rollerblades = luv

[infohigh]

I finally have some rollerblades! I'm soo happy and excited about them. I'm pretty bad at skating still but I'm not as terrible as I thought I'd be. My new K2's are much better than the old pair I used to have, so I'm still getting used to trusting them to go over bumps smoothly etc. Anyway, it's much faster to get to campus now

Comments

Re: MMP versus Ontario's current voting system

[linuxluver]

Got your reply. Glad to hear you will look at it. Your initial message was cause for some concern there.

You may hear arguments against the proposal that are based on belief, but you won't hear any good arguments against the proposal that are based on the facts. I say this because the members of the OCA voted 94 to 8 for the proposal. They did that because the recommendation is a no-brainer. It IS good.

Part 1.

Some of the arguments against:

"MMP will lead to a legislature full of one-issue, splinter parties."

Lovely claim. Problem is, it isn't true. If you look at the other countries using the system proposed (New Zealand, Germany, Scotland, Wales) you won't find any one-issue parties there. There aren't any.

"What about the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP!"

Well.....what about hhe Paty Quebecois? If enough people vote for a party they will win seats under any systm. The SNP is the largets single arty in the Scottish assembly. They would win seats no mater what system was in place....and have won seats at Westminister, the UK's national Parliament, under First Past the Post."

"MMP will lead to minority government"

Yes. It probably will and I can say from experience that minority government under MMP is a very good thing. For a very simple reason. A minority government under MMP isn't tempted to call an election the way they are under First Past the Post. They know that if they do, they'll end up right back where they started, and will have annoyed voters with a pointles election. Under MMP, they can only get a one-party majority government if they get more than 50% of the party vote. That will happen only rarely. So hy is it a good thing? Because parties are forced to work together to run the country.Debates in the legislature are REAL debates. Parliament ceases to be the rubber stamp of one party. Like we imagine it to be today.....except it isn't. The added benefit of minority government, where several parties work together to pass law, is that the leading party ha its agenda critically scrutinised by other parties not beholden to it. This is sort of like the "sober second look" our Federal Senate is SUPPOSED toprovide, but often fails to. None of the provinces has a Senate, so this aspct of MMP, in reality, is an advantage. While people who don't like MMP try to tell you minority government is bad, based on shakiness of such governments under the present system, people who live in countries with proportional systems go the other way. They don't like one party governments . They see them as being too often dictatorial and arrogant. An opposition leader in a country with PR who is trying to bost his vote will frighten voters with the prospect of one-party government, knowing how hostile they are to it. That's because minority governments in systems like MMP, where they can't just call and election and win a phony, one-party majority, really ARE better......despite the propaganda to the contrary. Voters like it that way. I like it that way, having lived under MMP already.

End of part 1.