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The first thing I will start with is WAR!
Firstly I would like to mention that no matter how much of a mandate a government thinks
they have, no government has the right to go to war without holding a referendum.
This especially applies to a democracy. If a government has been elected by the people,
then those same people have the right to decide if they want to go to war or not. Of
course dictators would not think of holding a referendum, but if they were running their
country according to ethical practices, then they should do so.
There are several problems with
democracies. One is that the parties, when in opposition are often on the right track;
but as soon as they come to power, it goes to their heads. The leaders become arrogant,
intransigent and power hungry. They lose track of the real world, and unfortunately,
they are never wise people. Secondly, most democracies have unfair systems of voting.
Let us take the Australian system: Here we have Electorates. This has been deemed the
fairest system by someone or a group of people many years ago. However, because of this
system, all sorts of bad things can occur.
The worst is that your vote may not count, unless it is very close between two
candidates. Then there is Branch Stacking. Or you may want to vote for a particular
party, but dislike the candidate in your Electorate. Understand this: If a candidate wins with a landslide, thousands of votes do not count. For instance, if it was a Labor victory, and you voted Labor, you might very well feel your vote didn't count as they would have won without your vote. So if you lived in a different suburb, where it was marginal, your vote would have counted much more, as Labor in that Electorate would need your vote to scrape through.
Let us now focus on wise people.
I asked several people to tell me what percentage of the population they considered to
be wise. The answer was invariably between 1% and 5%. Well, that was their opinion.
Mine is much less: I would estimate it to be around one quarter of 1%. A truly wise
person, does not lie to save themselves. Makes good and proper choices, is honest,
compassionate and fair: Does not impinge upon a person's liberty, nor harms a person
in any way.
In Australia, we have compulsory voting. This means that every idiot, juvenile delinquent, (providing they have turned 18) criminal (providing they are not in jail), long term unemployed and illiterate persons are compelled to vote by LAW. These are not in the 1%, nor the 5% of the population of wise persons. In fact, let's say for argument's sake that 5% are wise, that means that 95% are not wise. They may be knowledgeable, have a retentive memory or be skilled, but that doesn't make them wise.
Some of these less than intelligent persons are going to do a Donkey vote. And how is an illiterate person going to vote, let me ask you? What about the people who are not interested in politics? There are many, many people who don't care who gets elected. Then there are some people who think all governments are bad. Then there are all the informal votes. There are also people who just can't work out which Party would be best. There are also the misguided persons who vote entirely for the Party who will best serve them. Usually this is Libs for high income earners and Labor for low income earners. This slightly changed when Paul Keating became Prime Minister. Many high income earners voted for him.
There is one more very bad discrepancy with democracy and that is that there are more than just the two Party preferred Parties. The ballot sheet is getting bigger and bigger. People were calling it a "table cloth" at the last election. This means that if say one of the two Party preferred Parties gets 42% of the votes, the Opposition Party gets 37%, that leaves 21% for all the other parties. Now given that 95% of the population are unwise, this could easily mean that the 21% were votes of wise persons. No wise person would ever vote for the two Party preferred Parties, unless it was to get the incumbent Party out of Government.
Let me now ask you, if 42% of the votes is a mandate? This means that 58% did not want that Party to win. Let's not forget the Electorates and the wasted votes as well. The percentages could be much worse. It could go like this. The Party that is elected gets 36% of the votes, the Opposition Party gets 34% and all the other Parties put together get 30%. Now do you see that the winning Party that got 36% has actually polled less than the losing Party in the pervious scenario? In the previous one the loser polled 37%. In the new scenario the winning Party has only polled approximately one third of the votes. This could happen.
Now let's look at The Australian Government with Prime Minister John Howard at the helm. Firstly he was not able to govern with just the Liberal votes. He had to form a Coalition Government with The Nats. But John Howard is Prime Minister. He is the leader of a Party that polled far less than 50% of the votes. I do not know what percentage the Libs polled in any of the elections, but I know it was always less than 50%. Further more John Howard frequently says that he has a mandate. The only way he won the election was because he formed a Coalition. So in my opinion, that does not constitute a mandate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you get more than 50% of the votes to command a mandate? That means 50% for the Libs, not the Coalition.Otherwise, anyone who wins an election, has a mandate. This makes the word 'mandate' meaningless. As of November 24th 2007, of course John Howard is no longer Prime Minister.
