The UK Election!!!!

Emphasis mine.So Buz, are you demanding a melanin test to determine voter eligibility in order to disenfranchise the so-called 'minority element' like Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, Arabs, Hindustanis, East Asians, and everyone else who you appear to have some racist prejudice against? It sure appears to me you do.Guess what genius, non-Hispanic whites have been the minority in New Mexico from time immemorial, will be the minority in Texas in less than a decade, and will be the minority in the USA at large by 2050.Sorry, there is no Apartheid South Africa or Rhodesia for you to flee to when that happens.Have you considered converting to Juche? The North Koreans consider everyone else on earth dirty by comparison. Oops, you were born with the wrong melanin count.Edited by anglagard, : Use the exact racially loaded term 'minority element' in response.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

I don't know exactly what all their stances are, but based purely on these mugshots, and becuase I like their party name The Liberal Democrats.

But that would be beside the point. The point being that they're both issues that a very significant proportion of the British public (whether it's 50 or 70 precent doesn't really matter) want addressed in a certain manner but all main parties fail to even consider. Yes it would have been more accurate. It would have also been superfluous and detracting from the point I was making. And that's *exactly* where the problem lies: in a representative republic the end-goal of the system is to get someone elected, so you have politicians pursuing 'political strategies' to get them elected instead of trying to echo the voices of the people they're supposed to represent. In a democracy, on the other hand, the end-goal of the system is to get all voices heard and to action items that the majority of the people want addressed. In a democracy, issues like the ones I've mentioned could never be brushed inder the carpet, as they currently are. Once more, you're inadvertently(?) exposing one of the the main weaknesses of the current system: politicians trying to please people and making compromises. The purpose of a 'representative' should be merely to represent the people who elected them. That means expressing all views of the people in their constituency however unpalatable they may be to him/her personally. In a true democracy there is no middle-man, no random arbiter of what should be discussed and what shouldn't, so whatever issues concern the public are being brought forward, discussed and voted on. That's why democracy is a much more efficient and fair system. Exactly. The problem is that, more often than not, the 'most important' ideas are the ones judged by the politicians as 'important' and they don't necessarily reflect what the public deems as 'important', hence issues like the ones I mention get ignored. if 70 or even 50 percent of the public have a specific and unambiguous opinion on life-or-death issues, such as the death penalty or the troop withdrawal, then taking the stance that these issues are not 'as important as...' smacks of elitism, condescension and pursuit of agendas unrelated to the main duty of rerpesentation of the public. Very true. The ancient Athenians exercised the method of ostracism to constrain the power of certain people. It uniquely offered the opportunity to the working class to remove members of the aristocracy from power without resorting to violence. There is no antithesis between democracy and checks and balances. Do not confuse ochlocracy with democracy.In any case, the bottom line remains that even a 'tyranny of the majority' is a much fairer system than the 'tyranny of the majority', don't you agree? Well, the Conservatives seem to be talking the talk about people participating in government but right now this is all it is, just talk, nothing more. Until I see definite and constant commitment and detailed plans about how this is going to be achieved, then those promises alone aren't going to persuade me to vote for them. My vote will be cast for the party/candidate who I think is likely to do the least amount of damage, unfortunately. It's a sad state of affairs but since our system chooses to totally ignore the significance of abstaining/empty vote it's the only way I can put my vote to some use. Which answers the first part of your question: the party which changes the voting system to add a 'None' option to the ballot will be seriously flirting with my vote.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Well I would like to see the system changed so that I can vote the way my heart tells me and still feel like it matters.But judging by the runaway popularity of the Lib Dems at the moment, I will vote strategically and see if we can kick the career Tory out.

Hi Kitsune, Go for it!It certainly is interesting to see the Lib Dem's getting a popularity boost. I doubt that they'll manage to maintain it, but if they do, it might change my vote.Here in Leicester South we have a crap choice. On the one hand we have the Labour candidate, Peter Soulsby. I would be very happy to vote for him as my local representative. He's competent, works hard for his constituents and whenever I've pestered him over the past few years, which I've done a lot, he's been very helpful. On the other hand, the Lib Dem candidate does not strike me as impressive. He's inarticulate and I don't think he is competent to represent the constituents.When I look at the national picture though, I am thoroughly disappointed by Labour's paucity if ambition and lack of any major achievements over the last decade. That tempts me to vote Liberal. If the Libs keep up the poll ratings they're getting right now, I might be tempted to throw my weight behind them, even if it means getting saddled with a duffer as my MP. Even though they still stand next-to-no-chance of forming a government, it would be interesting to see the balance of power shift a little.Mutate and Survive

I see this as one of the major drawbacks of your system. You have to vote for a local man/woman, but that local vote also determines the national party's power. Say you've got a very competent tory representative, he's realy good, has done a lot of work for his constituency, and as a result it has prospered. Yet you don't like the national tory party. Will you vote for him or not? Will you risk losing a cracking MP for your constituency over the fact that nationally, his party blows?

