Australian Bigwigs agree: the Sovereign is irrelevant when it comes to being politically correct

September 13th, 2016

Awake Goy

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : There is an astounding convergence of Australian bigwigs’ opinion against a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. The general consensus on both sides of the debate, it appears, is that the sovereign, that is the people, are irrelevant when it comes to being politically correct.

Senator Dean Smith (courtesy Dean Smith Facebook)

The latest voice in the anti-plebiscite choir is, of all people, the openly gay Liberal Senator Dean Smith. Smith would declare that the notion of “sidelining parliament through people’s votes was abhorrent to constitutional conservatives”.

Apparently Smith hasn’t read the Constitution for a while, or he willingly omits that a referendum is constitutional, and moreover, the most direct form of representation of “the sovereign”, that is the people, whom the parliament is supposed to represent. Senator Smith would suggest that he might abstain from the vote in parliament.

Smith also claimed that the plebiscite would set a “dangerous precedent for deciding other controversial issues on the basis of popular votes”. Smith would also claim that his policy was driven by his “commitment to representative democracy” and not by his personal sexuality.

One may surmise that Senator Smith must consider Switzerland, one of the world’s oldest democracies with frequent plebiscites, as an extraordinarily dangerous country that is setting a most dangerous precedent with regard to using constitutionally guaranteed rights to let the sovereign, rather than bigwigs make decisions about “controversial issues”.

The Australian Cabinet has approved a plan to give $7.5m in public funding to both the yes and no campaigns in the marriage equality plebiscite. However, Labor has warned that this makes it even more likely that it will block the plebiscite. Monday night Cabinet reportedly approved a plan for a plebiscite on 11 February that will ask voters: “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”

The plebiscite is also being attacked by opposition leader Bill Shorten. Attorney-General George Brandis, who has outlined the form of the referendum together with Special Minister of State Scott Ryan, however, noted that the formulation of the questions was completely neutral. He added that if the legislation was approved, he would immediately introduce enabling legislation.

Ryan said the plebiscite would be decided by a simple majority and that voting would be compulsory. While Ryan apparently does not oppose the plebiscite, his advocacy for making voting “mandatory” betrays his own bigwig attitude and his poor understanding of “the sovereign” according to traditions introduced during the period of enlightenment.

Someone not having the right to make a statement by not voting must, according to Ryan’s understanding of sovereignty, be banned. But wait there’s more. Ryan also brought to mind such August authors as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley when he noted that the government would be seeking to have authorization to apply to “new communication mechanisms such as robocalls and SMS messaging”. What’s next Ryan? Using the GPS in phones to send police arrest dissident non-voters?

Members of the governing coalition would denounce Brandis and Shorten “to get out of the way, to allow the plebiscite bill passage through the Senate, to allow the Australian people to have their say and, importantly, in the event that there is a yes vote in the plebiscite to allow there to be marriage equality in Australia by early next year”.

However, shorten also displayed poor judgement and his poor understanding of a post-enlightenment understanding of sovereignty when he denounced Turnbull of having “given in to the bullies (the sovereign who voice their opinion) so much that now he’s gone down the slippery slope of spending taxpayer money to fund an opinion poll which most Australians don’t see the point of”.

In Question Time Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said in a question to Turnbull: “This morning I met 13-year-old Eddie, who is visiting Canberra today with his two mums, asking parliament to block a plebiscite. He said to me and I quote, ‘Why should people who barely know us make an assumption on our families and vote on how we can live?’ Can the prime minister explain why Eddie should have to put up with a $7.5 million campaign, by people who have never met him, telling him that there is something wrong with his family?”

Now, that is poor judgement of the capacity of a 13-year-old to understand complex political issues, let alone the cohort of unanswered questions about the impact of being brought up with lesbian or gay parents. Abusing the 13-year-old as emotional battering ram to achieve political bigwig ambitions, saying “Eddie was very disappointed” is also a display of political ethics gone awry.

But make no mistake, Greens are not immune to the bigwig virus either. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who previously had hedged her political options said that now she had seen the proposal she would not be supporting it. The Green Senator denounced Turnbull, saying: “Malcolm Turnbull has forsaken the marriage equality movement and allowed for this plebiscite to be rigged, so that it will never see the light of day. I could never accept spending taxpayers’ money on a campaign that attacks members of the Australian community”.

What is ominously absent from the debate is the question about sovereignty as understood in modern democratic philosophy. Bigwig attitude and the trend to allow the primacy of political correctness rather than sovereignty is the dominant trend on all sides. And please, Australians, beware of the Swiss, they make awesome cheese and set dangerous precedent when it comes to undermining the power of bigwigs. They even have guns in their homes, so they really must be dangerous people who allow the sovereign to vote when it comes to decisions about core societal, political and cultural values.

CH/L – nsnbc 13.09.2016

Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/09/13/australian-bigwigs-agree-the-sovereign-is-irrelevant-when-it-comes-to-being-politically-correct/