Menzies House

American Conversations Part I

Hopefully the punditry is wrong and descent into a Romanesque end isn't the final curtain call, writes Tim Humphries

It began with an interview I did with Libertarian radio host of the popular LRM.FM program Liberty Conspiracy with Gardner Goldsmith. The touchstones of North and South Korea plunged our cordial conversation into Trade, International Relations, Currency and the Economic drivers of same both at home and abroad.

The interlocking histories of Australian, American and Chinese involvement on the world stage also figured prominently. However what grabbed my attention was the idea that America was sliding from the world stage and that her pre-eminence was being usurped by China.

How to Rule: A Statists Guide

Austen Erickson pens this biting satirical "how to rule" guide for budding big government meglomaniacs... although I suspect the Australian Government has acted upon this already! TVA

Congratulations on obtaining your new country! Whether you were elected by a majority of citizens who could be bothered to vote, appointed by the previous (and outgoing) party elite, or you have just staged a military coup, be assured that you have not only the 

power to rule – but the right to do so! The people – your people – have implicitly agreed to a social contract listing you as the ultimate authority, so be confident in your reign!

However, ruling a country is a difficult task; radical, anti-social, elements will always exist at the edge of society seeking to criticise or even undermine your administration. Its important not to pay any attention to what they have to say, since self-doubt is the most poisonous affliction for any sovereign. After all, if they know so much, why are you the one sitting in the driver's seat while they clamour for attention at the back of the bus?

This guide will teach you how best to quash these dangerous dissidents, so that you can more easily realise your utopian vision for the nation – your nation. The techniques here are presented in an order that our experts think will be the simplest for a first time ruler, but feel free to improvise! Jump around a bit as circumstance demands, or just to watch those fringe elements squirm. Even someone as dedicated to advancing the greater good as you deserves to enjoy themselves every now and then.

Remember, the most important thing while you build the great society – your society – is to have fun!

A lesson from French history

Menzies House welcomes Frank Waller, a new contributor who is concerned about the erosion of rights and freedoms occurring in Australia under a Labor government. Remediation will require more people like Frank to voice their opinions to force change and restore our freedoms.

 GC.Ed.

What does the Magna Carta, the storming of the Bastille and media censorship have in common? If you believe they have nothing in common, you would be wrong.  Even worse, you may be ignoring one of the most important lessons in history.

Let's begin with one of the most important documents ever written—the Magna Carta, (The Great Charter of the Liberties of England).

By 1215 the power and control exerted by the king of England was out of hand, and much of the population was becoming uneasy. There existed few restraints on royal power, and one could readily end up dead or permanently imprisoned if one fell from royal favor.

No trial was necessary—the King’s word was final. Gruesome tortures or worse, awaited those (traitors) who displeased the King for any number of reasons. However, enough became enough and the Feudal Barons eventually came together to challenge the King face to face, presenting the first version of the Magna Carta as a direct ultimatum to his unchecked power. The powerful barons eventually prevailed and the rest as they say is history. This brings us to one of the most powerful articles of the Magna Carta itself, article [29] (still on the books today).

Australia’s slide towards totalitarianism

It is said that voluntary voting causes the major political parties to become polarized, while compulsory voting leads to centralization. 

One of the benefits of so-called polarization is that when the parties are polarized it presents a clear choice for the electorate. This makes it easier for the people to tell the difference between the parties and make an informed decision. Also, when the parties are polarized, the end result of their policy debate is balance, since the average of the two poles falls at the centre.

However, a problem that is said to arise from polarization is that it makes it more difficult for the parties to reach compromise and legislate. Unless one of the major parties has a significant majority, it is difficult for the parties to pass legislation.

People who see this as a problem argue that it should be easier for the government to pass legislation and bring about change. They see the confrontational nature of partisan politics with its inherent conflict and debate as an obstacle or obstruction to progress. They prefer it when all parties agree and the government is free to rule. Some call this type of cooperation as the ‘third way’, which to this writer sounds more like the ‘third reich’.

