Australia up next: Federal election tomorrow

[EricHiggin]

SvennoJ said:

EricHiggin said:

Well I was basing it more so on Canadian edu. As you've found out, our edu sucks, and has for a long time. Wasn't much different in HS for me. We had 2 semesters, 8 subs per semester, 4 subs one week, 4 more the next, back and forth. About 1 hr homework per night on average. Politics was barely taught and was done as a part of history class, and very few students took it seriously because there was a general mindset amongst young people that politics didn't matter, for different reasons, and teachers or parents didn't really seem to care much that the kids didn't care, which just reinforced the mindset. Same with French class, nobody paid attention, and nobody seemed to care much. French teachers were always terrible at their job which didn't help either. Sounds like I had it better than you, but worse than your kids, or maybe it's the other way around, and you had it best.

Manipulating people get's just that much easier when there's only one political view in the news, or when one political side is always cast as the 'bad guys'. Compulsory vote with a bunch of people who don't really know who or what they're voting for isn't any better, and could totally be far worse. What do you do when you only have a few parties, and all options are clearly terrible? You force yourself to submit to that? That's not what democracy is supposed to be, and just because it may not be clear that moment has come yet, doesn't mean it won't or can't, so why put yourself in that position to begin with, if you didn't have to? Force is always the last choice in a true democracy.

We had politics in Social Studies / Civics (Maatschappijleer), History class and Religion class (which focused on different religions despite going to a Catholic school, which I'm not either but learned a lot about the world in that class) We also closely followed the (first) Iraq war and fall of the Soviet Union while I was in school.

Anyway you're right a compulsory vote system would only make it worse in Canada. First disinformation needs to be tackled as well as all the nagative campaign ads and strategy. As you noticed it backfired on the conservatives after Trudeau stepped down.

Yes it is easier to motivate people to go vote out of anger, against the other guy. Yet a system where parties focus on what they want to do instead of what they don't want, combined with a compulsory vote to boost voter attendance, yes that can work. And it is working for Australia.

"Manipulating people get's just that much easier when there's only one political view in the news, or when one political side is always cast as the 'bad guys'."

That is the real problem. Especially since everything has become an echo chamber, including the mainstream news. We learned about bias in news reporting in school and had to find opposing views on current subjects from different newspapers. Now it would be teaching kids to spot lies and disinformation, how to fact check. The mainstream media has got in line behind one view, most media is owned by a few billionaires nowadays :(

The irony of modern society. We teach kids it's bad to lie, then worship the greatest liars in politics, reality TV, movies etc. The art of deception is held in high regard while it only leads to distrust and skepticism of everything else. It all started with religion of course, same tactics in politics. Promise the world, distrust thou neighbor for they stand in the way of the promises. Politics is no different from religion :/

It's time to make politics honest again. (scratch again, it never was) Accountability for politicians is badly needed.

Negative ads and campaigns should be reduced yes, but it's next to impossible to weed that out entirely. I get what you mean though. The less of that the better. We need leaders focused on idea's and the future, which Pierre did a decent job of after the fear campaign against Trudeau.

The negative campaigning from Pierre against Trudeau worked and worked well. Almost too well. It didn't backfire though, because shortly after Carney took over, Pierre shifted to a message of change and hope. That's all he ever kept bringing up during the campaign period, change and hope. Where as Carney doubled down on the negativity, and used Trump destroying Canada as the ultimate fear tactic, and it again, worked too well.

I don't disagree that a system more so like AUS has could maybe work in CAN (need to do much more research on that), but it would be too much of a change all at once. Won't really be where it needs to for a generation or two. The only way I could see it being implemented where it could work and wouldn't be shot down, is by easing it into place piece by piece over time, which would be messy during that time period, until it was fully implemented and the younger generations, and newer politicians were used to it.

The media needs to be sorted as you say, or the overall narrative amongst the people needs to become to disregard the media, at least when it comes to politics. Showing people opinion polls on who everyone is supposedly voting for is so stupid. All it's 'good for' as to the people, is manipulating those who don't know who to vote for. If people can't think for themselves then they shouldn't be voting. Without that mindset in place, no political system would be worth a damn. Trying to teach kids as you were, would seem like a good idea, but based on our edu system, I wouldn't trust them to do a good enough job, if not make things worse.

I agree, morality in modern society is a rarity. So screwed up that plenty, in some cases, think they're doing something moral when they're not. Yes accountability is sorely needed, across the board. If not, the only path forward without the parties and voters running everything into the ground by playing keep away with negative rhetoric, instead of good idea's and positivity, is separating, and then working together where applicable. That way politics is no longer really a conflict, or a very minor one at worst. What happens in Alberta over the next 4 years will likely let us know if that's an option.