Posts by Moz
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to izogi,
what about in some kind of segregated parliamentary system that’s tied to the real one? Let younger people vote for representatives. Those reps get speaking time in parliament...{but no vote}
That sounds great. I'm all for it. But I don't think it goes far enough, we should do the same for Maori. And women. And old people. And convicts. And those overseas. And disabled people. And QUILTBAGS (probably several categories would be required). And probably other groups I haven't thought of yet. But the main thing is that we introduce arbitrary qualifications for "real parliamentarians" that disqualify as many people as possible from actual participation in democracy while making a lot of noise about how they're privileged and special.
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to BenWilson,
I think "official" adulthood is a perfectly reasonable compromise.
Great. Now please identify that age.
Is it 10, the age of criminal responsibility? 16, the age at which you can consent to sex? 18, the age at which you can drink? 21, the traditional "age of majority"? 25, the age of financial independence? 35, the age at which our brains mature? or perhaps 5, the age at which we're expected to be cable of understanding conplex social situations and behaving appropriately (viz, attend school)?
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Until we get to a state where neither of those parties can dominate we have no system for change.
I think it's important to distinguish between "most voters accept the current system" and "we can't change the system". We have the former right now, and as with the "black lives don't matter" case, in NZ the "oh if only it was worth voting for a minor party" majority have the power to change the system but don't want to. But until you're willing to make like the IRA, sorry Sinn Fein, and stand for election and win, any claim that " we can't change the system" is just empty posturing.
Sure, the "Moz as Dictator-for-life" party is unlikely to get the landslide win it'd need to carry out its only policy, but there's nothing stopping it from trying. Most democracies have the "flaw" that you're allowed to run with the explicit intention of changing the law, including the law(s) that set up the system of government.
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to Keir Leslie,
As far as direct mail goes,
Keir, if you're answering my comment I started from wanting a solution to "only people willing to have their address published can vote". As Emma alluded, not everyone who wants to keep their address private is willing (or able) to jump through legal hoops to get on the secret roll. Without an answer to that, my belief is that allowing people to vote is more important than letting organisations spam them. So saying "that makes spamming harder" is irrelevant.
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If one doesn't wish to condone that, then not voting is a reasonable response.
Yeah, nah. Not voting is expressing consent to the current arrangement.
This is currently obvious in the USA with their "black lives don't really matter that much" campaign, where white people continue to demonstrate that they're committed to their current position by refusing en masse to vote for change. When surveyed about half are happy with the racial bias of law enforcement. But even the one who are not, are unwilling to vote to change it. They could, but they don't.
Same applies here. We have a system for changing the way we're governed, and you're refusing to use it. That's not a strong stance that you don't like the system, that's accepting that the system we have is not worth the effort of changing.
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to izogi,
Australian local election I cast a donkey vote... At the time I went to pains to search the rules about the legality of submitting spoiled ballots.
FWIW my understanding is that you're required to be marked off on the roll as having obtained a ballot, and you're strongly encouraged to deposit that in the ballot boxes (if for no other reason than not doing not makes life hard for the returning officers). Marking the ballot is optional, and I've never heard of a case where it was felt necesary to track back from a ballot to a voter, let alone prosecute them for simply making an invalid vote. Even "*** you all bunch of ****" just gets dropped in the "invalid" pile and everyone moves on.
The statutue may not be that explicit, and they likely do that as much to encourage voting as anything, but the practice is very much "get your name ticked off, the end". Well, and "please don't take that with you, we have to account for every ballot".
I've never found it especially difficult to decide how to vote for, but I am a lazy person and decided a long time ago that I have fairly set preferences. The various religious law and libertarians get dumped randomly at the bottom of the list, then anyone else I think would be worse than the Liberals, then anyone I haven't heard of, then the Liberals, then Labour, then either The Greens or minor parties that I particularly like, or vice versa depending on how annoyed I am with The Greens at the time. In Oz they get funding per first preference vote, so I'll deny them that if I'm grumpy with them. Within that fixed preference, it's just a matter of how much I want to research minor parties and whether I can be bothered ranking them.
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Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to Keir Leslie,
The reason the NZLP should have access to electoral roll data is that voter contact by political parties is a key driver of voter turnout, and voter engagement with the electoral system. And there's a similar argument for non-party groups that want to use the data for civic engagement purposes... I don't see why any private individual should be able to access the Roll other than for limited purposes of public scrutiny.
It might be better, then, to allow the comission to forward mail on behalf. That avoids the "I hate Kair Lesley" interest group from legitimately getting the roll specifically so they can get your address, while also allowing anyone with the money to pay for printing and postage to send stuff to you. I suspect you would need to provide everything electronically, but it shouldn't need to be prohibitive.
Especially with the various spamming services NZPost provides it's not actually that difficult to do geographically targeted mailouts without ever knowing the actual names. I do letterboxing most elections on that basis as a volunteer.
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Access: Right to die?, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
disabled people will be at risk if legislation is passed to allow doctor assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia...call it what you will. ... There is a very thin line between refusing treatment and actively speeding a person's demise....
There's also a very thin line between supplying treatment and actively speeding a person's demise. from benign stuff like prostate cancer screening (current stats seem to say that being screen makes you more likely to die) through to radiotherapy and chemotherapy where it's often a gamble as to whether the cancer will actually kill the patient, but the therapy definitely strips years off their lives and sometimes kill people. Not to mention the "I wonder how much morphine to give" guessing that goes on.
My understanding from a number of doctors is that they don't want to be involved because it's a complex, ugly issue with a lot of downsides and very few upsides. But there's no need for a physical health type doctor to be involved in the "prescribe lethal dose" in many cases, just an "understands what they're asking for" certificate from a couple of competent authorities.
It's when you have the physically incapacitated patient that it all gets hard. Someone has to make an active decision about care, and what sort of care, and often there's no consensus. That makes it extremely risky for the doctor who says "put them out of their misery", because someone who disagrees can take legal action. And unfortunately the corpse plays no part in that ("living wills" being at best suggestive once they're applicable AFAIK).
What I object to in the discussion so far is the assumption that the anti-torture people are all about killing off inconvenient others. Frankly, I don't care about those "others" enough to have an opinion. I feel as strongly about our stupid voting law restrictions (that kill people) as I do about stupid anti-euthanasia laws (that kill people) and for the same reasons - it's all about consent. Or in this case, the denial of consent. What I care about a lot is the proposal that I should be condemned to life against my wishes. The threat of that means that I have to kill myself long before I would prefer to, simply to avoid putting the decision in the hands of people who want to see me suffer. Which I hope is an unintended consequence for the anti-euthanasia crowd. But it's also a very real one.
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Access: Right to die?, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
why are the right to die brigade not advocating for recidivist criminals to be given the right to end their lives?
Since you've apparently not made the connection, let me state for the record: I think criminals should have the same right to die as anyone else. And I think everyone should have the right to die.
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Access: Right to die?, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
and we have Moz stating that " I just can't see how three people proving round the clock moz-care is a good use of anyone's time.." methinks there are very good reasons to be concerned that perhaps the value of the lives of those who require a high level of care are yet to be recognised.
You're speaking for other people without regard for what they want. I find that offensive.
You're also misrepresenting what I said. You're welcome to disagree about the value of my life, and when I'm done with it you can have it. But I have nothing printable to say about your twisting my claim about my own life to somehow represent other people's claims about other lives.