[plug] Internet oppression - watch your backs!

[skribe]

On 05-May-99 Bret Busby wrote:
> We wish! Oh, for democracy!
> 
> We are not even going to be given a choice as to whether we become a 
> republic; only whether a particular model is to be adopted. If we 
> don't like the model that the people in canberra want to impose on us, 
> tough bikkies; no republic!

We were given a choice.  That's why we had the constitutional convention. 
Our representatives were sent to Canberra where they debated and discussed
various models and then a vote was held.  The model that was adopted was the
one that won the most votes.  That's how a representative democracy works.  To
give everyone a direct say would likely result in 18 million different models
for the alterations to the constitution.

> Methinks, in that, we have a lot to learn from Tamara's predecessors. 
> They got a republic, and the real people were allowed to become 
> involved (well, in sinking the ships at Boston, anyway).

So you're suggesting that we rise up against our supposed oppressors and commit
violence upon them?  I don't think so, but thanks for playing.

>But, if everyone else sits back, and believes that we are all deciding 
> what happens in this country, without actually doing anything, then 
> those people have decided that it is not an issue worth doing anything 
> about.

And they have no reason to complain.  The government are the way they are
because we've have 100 years of apathy.  If we want the government to change we
have to change because we put them there.  We gave them the power they have.  As
I said before: We are the government.
---
skribe <skribe at amber.com.au>

Intellect annuls Fate.
So far as a man thinks, he is free.
                -- Ralph Waldo Emerson