Tough Choice!

[mikz]

All the political movement sites are sending out their 'priorities for 2008' surveys at the moment. The toughest is getup.org.au's People's Agenda for Parliament, because in addition to the available rankings of 'not important' to 'very important' was the rank 'top 3 priorities'. Sheesh, how do you pick the three most important out of this lot?

Comments

[anaisdjuna]

You rock Mik. Your dedication to politics and civic life is admirable.

Off topic.... Here's a link to some cute Dutch weirdness... (if you're up for it) You have to watch for a sec for the magic to start.

http://producten.hema.nl/

[mikz]

Woah! That rocks!

And I shopped at Hema when I lived in Amsterdam. =)

[mikz]

Along similar but different lines, my colleague who I showed that to sent me this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82eWptFxSs

[anaisdjuna]

That is wicked cool!!!!!

Reminds me of my rship with the Spaniard.... ;-)

I'm totally fascinated by stuff like that. Thanks for sharing :-)

[rhiannonstone]

It's super-easy to pick a top three when you're a small-government nut. ;) (Applicable only if this were a US-gov't-focused list; are there any small-gov't nuts in Australia?)

[mikz]

I dunno, but I've certainly never met any. I think we're just focused on good government.

(To be honest, my impression is that 'small government' is a hollow Republican catchphrase that's as helpful in the real world as 'the war on drugs'. Feel free to try to enlighten me, preferably face-to-face.)

[rhiannonstone]

I'll be happy to chat with you about my (decidedly non-Republican) wackjob politics sometime. ;) A hot redheaded birdie mentioned that you and I might be at the same place on Saturday...

[mikz]

At the CELLspace? Cool! Seeya there!

[kragen]

My problem with this list is that it contains a mixture of concrete measures and abstract values. Protecting civil liberties, for example, is all very well, but it can cover a multitude of things, including prohibiting abortion, protecting the right to abortion, allowing neo-Nazis to organize and march, preventing neo-Nazis from organizing and marching, harshly punishing police officers who abuse their power and beat people up, not harshly punishing those who beat others up, extending the powers of copyright holders (I know that sounds crazy but it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and limiting the powers of copyright holders

[mikz]

You raise a very good point here. It's easy to read some of these options and assume they're good things, the same way that products can be marketed in a way that they look green or healthy to even the most scrupulous shopper when they aren't. I'll be sure to look for more detail in campaigns as they continue.

[juanatango]

Perhaps you can tell them you feel all the issues are vital and should be part of the platform - why must the platform focus on 3 topics only?

[mikz]

I think they figured that most people would think that most of the options were very important, and they were trying to figure out which people thought were most important.