Severin “As for the question, I had never heard of the term "guided democracy" before, sounds like an oxymoron to me.”

Yes I agree

To Tony Abotts use of it… sounds dubious and probably misheard in the first place

I personally find the outcomes of the “chaos” of a “democracy”, lead by a government with limited authority

are infinitely superior to the outcomes of an all powerful, guided government, capable of covering up the differences of its own perception of omnipotence with the reality of impotence.

As one French commentator said, a couple of hundred years ago

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality.
But notice the difference:
while democracy seeks equality in liberty,
socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

Sounds like a rigged pseudo-democracy to me.

If people wanted to keep governments on track, I would instead suggest unlimited, binding Citizen Initiated Referenda (CIR), and demand a constitutional change that renders certain areas of governance and law-changing out-of-bounds without passing through a referendum.

An ELECTED President, whose power is to put any intervention s/he would make politically, INTO a referendum would also work.

Everything else would fail

Fraccy... Malaysia is a 'guided democracy'.

Over there it usually means "buy" the key opposition members, and bribe them to join the Government. Offer them reasonably juicy political morsels and castrate the opposition by bleeding them of talented staff.

In short guided democracy means "Everyone has their price"

King Hazza, in his post of Sunday, 8 August 2010 at 2:21:41 PM, says:

"Sounds like a rigged pseudo-democracy to me."

As such, that would make it a crime scene, would it not? One of the things you don't do at a crime scene is to run about trampling on what may be evidence, or moving things around from where they were originally able to be found. That, figuratively, is what any proposal to change our existing system around amounts to. A far wiser course, I suggest, is to search for remedies in our existing Constitution, to seek to use its untapped potential to overthrow what some strongly suspect is this 'guided democracy' that in all probability has been foist upon us for many years.

That is exactly what I am striving to do on the 'Stop the poll and surprise the parties' thread. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3840&page=0

Unfortunately, exposing the precise nature of the rigged pseudo-democracy involves the presentation of a lot of what, to many people, is boring detail of no immediately detectable relevance to that goal. In the detail is, however, where the devil lives.

In Australia, because of its historic stability and relatively even division in political opinion, should any entity ever get to dispose of what may be unduly politely described as a significant parcel of 'proxy votes', it would be very easy to dictate overall electoral outcomes completely the reverse of what all the genuine voters had in unrecognised reality decided. The more marginal electoral Divisions become, the smaller the parcel of 'proxy votes' need be to reverse any given outcome.

A system for centralizing and manipulating electoral enrolments would be a logical component of the mechanism of a 'guided democracy'. If you combine with such a centralized enrolment management system a trigger for redistribution of electoral boundaries that depends on reported ENROLMENTS, rather than population, then you have an immense capacity for maximising the effectiveness of your 'proxies'.

My reference to an 'American via Switzerland' connection was in relation to the inception of what I think could be just such a system. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3810#93520

Poirot asks in her opening post as to whether anyone has an opinion as to how a guided democracy might differ from an open one.

In my opinion, in a 'guided democracy' you would see things like the extradition, under the Howard government, of Hew Griffiths, a permanently resident in Australia British subject, to the US to face a US court on charges upon which he could, and should, have been tried in Australia, in which place he was residing when allegedly he committed the offences, go totally uncommented upon by the then opposition and now Rudd/Gillard government.

You would see things like the Lisa Maree Boersma case cause hardly a ripple of concern. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3810#93419

You would see things like the arrest and detention in custody for 247 days WITHOUT CHARGE on the basis of an extradition request by the US of someone like Brian Howes for allegedly doing something that is not even an offence in the country where they reside, go unchallenged by an Australian government having a potential interest in the alleged 'case'.

You would see champions of the electoral rights of up to 100,000 slow-to-enroll Australian youth, like GetUp, completely overlook the unconstitutional disfranchisement of up to perhaps a million permanently resident in Australia British subjects when they belatedly took a case to the High Court after an election had been called, when they well knew there was a claimed shortfall from full enrolment of 1.3 million names.

One could go on, but that should do for now.

It seems to me our "guided democracy" gains pace with the increasing sophistication of the news media. Investigative journalism is a thing of the past or an occasional novelty. News stories are more and more PR generated "products", themselves predicated on the manipulation of staple human insecurities. The boat-people issue is the prime example; it's absolutely a non-issue in this island continent but how can any political party resist cultivating (in order to harness) such polarising political energy.
"Guided democracy" is synonymous with "popular democracy", entailing a formulaic policy agenda for both sides, tapped into perennial foibles and insecurities: Australian values; protecting borders, brave diggers, tough on crime, blah blah blah. This "commodity fetishism" is titillated in the lead-up to every election and the major parties are in a vulgarity contest that keeps them inseparable.
But rather than the media inciting it all, it's as much taken in by strategic media releases as the rest of the population. It doesn't even matter that many of us can see through this (transparent) process, as the voting majority cannot. They buy all the crap fed to them and vote accordingly--that's why we have to transition to an "inclusive democracy".