Voting ... and Socrates

Well, I've just voted in our local Council elections: 18 candidates, some open about their political affiliation, some not ... and 18 of them.

I've come to favour optional preferential voting in recent years - partly because I consider people who strongly object to someone should have the right not to give them any portion of their vote (and there are people I feel that strongly about, just as others feel that way about candidates that I like :) ), partly to allow voter choice (I disagree with first-past-the-post voting - I think it is crazy, but those who like it can indulge in it for optional preferential voting): now I think I like it because it might save us from muscle cramps :)

I have always felt that voting should be compulsory (and NOT on work days, as is the case in the USA ... the postal voting system for our local Councils here is quite good), but that people should have the right to choose, if they wish to, to tick "none of the above" (which has, apparently been tried, and found to be problematic) or vote for absolutely everyone.

I'll hopefully get around to making some considered and informed arguments about my thoughts on this one day: in the meantime, at least I've expressed them.


I've also just written to several Commonwealth MPs and my local State MLA about an idea that others have suggested: generating solar power on a large scale in north-west Australia, and selling it to south-east and east Asia. I'm not likely to get a reply, but I've made my snowflake contribution to the slowly growing - I hope! - avalanche.

I may write about compelling candidate Councillors to disclose their political allegiances, but I know that has never got up in the past, and it has been discussed several times.

I am also working on a post for this blog about who can vote - largely from the point of view of age. That will be a little longer, as I want to think the implications through more.

Finally, I have also been doing a little work on the political courses: I've started reading Plato's Apology, about Socrates, and ... what a nasty, hypocritical person Socrates seems to be, so far.

I empathise with people who are receiving a hard time - it's what I've had to live with throughout my life, and I look at people who are laughing at others' misfortunes and thinking they could never be in that situation, and feel like telling them about the saying "there but for the grace of the Goddess go I".

Thus, although the people Socrates is showing up are flawed, I am very much aware that I - and everyone else - are also flawed, and thus, in my opinion, we need to be very careful about taking on a right to judge, condemn or belittle others.