Theresa May promises a British version of Iran's Halal Internet


I don't know politicians in many countries but in France during this year's presidential election there was a candidate about 80% to my taste. This is great, I was happy to vote and I consider normal that in a democracy you can rarely be 100% in favor of a candidate, as every voter has a slightly or widely different view of the world. Unfortunately he didn't get elected, hey I tried !

In the US elections Bernie Sanders sounded like a great choice as well.

I'm sad if there is no one in your country that you can trust or who seems decent. It seems to be the case as I read so much negativity here.

Please look for the good candidates and vote !

While I agree that there can be candidates worth voting for, my point was mainly that the ability to avoid answering questions is pretty much universal amongst politicians, so isn't really a valid reason not to vote for one. I can almost guarantee that May's opponent in this election is just as adept at not providing a straight answer, if he deems that doing so would be undesirable, so it seems unlikely that such a demonstration alone could be responsible for May's sharp decline in popularity.

Incidentally, as an Australian I have to vote in every election anyway, or face fines. Voting is compulsory here.

-Neelix
 
If you wanted to you could submit a blank ballot paper. Anything other than a correctly filled out ballot paper doesn't count for anything. But there is usually one party or candidate that that is preferable to another for some reason or another, so why waste your vote?

-Neelix
 
so why waste your vote?

I think that's a different debate all together.

In the UK spoilt ballots are reported by the returning officer, usually taken as a sign of protest due to the absence of a 'None of the Above' choice, but yes, if you can submit a blank ballot and it's recorded then it's pretty much the same thing, just seems strange (to me) being forced to vote.
 
I think that's a different debate all together.

In the UK spoilt ballots are reported by the returning officer, usually taken as a sign of protest due to the absence of a 'None of the Above' choice, but yes, if you can submit a blank ballot and it's recorded then it's pretty much the same thing, just seems strange (to me) being forced to vote.

Informal ballots are actually counted and how many there are in each polling place and electorate is reported by the electoral authorities, but when it comes down to it it's a pretty meaningless figure, of little interest to anyone on election night.

Honestly having grown up here, it seems perfectly normal to me, and I actually find it strange that it's not done in other countries, especially given how big an issue voter turnout (or the lack of it) ends up being reported as. Here, voter turnout is another insignificant figure reported by the electoral authorities that no-one really cares about because it's almost always a percentage in the high 90's.

-Neelix
 
There was a time when I thought compulsory voting was a good thing (including fines for nonvoters without a decent excuse). It feels like it would be giving the government even more control over the citizens, the opposite of how it should work, but I still see the benefit of getting to see votes by those that don't feel they are represented by the major choices. I have many other feelings on this that are relevant only to me personally, so not really pertinent to making a choice for an entire country.

Aren't politicians trained to never give a straight answer and especially never answer with "yes" or "no".
They build a confusing cloud of words with as few content as possible so that it's harder to accuse them of lying afterwards.
I remember when I was around 19 (I had given up on my nation's political system a few years earlier, so I didn't follow any of it), sitting in a hospital waiting room and watching news coverage they had on. Not only were the questions not answered, but nothing was even said. It was a five minute response to the question, and absolutely nothing was said. At the time I was amused by that. Now I laugh at myself for being so stupid as to think that there might have been some content in what was said. Even if there was, it would have still had the same value as the "answer".

For those wondering, that interview was part of a campaign that eventually led to an invasion of another country by mine. When we left, it created an environment that would allow for exploitation and indoctrination of what was supposed to be eliminated by our involvement there. Once again we made our own enemies, and we are leaving it for the rest of the world to deal with our mess. (Sure, there may have been problems in the region already, but by disrupting things for pretty reasons we made it more problematic for everyone, including those largely understood by most others to be doing bad things. Can an outsider really see things the way those people do?)

I am not interested in a long in depth discussion of politics or terrorism or morality (sure seems like those first two have a lot in common). I would rather be told I am stupid than waste my time.
 
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I still believe that compulsory voting would be a good thing, but only after a 'none of the above' category had been introduced, and electoral rules meaning that if that category wins more than any of the others, the parties need to go away and each select better candidates, with the deselected candidated being forbidden for standing for at least a couple of years, which should give them time to have a good think. There'd then be a further local election to sit whatever seat needs to be filled.

On topic, it's perhaps slightly heartening to find that despite the snoopers charter, May and her mates were still unable to keep tabs on the five recent terrorists, while being disappointing in this particular case at the same time.
 
Not long to go now until us people in the UK depose Oberste Führer May and the rest of the British Union of Fascists (one can but dream).
 
Godwin's law still holds I see.

I'm no fan either, but please refrain from such comparisons.
 
