?”

Yes it is fulfilling your civic duty if you think that no party deserves your vote, or that you can’t vote for a minor party or independent without risking your preferences counting where you don’t want them to. You have a legitimate choice to vote for no candidate. You should NOT feel obligated to vote for the least worst if you think they don’t deserve your vote.

A cop out from making a decisions.

StG I did say it.

Ludwig voting is not about saying who 'deserves' your vote, but who should run the country. If that means voting for whoever you think will do least harm, then so be it.

Freediver, of course you have a legitimate choice to vote for whoever you think will do least harm.

I wrote;

You should not feel OBLIGATED to vote for the least worst if you think they don’t deserve your vote.

Yes you should. It's your civic duty to participate in democracy. That includes choosing the lesser of two evils. We cannot shy away from tough decisions. Would you want to leave the decision making in the hands of people who actually support one of the two bad options?

That’s crackers freediver. Of course we should not be obligated to vote for someone we don’t like. It should be the voter’s free choice to vote for the lesser of two or more reviled candidates or to abstain, just as it should be their choice to declare preferences or not.

Real democracy is about being able to vote as you see fit. If you are going to be forced to vote for someone you don’t like or to declare preferences that you don’t want to declare and hence risk having your vote count where you don’t want it to count, then democracy has been gutted.

You can no longer call it democracy.

It is your democratic civic duty to vote as you see fit

Hi all
My understanding from most of the posts here is the choice between bad and worse, not other options: choice between good and bad , choice between good and better.
Am I right?

If there were a practical way to differentiate between informed abstention and plain laziness I would be all for it, but there isn't.

Hold on freediver, you are contradicting yourself.

First you say that we should be obligated to vote for the least awful candidate rather than abstain. And now you are saying that abstinence would be ok.... if we could separate it from apathy (:>/

Apathy or plain old laziness is a huge problem. It leads a large portion of the populace to cast ill-informed votes. It leads people to choose between candidates which they don’t really support. It leads to a highly false indication of support for the winner.

One thing is for sure, if the apathy factor was properly addressed, there would be a whole lot more people out there calling for optional preferential voting to replace compulsory preferential voting and for the option to vote for no candidate to be formally included in every election.

In other words; for us all to be able exercise our free will, which should be our basic democratic right, when voting.

I chose my words carefully. If you are informed about the people running for election and how preferential voting works, you would be able to tell the difference between the two major candidates and would have no reason to abstain from ranking them.

Angela I’m sure all of those views exist. But yes the predominating view on OLO seems to be bad and ever so slightly badder!

End Democracy!

http://www.anus.com/tribes/au/entry/30/End_Democracy