Hi Huntard, Well, given that I'd rather gnaw off my own legs than vote Tory, no. But you have hit my dilemma head on. It is a major drawback with the UK system. Both Labour and the Lib Dem's are talking about electoral reform at the moment, with only the Tories dragging their feet. Not sure I trust Labour to do it right though, given the disgraceful mess they've made of reforming the House of Lords. I would certainly support change, because the current system is badly broken.Mutate and Survive

Blimey, it's a small world. You probably live a bicycle journey from me. So how about someone who gets more busses running, on time, to more areas; eases the terrible rush hour congestion in the south of the city; does something about the abysmal architectural planning that puts a space-age modern building next to (and dwarfing) one of the few landmarks from the Middle Ages we have left? I could go on . . . but these are issues for the councils really. To be honest I don't feel like my votes count for much at all, but I will vote in order to keep people like the BNP out.Edited by Kitsune, : No reason given.

I know it would be beside the point you were making. That's why I said, 'It doesn't necessarily hamper the point you were raising' and stressed that I pointed it out for completeness. I know, which is why I also said that 'I appreciate that being nuanced this way would have interrupted the flow of your argument unnecessarily'. Even were such a system possible, which it presently isn't, it wouldn't necessarily be desirable.It might be preferred to have smart people making decisions even if there are some conflicts of interest between them and the people they make the decisions on behalf of rather than have half of the people making decisions be below average intelligence or have below average knowledge of the subject at hand.Do I want the economy run in the way that the 'average person' would? Hell no. If America tried it, creationism would probably be being taught in very little time.I think it might be easier to use science to try and learn how to align the interests of the decision makers more closely with the interests of those affected, to figure out why humans - even experts - make immoral decisions and how the frequency or magnitude of those decisions might be minimised. The alternative is to try and educate the public up to the level where the difference between the average person and an expert is negligible.The Conservatives are saying they think the age of information has now brought us to a point where that gap is shrinking enough to do something, though I'm not sure the measures they propose are quite as radical or game changing as you'd like. I think that making sure that an education bill that increases funding to all schools is more important that putting forward a highly divisive topic that is unlikely to gain support and losing political support for your education bill too...Stupid? Yes. Flawed? Yes. But very very difficult to avoid. And even harder to get out of once in. Just to be fair though, this is not the fault of the politicians entirely. Naturally - there are many politicians who have deliberately exacerbated the situation, but many more just have to try and work with the system they have. Reform is either slow and steady, or rapid and dangerous. Not necessarily, no. Either system can produce unfair outcomes. Do we want selfish educated people deciding the unfair outcomes, or everyone at once? Greater London could command 1/9 of the vote! Is that fair? Kind of. But also not. When it comes to taxation, is it fair that the people of say 8 cities get 1/5 of the vote as to how much people in say Truro should pay towards road or fuel tax? Well sort of, but sort of not. Fairness is kind of difficult to pin down really.I agree that things could probably be done fairer than they presently are. To be fair though, what else can the Conservatives do, but talk?As far as the points you raise, Labour doesn't have a great deal to say. Their main pertinent point is that they say they will increase the autonomy of local governments.I guess the Lib Dems biggest pertinent thing is the single transferable vote, which you may think gives the people an increase in representation in parliament.The Conservatives say they will make any petition that secures 100k signatures will be put to parliament for debate and for bills to spend some time 'paused' in process to give time for the public to read and discuss them.Of those ideas, aside from your confidence whether they will be implemented poorly or at all, which do you think puts more power in the hands of the people? It's just that - if you want the kind of ends that you talk about...you probably won't get it in one single stroke. You have to work slowly towards it. Do you think any of the ideas here might give the people enough power to take the next step in a true democracy?

I think this has to do with the national party, right? This is exactly what I mean, why not vote for a man that has brought your constituency prosperity? Ok, let's hope it gets fixed then.They system we have in The Netherlands is a list of candidates for the entire country, Everybody gets to vote for the same persons, whether they are from your "constituency" or not (which is why we don't have constituencies). This prevents dilemmas like yours from happening. The drawback to this is of course that heavily populated areas are likely to have more "local" guys in the government, and they tend to forget the lesser populated areas. This tends to focus around the "big cities" of the "randstad", basically the are between Utrecht, Amsterdam The Hague and Rotterdam. Though I realize that our country is a lot smaller than yours, so implementing a system like that might be a bit hard over there.

I don't think it is sad at all. I am glad you are taking the time to be informed. Elections are bought and sold with platitudes and campaign promises in the States. The overwhelming majority of people don't care enough to investigate anything, so seeing you take interest in the affairs of your country makes me happy by proxy.You are, however, going to have to explain what "knackered" and "nappies" means in your vernacular.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

I'm not so sure that is who he was referring to when he said "minorities." As I understood it he was referring to a political minority, namely, the liberal position.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

I'm pretty sure, given Buz's previous comments regarding Obama, that he meant Muslims.

Knackered = tiredNappies = those garments you put on babies to catch their doings. Er, diapers?

There seem to be a small contingent of us here who would prefer to do various rather unpleasant things to various parts of our anatomy than vote tory.I am not sure that the EvC UK contingent are particularly representative of the country as a whole however.