Some people ignore or even crave an all-powerful government. They don’t seem to realize that the more centralized the power structure is, the less accountable the government is to the people.

When people think of polarization they imagine the poles are communism and fascism, but communism and fascism actually reside at one pole. The pole where the people have no freedom and the government has ultimate power: totalitarianism. The other pole is anarchy.

Compulsory voting sees a convergence of political thought but this doesn’t occur at the centre, it occurs at one extreme. The convergence occurs towards the totalitarian end of the spectrum, putting upwards pressure on the size and power of government. Centralized political thought empowers government and weakens the people.

In a centralized system where both major parties reside at a single pole, dangerous ideologies thrive. They thrive under the mask of centrality or neutrality. They thrive behind the veil of agreement or balance. They thrive because the people are left in the dark, thinking that if both of the major parties agree, then it must be right. And besides, what choice do they have?

People have less choice when the parties are centralized because it is harder for them to tell the difference. They must choose between the better of two evils.

When the parties exist at different poles, the ruling class is divided. They are in conflict and this conflict places more power in the hands of the people.

The political parties should be in competition, not a duopoly. Not centralized.

When the parties exist at a single pole, it steals our power away, whether the centralization is a result of fascism, communism or a compulsory-voting-duopoly such as ours.

Every day that goes by our government competes with the opposition to legislate. It’s a race to see who can legislate the most. And if the Liberals win it will be more of the same. Both parties crave power, even though they have different methods of achieving it.

Under voluntary voting, leaders who cannot inform, inspire, motivate, educate and ultimately empower the electorate using peaceful means, are replaced by leaders who can – true democratic leaders.

Under voluntary voting leaders must empower the electorate, which means they must promote freedom. They must sell freedom. They must defend and protect freedom.

Voluntary voting will reverse our slide towards totalitarianism.

Jason Kent

Free Our Right To Vote

Australia says freedom is bad for democracy

For many years the Australian Government has upheld the myth that Australia’s voter turnouts are above 90%. As a result most people think our voter turnouts are around 95%. This is the image the world sees and believes. 

Voter turnouts in Australia are not 95%. Not even close. Our voter turnout is around 81%, and this figure includes a high proportion of invalid votes, donkey votes and blind guesses, so our real voter turnouts are probably a lot lower. They could be as low as 60%. Who knows?

Our government has fooled everybody into thinking we have one of the world’s best democracies. But worse than this, they have fooled everybody into thinking we have one of the world’s best democracies thanks to our lack of freedom.

We are one of only ten nations in the world to enforce compulsory voting and many of the other nations are not long out of military dictatorship. These countries are also typified by tight media regulations. Compulsory voting combined with a state-controlled media gives the government complete control while still ‘appearing’ democratic.

Derryn Hinch is currently the latest to fight for democracy in Australia. He says “I believe compulsory voting is bad on two grounds. I believe it is undemocratic even unconstitutional.” Read more here.

Democracy is supposed to provide freedom. Compulsory voting does the complete opposite. It strips people’s power away, right when they need it the most. Rather than empowering people with the vote, compulsory voting diminishes people’s power with threats of fines and ultimately threats of violence.

Compulsory voting repels people from the electoral process. This is partly why we have such high levels of informal voting and why around 10% of eligible Australian voters are not even registered to vote.

If compulsory voting were so great, why are Australian’s so disengaged with politics? Why do they say we even need compulsory voting? After 100 years of forced freedom, compulsory voting has clearly failed.

Even at the inflated 81%, our voter turnouts are still lower than many nations where voting is voluntary including Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Malta.

Under voluntary voting politicians who cannot educate, inspire and ultimately empower the electorate using peaceful means, are replaced by leaders who can – true democratic leaders.

Voting is not done as a duty to the state but as a voluntary act of free will. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. When we are free to vote, we have 100% voter participation. Everyone has the same free equal right to vote. Everyone is included.

Australians don’t like compulsory voting. Not really. Australians like to see evidence of high voter participation and they think high voter turnouts indicate this. The government has deceived the Australian people for far too long.

