Here’s an idea. How about citizens can have multiple votes, the number determined by their wealth? Billionaire mining magnates like Palmer and Rinehart get the minimum one vote each, “ordinary working families” get, say, 100 for each family member; single mothers in housing estates get 1000; refugees get 2,000, and everybody else is somewhere in between. There, that should concentrate the minds of politicians wonderfully eh?
Oh, and poor old Clive and Gina? Well, they would still have the option of buying television networks or full page ads in newspapers. If they could see a message that would get across.
Might need a bit of tinkering and fine tuning, a bit of adjustment of precise numbers of votes per individual, but generally speaking I think it would have to be a considerable improvement on the present arrangement which is effectively the reverse.
Oh and a gentle reminder:
If you would like to see your favourite blog recognised in the big wide world of the Best Blogs 2012, voting for the People’s Choice Award is still open (just)!
You can vote here. Just click on the button on the right (then go alphabetically to find THE Watermelon Blog, ie under T not W). Voting will close Wednesday 9 May at 5.00 pm. All winners will be announced on Thursday 10 May at 10.00 am by the Sydney Writers Centre. Come on now, pretty please?
PS The title, rather cheekily comes from a somewhat different, and reverse, context- Paul Samuelson 1970:
The consumer, so it is said, is the king … each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.
Not an all-bad idea David! I might suggest a change or two though. How about you get more votes if you own property and pay taxes on it, if you hold a regular full-time job, you can speak the language of the ballot, or maybe if you can prove you are a legal citizen of the voting district in which you live?
“maybe if you can prove you are a legal citizen of the voting district in which you live?”
Not a problem in Australia. Our electoral rolls are first class.
And who says renters are second class citizens? That’s a very 19th century idea – we got universal suffrage to eliminate that kind of thing.
As for full time jobs! Perhaps when everyone who wants such a rare privilege actually has one we could think about it. Of course, you’d have to deal with hordes of raging retirees who’d not be so thrilled with being disenfranchised.
Don’t be too concerned with Eric’s comments, adrlady. He’s only trolling – you know, tongue in cheek. He wouldn’t be David’s most avid, and possibly oldest, contributor if he meant everything he wrote.
Mind you, his idea of losing the vote if you lose your job has merit. If you were a right wing employer, say, you could sack all your workers the day before the election then re-hire them the day after the election. Better still, make it mandatory that all workers contracts expire on the first Monday in November.
This puts me in mind of the futuristic “multiple votes” scenario imagined by Nevil Shute in “In the Wet”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Wet
Oh, c’mon you guys! If David can stick his tongue in his cheek, I can to a bit can’t I?
Eric, a hundred years ago our most popular poet of the time, C J Dennis, described Australians as:
“…………………………..idle and fond of ease”
“And easy to swindle and hard to please.”
We haven’t changed a bit have we? We’ve all been taking your comments seriously; desperately trying to rescue you from drowning in the Tea Party while you, with tongue super glued to inner cheek, cunningly disguised your liberal atheism.
In a comment on an earlier blog you said that USA was a republic not a democracy.
Was that a misprint; have I misread it or was the tongue attached?
I can certainly identify with that “idle and fond of ease” part so maybe there’s a bit of Oz in me!
As for the republic vs democracy comment though, no misprint. The US was definitely founded as a republic and not a democracy. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands…”
In a democracy, majority rules. And, if the majority decided to imprison all atheists, a democracy would allow that. A republic, rule of law, would not. The law allows for individual freedom; so, you can be thankful (uncertain of who/what you would be thankful TO) if you’re an atheist in the US!