freediver wrote on May 8^th, 2011 at 9:43am:



Given you support a system that would see a loser win an election - plus also support a variation of that which forces people the polls.

Your views on democracy would hold as much water as those who led the German DEMOCRATIC Republic.

freediver wrote on May 8^th, 2011 at 9:43am:



Rights are freedoms (positive and negative) that people grant to people, themselves and others. Consequently the body politic has important bearing on those freedoms?

If that body politic is democratic, the righhts and freedoms arrived at in that democracy - but no other body politic - are democratic rights: rights peculiar to the democratic organisation of the body politic.

Some rights are granted by non-democratic powers. They may grant rights similar to the rights granted by a democratic body politic. Are they both democratic rights? No, even though they let you do/not do the same thing. Why?
Because rights are bound up not just with you, the recipient or holder of those rights, but with the power that grants, withholds, defends, tramples on them. The right is an expression of your relationship to that power.

Robinson Crusoe could have declared unlimited rights for himself but without other people, rights are meaningless. This is why rights are about human relationships, mostly relationships of power.
God-given rights are just a figure of speech unless religious authorities have political authority as well.

freediver wrote on May 7^th, 2011 at 1:07pm:


Don't be a fathead, FD.  You take a pregnant 13 year old girl to the QLD Marriage Registry and say you want to make her your lawful wedded and they will explain it to you. (WHat do you think they might say?)

Convert to Islam and take a 13 year old pregnant girl to the Riyadh Registry - accompanied by your other two 13 year old wives and the children from them - and they will wave you through and you get a goat with the King's compliments.

What's the point about debating Democracy; Australia is not a Democracy but a Plutocracy, as are most other Western Nations, because Democracy has been hijacked by politicians for their own benefit.
Sure we can vote once in a while and toss the current government out and install another, which is just as bad as this one.
The Australian National Anthem contains the word fair, but that seems to be only thing fair in Australia as far as the economy goes.
Here is a letter to Bill Shorten, but what good will it do.
Maybe if all the people who post on this forum would write directly to politicians, it would be more effective.
To
Senator the Hon
Bill Shorten
PO Box 6022
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600


7’th  March. 2011

Dear Sir.
Thank you for your letter of the 1’st.of March 2011, in response to my letter of the 21’st.Sept 2010.
I have since written a letter to you on 18’thFeb.2011, and I hope it does not take you as long to reply to that, and also to this letter.

In the fourth paragraph of you letter you quote the famous “Three pillars social policy”, which have been quoted to me from many of other politicians, which were responsible for the social system in Australia. It is mainly in place for the benefit of the 20-30% of the privileged retirees in Australia.

You also put a lot of emphasis on what the World Bank, OECD and CSIS
Consider to be favourable to Australia.

What they really mean, is, if the Australian government can keep the bottom 70-80% of the population as income poor as possible, they will be able to provide the top 20-30% of retirees to live very much in luxury, by giving as many tax concessions to super as possible, and still be sustainable.

The Australian retirees are the second poorest, after Ireland amongst the ten Nations, mentioned in the attached report “Income streams” and that is due to the meanest “Means test” of the basic pension.

Could you please tell me which other Western or OECD country means tests the basic pension?

What is really unfortunate for the Australian workers and also for the retirees, is, that the Liberals look after the interest of the elite, and Labour party is no better, because many Labour politicians come from the ranks of the Unions, to join the elite, and that includes you; Larry Knight, will be turning in his grave, seeing how you benefitted from Beaconsfield and his misfortunate, and then look after their own interests.

Here are some excerpts from books I read:

In the book “Unemployment forever or a Support Income System and Work For All”, by Allan McDonald, on page 142 (h) it is stated: Any means tested welfare system requires extensive and complex state control and regulation. Australia is slowly but surely moving towards the ultimate outcome of a means tested social welfare system-state control over finances, the savings, and the labours of the poorest in the community.

Have the politicians of Australia the know-how and will to change the tax and social system to be more egalitarian, or was the late Professor A.J.Marshall right when he wrote, as quoted in the book “Equality and Authority” by S Encel on page212: “Most Australian politicians, he wrote, aspire to parliamentary seats ‘to better their salary, to inflate their egos and feather their nests’.

John Pilger in his book “The new rulers of the world” wrote on page 175: Like Britain and the US, Australia is a single ideology state with two competing factions, discernible largely by the personalities of their politicians. The difference between Howard’s conservative coalition and the opposition Labor Party is that Howards policies are not veiled. The Labor governments of the 1980s and early 1990s oversaw the greatest distribution of wealth in the country’s history: from bottom to top. They were Thatcherite and Reganite in all but name. Indeed, Tony Blair described then Prime Minister Paul Keating as his
‘inspiration’.

Australia is a Constitutional Monarchy, portrayed as Democracy, but it has been hijacked by politicians and turned into a Plutocracy.

The biggest problem is, how to make the average citizen aware of this, because the media and government are definitely not interested to enlighten them.

Yours truly
Hawil

Andrei.Hicks wrote on May 7^th, 2011 at 1:10pm:



Great examples they are where we recently had a British election won by 21% of the vote and a US election won by 5 votes to 3 in the high court.

Yeah why don't we copy them guys they have it mastered. DOH!

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As always, but a right is still a right regardless of the mechanism of that bearing?

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Can you give an example of a right (other than the right to vote of course) that only exists in a democracy? I believe I have asked you to clarify this in just about every post I have made. You failed. Every time.

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So you create whole different streams of rights - eg the democratic right to own property, the dictatorial right to own property, the Robinson Crusoe right to own property, the monarchy right to own property etc? All the same right to own property, but different in something unrelated? Would you also have us accept a black, white and asian right to own property? A Monday and Tuesday right to own property?

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Yet he would have had those rights. I don't see how that is meaningless. There is a lot of meaning in the fact that people are most free and have the most rights when there is no-one else around to take your rights or have their freedom infringed. It certainly has a lot more meaning than blue rights and green rights, which are actually the same rights, only different colours.

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I see. You were only hinting at the rights you were referring to. Could you not think of the name for the right?

Property rights can be and are infringed under all forms of government. There is nothing special about property rights under a democracy that makes them qualitatively different from those under any other system of government. In fact you have a better guarantee of property rights if you are in the Robison Crusoe situation.

If not, can you explain how property rights are different in a democracy, beyond the fact that they are in a democracy?

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You mean the rights exist, but not in a 'democratic' way, or are you saying the rights themselves don't exist?

Fascists cant even bully disabled people back into the workforce - where do they get off thinking that they decide what rights people will or wont have.  There is an old saying - if you want it - come and take it, but it will cost you - I wont give it to you for nothing.

Most fascists wont try to take something if there is a serious fight involved because at heart they are sniveling cowards who try to pick weak targets to dominate.  Thats why I sneer at them when they say stuff like they do.  who do they think they are kidding with their threats?