Until the Australian government stops lying, Australia will continue to deceive the world into thinking that freedom is bad for democracy.

Jason Kent

Free Our Right To Vote

Central planning is killing the Australian spirit

If history has taught us anything it’s that freedom is a good thing. Communism, socialism, and fascism all failed. They failed because people like freedom and societies work better when people are free.

Unfortunately in Australia we live in a nation where freedom seems to be misunderstood and central planning is rife. So why do Australians seem to have forgotten the evils of central planning?

Well, maybe we’ve been brainwashed. Maybe the government’s central planning has worked to control our actions and even our thoughts.

One example of Australia’s horrendous central planning is the government’s proposed National Cultural Policy. It’s central planning gone berserk. There’s no reason or justification for our culture to be centrally planned. A nation’s culture is a reflection of the people, all people, not only the elite ruling class.

Why should the government produce our films, handpick our artists, or dictate cultural doctrine taught in schools? Why is the Australian culture being dictated from above and why do people stand for it?

Of course one reason is clear: money – cash grants to the elite artists, filmmakers, educators and bureaucrats. Our government spends around two billion dollars annually on the arts, not including education spending. And two billion dollars buys a lot of votes. Why not just give tax breaks? Of course tax breaks would mean the government would lose control. Of our minds?

And what about the true artists, the independent artists who don’t fit within the government’s artistic or cultural blueprint? Of course, they’re left in the cold, with an almost impossible task of competing with the state.

Centrally planned cultural doctrine is suffocating the Australian spirit, killing individuality and crushing innovation. This is the price we pay for not defending our freedom and not even understanding it. This is the price of state oppression.

Freedom empowers the individual rather than the state. Freedom respects individual thought rather than groupthink. Freedom liberates our innate human desire to communicate and connect.

Australian politicians don’t talk much about freedom and it certainly doesn’t rate very highly in the government’s cultural doctrine. Even though freedom is supposed to be fundamental to our western way of life. Not here. Not in Australia.

In Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott’s maiden speeches to parliament they didn’t even mention the words “free” “liberty” or “democracy” once. Not once. Yet in Barack Obama’s maiden speech to the Australian parliament he used these three simple words a total of 29 times. Words have meaning and he used his to promote freedom. Maybe he thought we needed a lesson or maybe he had another reason.

One reason a polarized left wing politician from the U.S. needs to promote freedom is simple: democracy. In a democracy or a place where people are free to vote (or not vote) leaders must empower the electorate because if they don’t, people will simply switch off and not vote. The logic being – why vote if you’re not free? Or why vote if you don’t think you have any real power?

Barack Obama knows this, which is partly why he sells freedom. Can you imagine our red PM selling freedom? It would be very hard for her to sell the world’s biggest carbon tax, nationalized internet and draconian media controls, and freedom at the same time.

In a true democracy where voting is purely democratic, i.e. with no government coercion of voters whatsoever, leaders who can not motivate, inform, inspire, educate and ultimately empower the electorate are replaced by leaders who can: true democratic leaders.

In Australia this doesn’t occur. In Australia, leaders don’t need to motivate or inspire anyone. They don’t need to lead. They certainly don’t need to promote freedom. All they need to do is keep their heads down and be slightly better than the other guys. They need to win the votes of the swinging voters at the centre because the swing-votes are the only votes that matter. Under compulsory voting political parties don’t need to motivate the base.

This creates a very dangerous situation.

Communism or fascism evolve when political opinion is centralized or when a distinct majority of people unite under a single authoritarian rule. At least, that’s how it starts. We’ve seen where it ends. Remember what Martin Luther King Junior said, “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

A democratic system works when multiple political opinions represent different ideas or distinctly different opinions along a spectrum. In some ways the major political parties represent poles, which pull in opposite directions and result in balance.

Our system is not balanced. It teeters around a central point—vulnerable to slip in either direction. Our system is like two people trying to balance a plank of wood above their heads and both heading to the centre rather than standing at opposite ends.

