Paths to redemption

This morning, I saw a meme on Facebook. It said: “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit on this planet, but at least I’ve never voted for [the convicted felon]”. I shared it because it’s true for me, too. However, for me, the meme is only part of the story.

I really hve made a lot of huge mistakes in my life, and, obviously, voting for him was never one of them. However, we all make mistakes—everyone—but the trick is to recognise our mistakes and then to try to repair the damage, beginning with admitting our mistake. Sure, voting for him is arguably the biggest mistake that some Americans have ever made, but if there’s no path to redemption for those who made that mistake and regret it, then, in my opinion, there’s absolutely no hope for healing the deep divisions and wounds in the USA.

Those of us who never supported him in any way also have a choice: We can be smug about having been right about him all along, or we can help those who were wrong about him get back out into the sunlight. There will be some folks who will never be able to admit their mistake (for lots of reasons), and there’s nothing we can do to help them. But I want to see otherwise good people have a path to help to undo the damage they helped enable.

At the same time, though, I’ll never condemn the folks who can’t forgive those who voted for him. I totally get that—in fact, I often felt the same way, especially when the regime unleashed its reign of terror. Even so, I nevertheless persist in holding onto hope for the folks who made the mistake of voting for him, but who truly seek and then work for redemption.

My attitude comes from two completely different places. First, it’s arguably an enduring lesson from literally growing up in the church: There were all those messages about not judging, about forgiveness, and turning the other cheek. However, the biggest thing has been my adult life studying and volunteering in politics. In a democracy, victories are built on coalitions, and if democracy is to survive in the USA, it will take a massive coalition of people working and voting together to create change. That’s because of the systemic and structural barriers that the felon and his party are trying to erect to prevent pro-democracy people from voting—or even speaking out. I’ve often spoken about my own personal political pragmatism, and this is an example of it: Leave no opponent of the regime outside if they repudiate their former support for the felon.

Having said all of that, I’m under no illusions about any of this. It’s human nature to never admit mistakes, especially ones that people are embarrassed about having made, but even those folks can still do the right things quietly. My personal preference would be for his voters to admit their mistake publicly and join the pro-democracy coalition, but I don’t know how many will be strong enough to actually do that. That’s fine—as long as they still vote out the felon’s political party.

History shows us that there will come a day—hopefully very soon—when it will become nearly impossible to find anyone who will admit to ever having voted for him. For example, that happened in Germany after World War 2 ended, and the reasons it will happen in the USA are quite similar. Until that time, and to help it arrive sooner, we need to try to help his now repentant former voters find a path to help us all build a better future in which this nightmare cannot be repeated.

Preparing for the new blogging year

Maybe it’s a good sign, but I’ve already started planning and preparing for next year's blogging, something that begins less than a month from now. That planning process meant taking a look back, too, of course. None of this is even remotely new—one way or another it’s something I do every year. And yet, the fact I’m doing it after a difficult year gives me hope for the year to come.

One of the easiest ways to see that this has been a difficult year for me is to look at how much I produced for this blog and my podcast, and that can be summed up by the simple phrase, “very little”. November ended up in a three-way tie for my least productive months of 2024, but unlike the other two, I at least know what was behind the lack of output in November: The disastrous US election. I just didn’t feel like doing anything even remotely creative for at least the first two weeks after the disaster, and for the past week or so I’ve been busy in an entirely ordinary way.

My posts right before and after the US elections were both in my Weekend Diversion: 1984 series, but I wrote both of them right before they were published—I didn’t write them in advance, and, in fact, I think only one or two in the entire series were. It would be another week and a half before I’d post again, and that was the call for questions in this year’s Ask Arthur series, also written right before publication—around a week later than I wanted to publish it.

My last two posts in November were also delayed, though only by days. In fact, the only reason they got published at all was that I wanted to make sure that November wasn’t the least-productive month of the year. Motivation is motivation, I suppose.

So now it’s December and, including this post, so far I’ve managed an average of one post per day! That amuses me because when I thought about the rest of this year, I realised that I only needed 22 posts over 31 days to ensure that 2024 isn’t my worst-ever year for blogging. I know only too well how what in the past I would have always seen as an achievable target is now something that can easily evaporate. So… who knows?

