Chit-Chat: Most likely Uni talk, idk sometimes food and stuff

[moon]

woah back the fuck up.

in Australia it's illegal to not vote?? that's insane and so demeaning to the people who actually go out of their way to care about and contribute to their country's politics. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good to be at least somewhat in the know about how your country's run and to have your say but if you truly know nothing or don't care, you should not vote. I know people who voted Conservative in the uk's last general election because "I don't really get politics but I guess I should vote and blue is a nice colour" and, if every vote really counts, it's now their ignorance that we're all paying for. plus, it's important to know who didn't vote so politicians know which areas need to be engaged more in the next election. forcing people to vote just results in loads of people who don't care contributing to something they don't understand for fear of prosecution if they don't. That's such a forced and artificial way of deciding a country's leadership and the actual outcome is not going to be representative of what people who care about politics want.

Whoa. Yeah, I agree with you 100%.

Also I caught a shiny AT LAST.

 

[Ivysaur]

woah back the **** up.

in Australia it's illegal to not vote?? that's insane and so demeaning to the people who actually go out of their way to care about and contribute to their country's politics. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good to be at least somewhat in the know about how your country's run and to have your say but if you truly know nothing or don't care, you should not vote. I know people who voted Conservative in the uk's last general election because "I don't really get politics but I guess I should vote and blue is a nice colour" and, if every vote really counts, it's now their ignorance that we're all paying for. plus, it's important to know who didn't vote so politicians know which areas need to be engaged more in the next election. forcing people to vote just results in loads of people who don't care contributing to something they don't understand for fear of prosecution if they don't. That's such a forced and artificial way of deciding a country's leadership and the actual outcome is not going to be representative of what people who care about politics want.

When I was in Argentina, I once told one of the people I was living with that in Spain, you could freely choose not to vote and she looked at me like "o_o wat. How do you get people to even care about politics if you don't force them to vote??". It was a pretty interesting discussion. And honestly, I remember random groups of people just talking about politics at a restaurant I used to go to dine at. All the time. News TVs on in every pub. At least they felt they had the responsibility to know what was going on before voting.

I guess the worst combination is someone who votes with no information in a country that doesn't force you to be engaged to begin with. That's when you get idiotic decisions.

Interestingly, chances are we'll get a new election in June after no candidate managed to pass a motion of confidence in a deeply divided Parliament coming from December. I wonder how that will turn out.

You get a fine if you don't vote in Australia?
Over here in the United States, I still have yet to vote since turning 18. I don't feel informed enough... or perhaps I'm simply complacent and more concerned with other things. As long as Trump and Cruz don't win it should be okay, I think...

Hint: sitting at home and wishing everybody else votes for the right guy while you do nothing does not always work. Also, having a president from X party is pretty pointless if your Representative and your Senator is from another party and can block everything and/or legislate against the president. I'd say that the affilliation of your local congressman/senator matters more than that of your president.

 

[Corrin]

I voted Liberal in the last Canadian election and the Liberal guy won, it felt good for me.

 

[moon]

I'm just glad I can live my life without being a politician myself tbh.

 

[Ivysaur]

That means we have a lot of dead votes (voters that don't do so in the UK have their votes contribute towards the party in 'power' at the time)

Wait, what? Well, yeah, I have to agree, political education in the UK is so bad that you have been led to believe that... nonsense. If you don't vote, you don't exist as far as the election officials care. Your vote isn't "added" to anybody's tally, it's just that... well, philosophically, if you don't vote, it's because either you are fine with anybody, so whoever your co-constituents choose is fine by you, or because you hate them all so you couldn't care less about who wins.

But if you don't vote, you don't vote... at all, full stop. There is no "dead vote" rule. If the people who do vote decide to kick your MP out and vote someone else in, then your vote isn't contributing to "the party in power", you simply are refusing to have a say, one way or another.

 

[Electricbluewolf]

The issue with politics here? It's not introduced enough into the education system (unless you take it at A-Level in which case you've been investing time into that subject prior anyway).

As a result, there's either no interest or no knowledge about what parties and policies are about during election time. Therefore, no-one votes. That means we have a lot of dead votes (voters that don't do so in the UK have their votes contribute towards the party in 'power' at the time) and most of the time a party people don't necessarily want in the seat are there.

It's recently started getting more involvement within our education system along with a few more points around our culture in the UK which I think is fantastic.