And all the while the poor souls standing about trying to direct those two people, can’t even tell the difference. They can’t tell which side needs more support. They can’t tell if our system needs more or less government. And the result is always more government because the guys holding the plank have complete control. Government wins and the people lose.

Our system is centralized to the extent that partisan politics, strong political ideals or rigorous debate is shunned as being extremist or even dangerous.

Groupthink grips Australia. Groupthink that imagines government is the answer to all our problems. Groupthink that says central planning can save us and protect us from the slippery slope of partisan politics. The slippery slope of democracy!

If our parties must be united, if they must stand together as one to defend and promote anything, then let it be freedom.

Jason Kent

Free Our Right To Vote

 

Australia punishes freedom and empowers bullies

If a bully in the schoolyard ordered you to tie his shoelaces, what would you do?

Some people argue that being forced to attend the polling booth on polling day is no great burden, so we shouldn’t complain. It may be true that voting’s not a burden, but that’s not the point. Voting is something we do for ourselves, and not as a service to the government.

Compulsory voting is enforced in only 9 countries in the world, for the simple reason that our decision to vote should be democratic. It should be our choice if we attend the polling booth. That’s what makes democracy democratic.

Recently Chile abolished compulsory voting. They had a problem with people avoiding registering to vote so as to avoid the fines and penalties. The same thing is happening here. Over ten percent of eligible voters are not registered to vote, and many more submit informal ballots.

Who knows how many more Australians submit donkey votes or blind guesses—merely to avoid a fine. We could have the world’s lowest number of ‘real’ votes and we’d never even know it because compulsory voting hides the truth.

Our actual voter turnout is only 81%. This is lower than Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Malta and many others countries where voting is voluntary. In those countries, people vote because they want to vote. They vote because they are informed and engaged with the process. They are not thoughtlessly going through the motions to serve the government.

Some politicians like to promote artificially high voter turnouts to make themselves appear more legitimate, powerful, or popular. They say our turnouts are 93%, which is only the number of registered voters who vote. Over 10% aren’t registered. Our turnouts are probably a lot lower than 81%. But again, who knows?

In Chile, voter registration is now automatic and voting is voluntary. Today in Chile, everybody has the same freedom to vote, and nobody is forced to attend the polling booth. Their system is much fairer than ours because their electoral sample is now chosen from the entire population, democratically, rather than from only registered voters. And their system does not favour compliance over freedom and put upwards pressure on the size and power of government.

But the worst element of compulsory voting is the message that it sends. Australian citizens are punished if they don’t bend over and tie the bully’s shoelaces. Our system punishes innocent people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. We punish freedom, reward conformity, and celebrate bullying, on the very day when we are supposed to be the most free.

You can’t promote freedom by stealing people’s freedom away from them. The best way to engage and empower the electorate is through peaceful means, such as providing good honest policies.

While the bully in the schoolyard might steal your lunch money, the Australian government is far more brutal. If a registered voter simply does nothing on polling day, they can be fined. If they continue to do nothing they can be sentenced to jail. And if they continue to do nothing, the police can enter their home and cart them away. And if they resist with force, they might even be shot dead. As unlikely as this scenario is, over 50 Australians have been sentenced to jail terms for not voting.

Again, only 9 countries in the world enforce compulsory voting. It’s interesting to look at the other eight countries and ask yourself if this is the type of group we should emulate. No offence to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it’s hardly democratic.

These (above) are some of the reasons why compulsory voting is wrong, and why many countries in addition to Chile have abolished it in recent decades, including Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. We could do the same with a simple vote in parliament.

But one of the biggest problems with compulsory voting is that the political parties do not need to motivate their base (regular supporters) to vote, which forces the parties to focus all of their efforts on the relatively small group of swinging voters at the centre. So instead of becoming polarized and distinct, the political parties merge into one. This is dangerous, and makes it almost impossible for people to make an informed choice on polling day.

Further, when voting is voluntary it forces the political parties to work harder to earn votes. Any leaders who cannot motivate, inspire, educate, and empower the electorate to vote, will be replaced by leaders who can.