I still believe that compulsory voting would be a good thing, but only after a 'none of the above' category had been introduced, and electoral rules meaning that if that category wins more than any of the others, the parties need to go away and each select better candidates, with the deselected candidated being forbidden for standing for at least a couple of years, which should give them time to have a good think. There'd then be a further local election to sit whatever seat needs to be filled.

Sounds perfect, I always vote but do feel that I'm making the best of a bad choice.

Can I also add that any election promises must be adhered to, currently it's too easy to promise something to win votes then just not deliver once you've won the election.
 
I still believe that compulsory voting would be a good thing, but only after a 'none of the above' category had been introduced, and electoral rules meaning that if that category wins more than any of the others, the parties need to go away and each select better candidates, with the deselected candidated being forbidden for standing for at least a couple of years, which should give them time to have a good think. There'd then be a further local election to sit whatever seat needs to be filled.

And who would pay for all the extra elections? Also, what's to stop such a cycle from continuing in perpetuity with no-one ever getting elected? It's an interesting idea in theory. I can't see it working in practice.

Sounds perfect, I always vote but do feel that I'm making the best of a bad choice.

Can I also add that any election promises must be adhered to, currently it's too easy to promise something to win votes then just not deliver once you've won the election.

The trouble with that is that there are always some bills that *should* be defeated. I've at least once voted for a party while also hoping that at least one of their election "promises" would never come to pass.

What I'd like to see is a ban on discussion of the parties themselves during parliamentary sessions. Any time I happen to hear an excerpt from question time, every answer basically comes down to "our party has a plan and the other party can't be trusted" Maybe if they weren't allowed to play that game they could get around to actually discussing the issues.

-Neelix
 
Since the election-distortion field is in effect here, I can confidently predict that the improved decision making an improved government could make will provide the money needed to run two or three extra elections per place. Maybe after the third time round you just fall back to existing practice and ignore spoiled ballots, just to save everyone's sanity.

My other grand electoral plan would be to ban parties, by banning whips threatening to remove election funding, but there are a number of complications to that that I've never spent the proper time to work through. Make MPs actually have to make their own decisions (like largely happens in the house of lords, except those are all rich fuddy-duddys).
 
Since the election-distortion field is in effect here,

I propose that all election runups should be a phone in TV things where the party campaign teams are dropped in a really shit place for 6 weeks and we get to vote for the one we hate the most, the other one gets to look after the country for a while.

It would solve voter apathy season after season aft..
continuing in perpetuity
 
I like Lewis black's idea for an electoral system.

You take a chimpanzee that knows how to skydive. Fly to some random part of the country. Get the chimp out of the plane and when it lands the first person it grabs the hand of would be president.


Honestly it can't be any worse than our farce of a political system. Which has an emphasis on mob rule.

I hate politics after getting heavily involved in it. I've come to the conclusion the guilotine wasn't such an overly drastic thing.
 
I remember a quote, attributed, probably by mistake, to archeologist Heinrich Schliemann: "Ah, Democracy, I've seen democracy. Three robbers were voting should they kill and then rob fourth one or rob him first and then kill to avoid revenge."
There were always inconvenient things in the Internet, and many people read them just for curiosity. Many old-gen Internet users know one document well, so: How many ideas from "Jolly Rogers' Cookbook" have you made in reality? Not many*? :).
Then the thing begins - the censorship attempt is also intruduced to cover the fact that most of modern "social media" Internet is purely, yet covertly driven by companies and they may do something uncontrollable. The fact about this dependency is also censored for years yet in western society not taken as censorship, like censorship of nude women is not taken as censorship in orthodox (not only Islamic) societies. The "Most frequently seen/voted/commented" is just a matter who pays more to publisher. And people are manipulated enough to trust it without question, so it becomes dangerous. But... how exactly?
The problem with censorship is that it doesn't directly affect its real goal. Becoming an active terrorist is not a decision made between choosing what to eat for breakfast and how much tea put to water. I think that the censorship now doesn't want to stop terrorism, but tries to eliminate question where these terrorists come from, why they act and how not to make more terrorists, to make people think that the only solution is the invasion on another country... which will produce more terrorists of course, but media are controlled enough to cover it too.

* OK, my mistake, most people haven't made any pyrotechnics from it, I made one - this metal-based mix for high-temperature is in small quantities just wonderful for low-precision welding, only use good bricks to secure it and know how to handle metals in very high temperatures.
 
Also, what's to stop such a cycle from continuing in perpetuity with no-one ever getting elected?
You say that like it's a bad thing. :p



How many ideas from "Jolly Rogers' Cookbook" have you made in reality? Not many*? :)
True, not many. I made a few things. Others seemed to have major problems, or like they wouldn't work. Still others seemed a bit much to try out, even in the sparsely populated areas I was living at the time. I should go check it out again. :D



If you have outlaws in society you can operate it like a prison.
As many of us have seen.
 
If society turns to the point where everything is illegal..,

Well... what's the point of trying to not be an outlaw then?
 
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