What if Labor had formed a Coalition with The Greens at any one of the last three elections? Isn't it possible that they could have won an election, maybe not the last, but the one before? Many more voters may have voted Green, knowing they had a chance at government.
Now there is also the problem of factional in-fighting and power struggles. Wise people do not do this. Sometimes I cringe at the choice of leaders, when very often there is a better one waiting in the wings that never gets chosen. A leader must have integrity, be honourable and have dignity, they must also be wise.
Below is an excerpt from ABC On-line News Australia:
Latham charged with assault over camera incident* Former Federal Labor leader Mark Latham is due to appear in court next month on three charges arising from an incident outside a fast food outlet in January. Latham has been charged with assault, malicious damage and stealing. The New South Wales police say it follows an incident with a news photographer at western Sydney in January. They say Mark Latham allegedly snatched the photographer's camera and started to walk to his car. The photographer demanded his camera back and police then allege Latham tried to hit the man but did not injure him. They say the camera was later found to have been destroyed. Latham is due to appear in the Campbelltown Court on Wednesday March 22. His former colleagues in the Federal Labor Party learnt of the charges this afternoon as they met in Canberra to prepare for the first Parliamentary sitting of the year. A spokesman for Kim Beazley says the Labor leader has no comment on the matter. He (Latham) quit the Labor leadership just over a year ago, saying he was putting his family first after two serious life threatening illnesses. He angered some of his former Labor colleagues last year when his diary was published. End quote.
We also have a 'spokes person' for Kim Beasley, ( then Opposition Leader) saying he has no comment. This is outrageous. He definitely should comment and denounce the behaviour of their former leader. As you can now realise, he was not suitable to become leader in the first place. Then there is the matter of the diaries, I might leave that alone, it's not important.
Please review below The Seven Requisites for Being a Good Leader.
Integrity
Wisdom
Honour
Credibility
Intelligence
Dignity
Charisma
Integrity:
Without integrity, a leader can not be trusted. No leader who has lied, has integrity. No leader who has covered up the truth, has integrity. No leader, who blatantly breaks an election promise, has integrity. Note, there may be a rare occasion where a promise may have to be broken due to circumstances. For instance you may believe at the time that you can get an area back to normal in X amount of time after a cyclone has hit, then find it was physically not possible to do so. A wise person will not make a promise that is time-framed.
Wisdom:
Without wisdom, a person can not make the right and most beneficial decisions. For instance, it was unwise to join the Coalition of the Willing. It was unwise to believe all the lies, without solid proof. Even with proof, the decision to send troops to Iraq was unwise, and I will tell you why later.
Honour:
Without honour, you will not have the respect of the population. An honourable person does not hurl verbal abuse at another human being, especially in Parliament. Yet Politicians have the dubious title of 'Honourable'.
Credibility:
Sometime a wise person may tell the population something the less intelligent may not comprehend. However if it is credible, they will most likely go with it, rather than against it, in spite of not understanding it in its entirety.
Intelligence:
Without intelligence a leader is useless. You can't have half the population knowing better than their leader, or knowing their leader has made a poor economic decision. This leads to mismanagement and chaos.
Dignity:
Dignity shows a high self esteem. A dignified person sits up straight. They flow when they walk, not with an unbalanced gait. A dignified person is someone you look at with admiration. They are people who have good dress sense. That is, not outrageous, not stuffy or old-fashioned, not dowdy or boring. Their clothes need to be well cut and attractive, not necessarily in fashion. The person can be individual, without being over-the-top.
Charisma:
Having charisma will not turn a person into a good leader on its own. If a person only has charisma, this alone could be dangerous. Many con-people have this attribute. Charisma helps to endear that person to the public. This means they will get re-elected. This means they can get on with the job of governing well. The thing is, you can't please everyone, so there are always going to be people who are displeased with a Governmental decision, no matter how wise that leader is.
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