I have to agree with the lack of education. I think growing up you're expected to know what the parties are and what they stand for. Everything I know I picked up from the news. I think most teenagers are inspired by what their parents support

It can have a bit of a wobbly result though, as my friend wanted to vote for Britian First 2 years ago, I asked her why and it was because of their immigration policies, and nothing else-she quickly regretted it when I pointed out that one of education policies was to cut all funding to special needs schools (and her brother went to one)

Those the people who don't vote don't get counted at all. They do an estimate on how many people haven't voted but they don't add it to anything

 

[Livewire]

I voted Liberal in the last Canadian election and the Liberal guy won, it felt good for me.

Trudeau is a pretty cool guy, I wish we had more younger liberals of his kind down here in the states.

 

[Kanzler]

Trudeau is a pretty cool guy, I wish we had more younger liberals of his kind down here in the states.

I think he's a pretty typical politician. He was never going to fulfil the promise of welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of last year so I don't fault him for that, but he did promise a deficit of no more than $10 billion and it turns out that the deficit will actually be $30 billion. He also isn't doing enough on getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies, which apparently has been pushed off for later. He also cancelled the Canadian bombing mission against ISIS, although which he promised, might not be the best idea (my understanding is that the Canadian Forces are quite professional when it comes to bombing people).

On the other hand, the promised tax changes are in, government scientists can now speak freely about their work, the mandatory long-form census is back, and there is now a non-partisan, merit-based (so we are told) process for Senate appointments. Also, he's gotten a move on transferring federal infrastructure money to municipalities so I hope Toronto's public transit will finally gets updated.

I don't think he's been particularly liberal, but then again Canadian politics doesn't seem so partisan to begin with. Also, Canada is in general just more liberal as a country, so Trudeau doesn't seem all that outstanding in that light. He also has a majority parliament, so that helps him pushing stuff through.

I'm surprised we're talking about politics in the DCC :P

 

[Hikamaru]

Transport talk now? In my home city of Sydney, we have had a fair share of complaints but at the moment I guess our public transport services are getting more reliable, even if we now seem to rely on special cards more than tickets these days.

 

[Ivysaur]

I'm so glad to have needed a car. I can go anywhere I need by just tube or bus. Same when I was in Buenos Aires. But then again, we have trains or buses every 4/7 minutes on average, and my monthly pass costs 20€, so...

I have a licence, but damn I'd struggle so bad to live in a place without a decent public transport system.

 

[Esper]

I have to drive everywhere and honestly sometimes I just want to drive into a river because driving in traffic is a fate worse then death.

 

[Fannie]

Where I used to live, it took me three buses just to go from home to work. It then took me two or three buses to get back home depending on what route I took.

How much did that cost you every week? O.O

 

[Fannie]

I have a pass so I pay a flat rate every month, but under normal circumstances, we have transfer slips valid for 90 minutes from the time torn, so I'd be able to make it to work for just $1.50 because I'm a college student.

Wow. I'm not sure how much cheaper students can get it but the same thing in my town would be close to £4 (about $5.50) provided you don't need to travel out of town. Starting to see why many tourists hire cars here.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

Transportation is obsolete here really. I drive pretty much everywhere that I need to go. I cannot remember the last time that I used public transportation to get anywhere :x

 

[EC]

Did some super cleaning today. And also got a space ready for a possible Nintendo NX.

 

[Corrin]

We only have buses here and it's $2.75 a ride and monthly passes are like $70 :x Not the most expensive though, in Toronto I think it's more expensive.

 

[pkmin3033]

For me, the bus is 30p cheaper than the train, so I inevitably wind up catching one home if I'm in town...plus it's further to walk to the train station from the library I volunteer in from time-to-time. Although if I go into town by myself without hitching a lift, I'll catch the train because the train station is closer to my house than the bus stop. In the face of a 30p difference in prices, laziness governs all.

 

[Logan]

I hate public transport, trains are alright though I guess.

 

[pkmin3033]

Trains in this country may as well not have a timetable for all that they stick to it...it seems every time I try and catch one home I'm kept waiting for anywhere from five minutes to forty minutes because of some mundane excuse. They do get you to where you want to go quicker than buses though if you can actually get on one of the bloody things at the time you're supposed to.

 

[Dusk]

I took the bus to and from college. It was fairly convenient, even if the commute was a tad long from about 45 minutes to an hour. Being a passenger is nice because I could study, read, play a 3DS game or just take a nap. (My body always knew when it was time to get up!) Traveling by train long distances can be fun, and subways in metropolitan cities are usually fast and on the dot.