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Friday, January 9, 2009

Deracy (take the mock out of Democracy)

The strange thing about the way we have come to think of democracy is that originally it was meant to be a system were all those involved had a vote in the day today decision making process of their nation. If a road was to be built or a war participated in then the concerned citizens gathered together and voted on what the united position would be, but somehow it has deteriorated into once every three or four years you get to vote for someone who makes those decisions for you. While it is not inconceivable that the definition needed to change to accommodate large uneducated populations, in this day and age with Democracy being forced upon people whether they want it or not maybe it's time we had a fresh look at what it is we are all agreeing to.

 Politicians are a strange breed, they move forwards out of the ranks of daily life to take positions as paid employees of the people that voted for them, as well as those who didn't, and join in with all the others who are in the same boat to make decisions and laws for the people who liked them enough to agree to pay their wages and honour their elevated positions. So they inherit this from the people who have given up the right to participate because they are busy making the money that pays for the 'luxury' of having this type of arrangement, all well and good if that's what you want but what if that not what you want or they are making decisions that you don't agree with? You get a chance to vote for someone else in two or three years time who might or might not make decisions that you agree with and so it goes.

Let's take a closer look at this and how it works with an issue such as weather or not we want to become a republic, regardless of what your personal opinion is. Before the Howard years in Australia there was much discussion on the subject and it was generally considered we would soon become one, even the Queen and Prince Charles thought it was an inevitability and not a bad thing. The newest member of the Royal Order of the Garter, Sir John was a just a monarchist in those days and even though nobody had voted for him to lead our great nation with that in mind, all thoughts of going in any direction other than Sir John,s were put and end to with an expensive talk fest and a rigged referendum. Now I am sure that if the people who paid the Howard Government for the next ten years had of got their way instead of yielding to Sir John's then we would have been waving an Aussie flag at the just past Olympics that represented Australia as a truly independent country, instead of looking like we are still an outpost of the British Empire.

What about the G.S.T, again regardless of what you think of it, most people were anti-G.S.T when John Howodd assured us that there would be no G.S.T if he became Prime Minister. Never the less the first thing he did when he got into power was to give us the very tax system he assured us he wouldn't. What about the war in Iraq, again most people were against it but did that matter? No, we signed up anyway,not because we authorised anyone to make that decision for us, just because John and George thought it was a good idea at the time. Are you getting the gist of what I'm talking about here? It's not weather you are for or against any of these ideas it's the fact that our employees made those decisions for us while pretending to be doing what they were elected for, which was to be your voice on the matters. 

Now there is a simple way around this dilemma for anyone who is interested, if you wanted to become a republic today with the tools for real democracy in our homes and at our finger tips, then all it would take is fifty one percent of the voting population to sign up on the Internet and it would begin to become a reality without having to ask your employees permission.If you didn't,t want to buy a bunch of America's left over war planes and would prefer to spend all that money on your children's education, then all you have to do is collectively say so. Why isn't the program up and running that would allow this type of Democracy, maybe it's because your employees don't want you to have it.

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