Here’s what I do know: The Weekend Diversion: 1984 series has two more posts, so that takes the total needed down to 20. I’ve already published the first of three other posts I’d planned for this month, and if I publish the other two of the three, that leaves 17 posts needed. This year’s “Ask Arthur” series will take up some of those (I don’t know how many yet), and there are a whole bunch of unfinished posts I’ve been wanting to do this year, so I think I’m (possibly unrealistically) optimistic that over the next 29 days I can achieve that remaining goal of 17 posts I hadn’t specifically planned for.

All of which leads to an inevitable question: Why do I care at all? I’ve certainly asked myself that question a lot this year, especially when there were so often many days between posts. The first reason is that overall, I still enjoy it, despite everything, and because it’s my only writing outlet, something that matters to me (and I’ve noticed I’ve become a bit rusty due to lack of practice).

There’s another reason it matters to me, though, one that, once again, relates to the US election disaster. One of the main features of that disaster was how shockingly awful the legacy news media was in covering the campaign. That’s a big topic in itself, obviously, but I think it’s important that people who can should call out the inevitable bad and anti-democracy behaviour of the incoming regime. There was a time when my posts on politics were by far my most-read, and while I’m absolutely not suggesting I’m some sort of sage or oracle—or even any good at discussing politics—I nevertheless have a platform of sorts, and maybe it’s time for me to use it again to speak my truth. That may not be useful to anyone, anywhere, but if it helps even one person feel for one moment that they’re not alone in being alarmed by the incoming regime, then that’s enough.

There’s quite a lot I still want to talk about, and that’s the biggest reason of all that I care about my productivity (and, of course, pretty much all of this is also relevant to my audio podcast, too, something that’s been neglected even more than this blog). What all of this really means is that in 2025 this blog will probably be more like it used to be: Still about lots of things, but also different from what it has been in that I’ll again talk about political topics, too.

Much as I do try to think about what a reader might get out of my small efforts here, the fact is that it's what I think about this blog that matters the most. I think that if I keep that in mind, it’ll be a good place to begin building a new version of what I once loved so much about this whole project. Like I said at the end of my first-ever blog post: “So pour yourself a cuppa, relax, and let’s see where this leads.” Yeah, that—once again.

Strangeness on Facebook

Everyone knows that what we see on Facebook, as well as their other services like Instagram and Threads, is driven by algorithms. Their goal is to keep us using Facebook as long as possible so that we’ll see more ads, and the best way to do that is to show us more of what they know we interact with of click on. But what if there’s more to it than that? What if they’re engaging in some sort of deliberate “de-emphasis”?

I noticed in recent weeks that I wasn’t getting notifications when the New Zealand Labour Party posted something, including a Live Feed. Instead, I’d get a Notification about something they’re supposedly posted “5 minutes ago”) or whatever. When I follow the Notification, I find out that it was actually posted six or seven days earlier. Here’s an example, first a Notification I saw yesterday morning (October 30):

And here’s what it sent me to, a Reel that had actually been posted on October 23—not an hour earlier, but a week earlier:

I also realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any Facebook Posts from Kamala Harris in a long time. I went to the Page to make sure I was following it (I was), clicked “Like” on a post, and then a little while later a post from the page was in my feed. That has never happened with any Labour Party post, even though I often leave a “Reaction”.

I don’t think this is any sort of censorship of centre-left politics, and as far as I know the same thing could be happening with any other politically-focused Page. I also vaguely recall reading that Facebook made a decision to de-emphasise, or whatever they called it, political posts for the US elections. For all I know, this could be nothing more than them trying to keep politics out of people’s feeds, not necessarily completely, but just a bit slower.

Whatever the truth is, it’s annoying as hell. I’ve followed the Labour Party Page for at least a decade, yet I no longer see their posts in my feed nor do I get timely Notifications of posts as I used to. The fact that clicking “Like” on a post from the Kamala Harris Page made another post show up in my Feed, when doing the same on Labour Party posts never does is odd, though.

I’ve noticed something odd in Instagram, too: I’ve Liked and followed numerous political folks in recent months, and yet I seldom see their posts when I launch the Instagram App. Threads isn’t quite as much of a mystery, though, because I use it so little that the algorithms probably don’t have anything to work with.

