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Comment by okokwhatever | Hacker News Reader

It's the core concept of democracy. You lose, you are mostly out. You know, democracy.

> It's the core concept of democracy. You lose, you are mostly out. You know, democracy.

Democracy isn't about winner takes all. Its about you balance the needs and aspirations of everyone in a society: literally the demos.

Sometimes, as in my country (UK), democracy is practiced by imposing a thresholding function on decision-making processes ("first past the post") but it's worth remembering that this is largely for political convenience. It doesn't have to be that way, and plenty of places do it better - and have healitier, more equal societies as a result.

>It doesn't have to be that way, and plenty of places do it better - and have healitier, more equal societies as a result.

Where?

Bang! You got the point mate.

Denmark, for one. Here we have an extension on the election system in Britain where your local area still does first past the post, but any "wasted votes" are then used to get candidates from a broader geographical area, so that each party ends up with nearly the same number of votes per member they send to parliament.

This means that there are 12 parties in our parliament (not counting those from Greenland and the Faroe Islands), but only 3 in the UK parliament.

I can't say we are healtier, but we are more equal with our votes than the UK are - if the UK had the same system the conservatives wouldn't have had the numbers to dictate Brexit.

"That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason."

Top quote the article...

I’m quite certain that nobody involved here has been around for 235 or 60,000 years.

It's possible to recognise them without giving them a special place in the constitution, thereby enshrining race in the constitution (the opposite of the concept of justice being blind to race).

It should be about culture, not race.

Shouldn't justice be blind to culture also?

We don't let people conduct Human Sacrifice just because they have Aztec spiritual beliefs/culture

They are recognised and acknowledged to the point that it becomes tiring hearing about it all the time. The referendum was whether there should be a constitutional change, and the country decided overwhelmingly that there should not be. Several prominent indigenous Australians voted no. There's really nothing to see here.

Might is right. If they can not defend the land it's not theirs.

It's brutal, it's cruel but it's true. Any other view is mostly based in dreams that never succeeded.

If we were in a Douglas Adams novel, aliens would now invade, take away our homes and our rights.

After a couple of generations they would have a vote on giving us some of our rights back.

They would vote mostly among themselves using their proven cosmocratic framework.

It would then highlight how single cell organisms was the original lifeforms everywhere, born from a dish at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

LoL, you've summarized the last decade of crazy social policies in just one phrase. You've made my day, thanks.

That which you describe was called roughly "dictatorial majority" when I learned about these things in school, and the difference between it and democracy was that in a democracy, the majority behaves considerately and tries to keep the minority happy. Happy enough to want to participate in the next election, and happy enough to be considerate if the next election ends differently.

There is a better way than depending on the majority to be "considerate". I prefer constitutional limits on what the majority can do.

Why?

This is a serious question. I'm familiar with a couple of countries that have a considerate tradition that's working well. I'm not familiar with any that achieve the same effect with constitutional limits, and would like to learn.

The core concept of democracy is proper representation of interest groups.

If groups are being excluded and abused, that's not democracy.

You can not truly call the practice of killing most indigenous people then saying “Now we vote!” a democracy process.

Got it. Next referendum I'll try to do fewer murders.

They didn't get a vote when their country were taken by force to install a majority of people acting and voting against their interest.

There isn’t a country on earth that’s wasn’t taken by force by the current majority people.

Don't forget the foundation of genocide and displacement, followed by centuries of subjugation, propaganda, "reeducation", exploitation, economic and political maginalization and racism.

So Australians should solidify their status in to the constitution in perpetuity? How do you square that with basic principle of liberal universalism?

I would assert that giving Aboriginal peoples a voice in government is a "bare minimum decency" sort of thing, rather than some sort of abstract attack on "basic principles of liberal universalism".

How do you personally choose whether an indigenous group have a right to be represented? For example, should people in Britain who can trace their ancestors to the Mesolithic gain this right too?

Perhaps a referendum would be a good way to do it? The UK has proposed, and even passed, a few of those in recent memory

Please, stop the train, I want to step down...

Are the people of the UK feeling represented since all those referendum passed?

Democracy without compassion, which this referendum is an example of, is just the political equivalent of the tragedy of the commons, nicely sanitized for mass consumption.

A smug system of hidden, institutionalized marginalization and oppression.

>Democracy without compassion

Exactly what compassionate outcome would be achieved by giving them a special place in the constitution that couldn't be achieved otherwise?

>giving them a special place in the constitution

I would like to put emphasis on "special" here because specifically mentioning the "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people" and giving them special treatment is, by its nature, racist. It's positive racism, yes, but racism is still racism.

While I support their endeavours for further and stronger recognition (presumably since it's not equal to the rest), they can't declare how they want to fight racism when they are asking for special treatment based on their race and heritage. Hypocrisy is a great way to kill a message, no matter how good its spirit actually is.

(I will clarify I'm American, so I have no tangible horse here.)

This is misplaced compassion. Giving people who happen to have a specific genetic heritage a privileged position in the law because you feel sorry for them is not compassionate - it's racist and demeaning. And exactly how much genetic heritage does someone need to qualify? One drop? Is it really healthy for society to even start having that conversation and categorizing people by their genetic characteristics? If "compassion" is driving you to toss out equality before the law, you're on the wrong track.

No part of what you said is rooted in anything even barely resembling what the Voice was actually about. Christ, it was a glorified advisory body to the government. Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised. It has nothing to do with proving genetic heritage to get special treatment. You walk up to the government with a big bag of money to make people listen to your particular concerns and people call it "lobbying", you try to do it the right way and people claim it's some eugenics conspiracy.

> Basically harmless except it could've guaranteed Indigenous Australians would have a say in the future of the country violently stolen from them, instead of continuing to be disenfranchised.

Are Indigenous Australians denied the right to vote in modern-day Australian elections? Are there special constraints on their political activity that do not apply to other Australians (like being unable to serve in Parliament or being forbidden to contact their MP about issues that concern them)?

If they aren't denied those rights, do other groups in Australia already have special representative bodies that "guarantee... [their group has] a say in the future of the country"?

> It has nothing to do with proving genetic heritage to get special treatment.

What would the qualifications for someone to sit on the proposed "Voice"? Would all Australians eligible, or just certain ones?

Hey friend, the answers to your questions are immediately accessible via the world wide web, but seeing as how I actually live in this country and have endured damn near a year of this dogwhistling quasi-rhetorical inquiry that you mistakenly believe was novel enough to chip in, I'm gonna let you find your own way to it. Or not. But this "debate", which never should've been a debate in the first place, has lost its charm. I hope one day you fix your heart.

"Friend," your non-answer answered all my questions.

Basically, it sounds like Indigenous Australians aren't actually disenfranchised (or you've counter-intuitively re-defined "disenfranchised" to mean "not extra-enfranchised"), and this body would have unequally granted certain racial groups extra power and influence in the government based on race alone.

As a Canadian Aboriginals getting free post secondary education here seems like they are getting extra privileges rather than equal treatment under the law. As former British colonies why don't we just treat everyone equally instead of tracking race through bureaucracy and hiring or firing on the basis of race. Deciding the price of government services entirely on the basis of race?

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