Sure it sometimes delivers bad results, as per the last four years here but at least we can now rectify that mistake at the ballot box and we will do it in a civilised fashion without the need for armed troops manning the polling stations and without shooting each other.
...I totally agree with you on the main point above...people forget that we have no need to fear for our lives when queuing at a Polling Booth AND that the votes we cast aren't capable of being tampered with on a large scale (I'm sure the odd one may have slipped through). As I don't know your criteria re the claim of the "...last 4 years being bad...", I'll pass on that view of yours.
The biggest threat we face to our highly valued "freedom" (whatever that means??) does not come from politicians or from hostile outsiders. It comes from the increasingly bossy and intrusive "public servants" in their cushy jobs making up and enforcing petty rules and regulations. Think about the Tax Office which has powers Adolf Hitler's Gestapo or Stalin's K.G.B. would have envied and all the local Government regulations controlling almost everything.
...there are 2 points to raise here. Firstly, yes the level of (in)competence is on the increase. I spent some 24 years in both the State & Commonwealth Public Sectors (PS) and in the end I got so fed up that I took one of Johnny Howard's redundancies and left. When Howard cut a swathe through the PS from 1996 - 2001 (after promising no cuts....and history will repeat itself if The Imbecile is elected), the biggest problem was that it was not targeted. Howard's lot wanted the bulk of the departures to come from senior staff. However, what happened was that their "mates" they brought in to do the hacking fucked up and bulk that left were junior grade staff.
So you had an influx of new junior grade staff having to be recruited to plug the gaps. Here is the biggest laugh...they had to recruit as services had not been cut to cover these redundancies. Most were thrown in at the deep end and not encouraged or taught to think (scared of a back lash from Howard's mates) or encouraged to analyse what they were regulating. The sad part is that this batch moved rapidly up the ranks as the senior grade staff eventually retired (retirement packages with Govt super was worth a lot more than a redundancy hence why these folks didn't leave in the 1st place). So now you have this lot now in positions of influence & power....good luck. I haven't been immuned...I have had occasion to blast my old dept for some seriously stupid things they have done of late....and the sad thing is that it's like talking to a brick wall.
The second point is that, in my opinion, "
...the biggest threat we face to our highly valued freedom (whatever that means??)..." is a media that is so tainted and heavily influenced by a couple of people, ie the same assholes who are involved with
www.ipa.org.au. Access their site and enter 75 in their search field...their 75 point manifesto makes for some "enlightened" reading. If I had my way, ownership of main stream media would be encapsulated in the 4 Pillars policy.
This is still a great place to live but there is room for improvement.
...amen to that fella...I have travelled a bit and am thankful for how lucky we have it here....sad to say that we are progressively being dumbed down because of a few self indulgent farkwits on both sides of the political divide.
