Another Wright Stuff; another fucking stupid panellist. Do they have some sort of quota system for that show?
Roasting in the Inferno today, we have the one, the only…Tiiiiim Minchin!
I damn near did a double-take when I heard him sing the praises of compulsory voting—or, as I like to call it, democracy-at-gunpoint—on Monday.
So, just to make sure, I decided to Google his brainfarts thoughts on this topic to see what came up.
Enter Twitter:
Funny how he doesn’t actually present any of the “logicfail” arguments, but I guess Twitter’s tailor-made for these kind of unsupported assertions.
More civic-minded cocksplash:
That’s them naughty nonvoters told, then!
And now, ladies and reprobates, watch mental-munchkin Minchin defy the Principle of Contradiction!
But if I just tore up my ballot, wouldn’t that prevent it from being collected ‘n’ counted? Wouldn’t my “voice” amongst the herd go…unheard? Wouldn’t it put paid to the “all voices” thing if I just showed up and did fuck-all-else to contribute?
Wouldn’t the outcome amount to the same thing if I just stayed home and had a wank?
What’s the best term to describe Minchin’s train of thought here?
Ah, yes—logic fail.
And, going by what the Aussie Electoral Commision say, he fails at the facts, too:
Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.
It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off…
What happens to those who elect not to vote?
That’s right, readers—for the heinous, heinous crime of not voting you could find yourself deprived of your hard-earned lucre—or, even worse, your liberty.
But hey, so long as Minchin’s satisfied by the ‘voter turnout’…
For all the time Minchin spends ripping into religion, it’s tragicomic to see him endorsing one of his own; then again, it seems part and parcel of his sociopolitical outlook: supposedly irreligious Leftists haven’t disposed with God—simply replaced him. Why go to church when you can pop to the polling station, instead?
His obsession with ‘civic duty’, coupled with his evangelistic rhetoric (“Democracy requires all voices.”), marks Minchin as a firm ‘n’ true believin’ democratard…
…and his enthusiastic endorsement of forcing the citizenry to the electoral Eucharist elevates (?) him to the status of democraturd.
Facebook friend, and Minchin’s fellow countryman, Schoma offers up an explanation for Tim’s turdiness…
I’ll bet his only reason is that he’s Australian, he’s grown up with compulsory voting and, just at a guess, he draws a false correlation between this country’s relatively good living standards/freedoms and compulsory voting.
…which sounds like the common fallacy amongst Western folk to equate democracy with civil liberty, even in instances where the former blatantly runs roughshod over the latter. A glance at how the non-Western world does democracy would surely be a bitchslap to their conceited conceptions; as Mupetblast said about the 2009 Iranian elections…
The vast majority of Iranian respondents, across the income spectrum (wherein higher income is associated with higher education), thought that abortion was never justifiable; that homosexuality was never justifiable; and that “men should have more right to job than women.”
In sum, what is it that Facebook fans of the Iranian uprising think will happen over there if their pleas are successful? … It seems to me that a perception that liberal, youthful, lovers of substantive freedom and a progressive ethos are up against a stodgy reactionary establishment is what motivates this enthusiasm. But if in fact the people they are supporting are even less liberal in orientation than a right-wing Republican (ooh, double shot!), and it appears that this is the case, what’s to get so excited about?
But then again, for a Western nation, Australia hasn’t been doing so well at the civil liberties itself, has it? With its overreaching defamation laws; proposed internet censorship; bans on porn, videogames, and suicide literature; and this-here elephant in the room known as compulsory voting, the nation of Oz sounds almost like an open-air version of its fictional “correctional facility” namesake.
It’s understandable how being raised in such a culture might contribute to moulding a mindset like Minchin’s…
…yet it doesn’t change the fact that ‘liberal’ remains a downright deceptive description of those who would subscribe to it.
Still, if that is indeed how Minchin describes himself, it cements his credentials as a comedian, if nothing else…
~MRDA~
Hey, thanks for the pingback but it was me that wrote the Entitled to an Opinion post (Mupetblast), not TGGP.
Ok, I’ll fix that. Thanks!
What happened to Art of the Possible? That had some good posts; did you archive it anywhere?
It was archived for the longest time but now it’s gone 🙁
Such a shame. It was like a predecessor to that Bleeding Heart Libertarian site, which appears to be better managed than AOTP ever was.
Oh also I wrote that Terry Eaglteon on Marx post too, which you recently commented on.
all falls apart on the premise that voting and/or democracy actually works, while using dogmatic undertones of fascism. I know he is trying to make a point about self-discipline but using a stick to make people do things that may not even work is his “logicfail” 🙂 hasn’t he considered the possibility that it could just be about punishing people to vote for a choice of either Hitler or Stalin, while the average and lowest common denominator rules the mass mindset. Or in short: you end up surrounded by idiots, ruled by sociopaths. A bit extreme but you get my point. hoho 😛
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Minchin may be thrashing about trying to think of something that will allow democracy to work–which it definitely does not. The answer might be democracy by lot–the original form of democracy from Athens. There is no voting and every citizen has an equal chance of being selected as a voice of the people. But thinking that only lawyers or the wealthy know what people need seems as natural to people as the absolute rule of Kings used to be. We live in an age of ignorant tradition when it comes to democracy.
“In sum, what is it that Facebook fans of the Iranian uprising think will happen over there if their pleas are successful?”
This reminds me of something Noam Chomsky pointed out, that a majority of US respondents to a poll asking them what law they’d like to see enacted stated a desire for the right to kill intruders in their own homes. Now I happen to agree with Average American – if someone breaks into my (admittedly tiny and full of largely inexpensive stuff) apartment, I’m going to rearrange them with the carving knife first, then call a carpet cleaning company, and only then (perhaps) consider calling the police – but I’ll bet if the typical democracy-for-everyone Champagne Socialist heard such talk from the Great Unwashed she’d be both horrified and determine to burrow even deeper into despite for the Proles.
“What do we want? Democracy… but only if the results reflect our own values!”
Also q.v. the Palestinian elections and the resulting debacle over the massive Hamas victory.
I wish I had gotten to this thread earlier, I’d like to know where Chomsky made that statement.
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I just started watching the series, Boardwalk Empire. The first episode opens up to a church meeting of nice church ladies on the eve of Prohibition. Steve Buscemi, as the essential “kingpin” politician of Atlantic City, makes an appearance, says all the right words, including “votes for women” and the audience sighs, obviously adoring him. The moral is, as long as you feel good about a policy, it’s good policy, If you feel bad however about a good policy then you’re a bad person. You bad boy, you. Everyone knows that voting is good! Vote early and often! If you’re not on the bandwagon then you’re obviously wrong. Probably a hater too.