The force of law, and ultimately the threat of violence, is not the way to promote freedom or empower the electorate. It does the complete opposite.

If Australians do not understand the concept of freedom, we risk the ravages of an authoritarian and oppressive government regime that would attempt to nationalize the internet, filter the internet, and ultimately ban media bias & free speech.

At the centre of our freedom is our freedom to vote. Leaders who favour the use of force over truth, freedom and democracy, are not the type of leaders we want. We need leaders who are focused on empowering the people, rather than empowering themselves.

Jason Kent supports Free Our Right To Vote and Eureka Freedom Rally on Facebook.

 

What's the point of democracy if Australians don't understand freedom?

In Australia over 10% of eligible voters are not registered to vote, and over 5% of electors vote informally. This leaves our real voter turnouts below 77%.

In New Zealand only 6% of people are not registered to vote and under 1% vote informally. This leaves their voter turnouts at around 78% – higher than ours. Also, 100% of New Zealand voters vote voluntarily. They vote because they want to vote, not because their government forces them to.

Most democracies in the world do not enforce compulsory voting like we do here in Australia. Enforced compulsory voting is extremely rare. Many other countries with voluntary voting also have higher voter turnouts than we do, including Sweden, Malta, Iceland, and Denmark.

We tend to assume that if Australians are not forced to attend the polls, our voter turnouts will plummet. We think people only vote to avoid a $50 fine.

Some people say ‘compulsory attendance’ reminds us of value of democracy by forcing us to engage with the process. But it does the complete opposite. It encourages people to completely disengage with the free thought process required when one decides to vote. It encourages blind conformity.

Our decision to vote should be democratic. And this democratic choice is an important test of a politician’s ability to lead, and motivate people to engage with the process—both physically and mentally. It is easier for leaders to ‘lead’ when they have the force of law behind them, but leading people who are free to choose is not so simple. The electorate can simply switch off.

If voting were voluntary, political leaders would need to inspire the electorate and earn trust. They would need to wake people up, spark people’s imaginations, and motivate the electorate to participate. Compulsory voting doesn’t empower people; it oppresses them.

On polling day, if we simply do nothing we can be fined. And if we continue to do nothing we can be jailed. They punish us for doing absolutely nothing, and nothing wrong. They steal our freedom away to teach us the value of freedom. The trouble is, their version of freedom is not really freedom at all.

Of course, freedom cannot be mandatory because then it ceases to be freedom. And Australians have learnt this lesson very well. We have learnt the lesson that in Australia, freedom is not freedom. Freedom doesn’t exist.

In the absence of freedom, we have come to assume that government is the answer to all our problems. The individual is not capable of growing, learning, or changing; only government intervention can save the day. If we gamble, drink, smoke, or don’t vote, it’s not our fault – it’s the government’s fault. It’s all the government’s fault. The government is like the puppet master and we’re the puppets – unthinking, irresponsible, pawns. Helpless victims living under the all-powerful (god-like) force of government.

If voting were voluntary people would come to learn the true value and meaning of democracy, which is freedom, because our leaders would need to promote this, in order to win votes. And if they can’t, better leaders would emerge to take their place. Real leaders. Democratic leaders.

Under voluntary voting, Australia’s real voter turnouts could rise to the levels of New Zealand, Sweden, Malta, Denmark, or Iceland. More importantly, we would have 100% voluntary turnouts, far higher than our current levels.

The Australian spirit will shine more brightly under a free electoral system, so in this instance we should fall into line with the rest of the democratic world and reintroduce voluntary voting. All that is required is a vote in parliament. No constitutional change or referendum.

The sooner we realize the true meaning of democracy, and the true value of freedom, the sooner all of our lives will grow and flourish, because we will begin to reclaim decisions that have been stolen from us. We will become more accountable to ourselves, and our own lives.

Any nation who believes freedom can and should be mandatory, doesn’t understand what democratic freedom is, and that may be even more tragic than not being free in the first place.

Jason Kent administers the facebook groups Free Our Right To Vote, or Eureka Freedom Rally. Please join, it's only a click or two away.