With regard to democracy, Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once famously said: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time ..." Many people I have spoken with equate voting with fairness. That is, if we can vote, then the result of that vote is fair. I can’t think of anything further from the truth. The general premise is that the candidate who gets more than 50% of the vote is elected. However, in reality, very few candidates get more than half the votes, so politicians in their wisdom introduced a system called preferential voting. Every elected official, at least in Australia, is human. And what’s wrong with humans? Everything! People are corrupt. People are irrational. People can be influenced to make the wrong decision. It was recently reported on the ABC that foreign donations from China could be influencing Australian politics. Whose democracy is this anyway? China’s or Australia’s? Obviously people love money, and politicians are only human, right?

#democracy #voting #freedom

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