I think that Facebook should respect our choices in what we want to see in our Feeds, or, at least, they should give us timely Notifications so we can choose to look at the post. Facebook deciding for us is a bit condescending and even infantilises uses to some extent. They already feed me lost of posts I never asked for and don’t follow, but not posts from people and Pages I do follow.

Pretty much every Facebook User I know has complained at some point about how Facebook often fails to show us things from people we actually know and/or have been FB “Friends” with for many years, and instead it shows us posts from the same handful of people over and over. There’s simply no way for Users to change this situation. Seems to me Facebook would have better luck in getting ads in front of eyes if it gave us more of what we want rather than what Facebook decides for us.

Just let us have more say in what we see. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask.

Update – November 2, 2024: Yesterday evening, I noticed I was getting Notifications of posts on the Kamala Harris Page again, and today there were several more, as well as posts showing up in my newsfeed, too. However, I still don't get timely Notifications about Labour Party posts, nor do I see anything in my newsfeed. That particular strangeness is still going on.

Getting on the bus

Tomorrow is Election Day in New Zealand, the final day to vote in this year’s General Election. The result will be close, and it’ll come down to who who actually votes—of course. The people who vote always determine who leads government, and the people who don’t vote don’t factor in that equation—of course. I have my own prediction of how this could play out in New Zealand this year (more about that later in this post), but it basically comes down to who gets on the bus.

I realised recently that I subscribe to the “Bus Theory” of voting (I don’t know that’s an actual name for it, but it’s what I call it). Here’s the analogy: Suppose I’m in the centre of the city, a long way from where I live, and I need to take a bus to get home. I could wait for a bus that will take me directly to my house—door to door!—but I know that such a bus doesn’t exist. Or, I could take a bus that’ll take me closest to home, even though it won’t go past my house, and it may even drop me off a block or so away and I have to walk the rest of the way. Finally, I could curse the bus for not going exactly where I want it to go and stomp off to walk an hour and a half back to my house. In rush hour traffic. And it starts to rain halfway there.

The point, of course, is that for the vast majority of people, no matter how much we might like a political party, we know no party is perfect, none of them will always do what we think they should do, and they’ll all get it wrong at least some of the time. We also know that somebody WILL win the election, maybe someone we dislike a LOT. What do we do?

For me, I vote for whichever party is going to take us closest to where I want us to be. Maybe some day the bus service will produce the perfect bus that will go exactly where I want it to, but I’m not going to wait for one that doesn’t and can’t exist today, and I’m also not going to stomp off on foot because it doesn’t exist today. I’ll take the bus that’s closest to what I want. I won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’ve voted Centre-Left my entire voting life, and in that time there have been plenty of times I metaphorically held my nose and voted for candidates/parties that disappointed me because their bus was going closest to where I wanted to go. Sometimes, the bus even got really close to the destination. In any case, I always got on the best bus available at the time.

There are, of course, people who feel perfection is the only acceptable option. Such people can, and often do, take the stomp-off option. Personally, I think it makes far more sense for such people to vote and deliberately spoil their ballots. If large numbers of people do that, politicians can see how many potential actual voters they’re not winning over, even grudgingly.

There are also true-believers who back their chosen parties 110%, and I honestly think that’s great for them! However, that’s seldom an option for many, possibly most, voters.

I’ve talked many times how the core of my politics is pragmatism, how I choose to work with what’s in front of me even as I also work for better and stronger progress. Honestly, I can’t even imagine a time that won’t be true—and, as a pragmatist, I can accept that, because making any progress toward the things central to my personal values is, for me, better than remaining pure and making no progress.

Which brings me back to my prediction about this year’s NZ General Election. If voters under 35, those who care about fighting climate change, if Māori and Pasifika people, and poor and working people vote, it’ll be a Centre-Left government. If large numbers of any of those groups don’t vote, or vote for parties on the Right, it’ll be a rightwing government with some quite hard-right policies due to coalition agreements. Put another way, if the people who ordinarily vote for Centre-Left parties get on the bus that’s actually there, they’ll determine the government. We know that the voters on the Right will do that, because they almost always do—but they’re more determined this year.

Based on what I’ve seen over a lifetime of watching and studying politics, everything comes down to who gets on the bus, maybe even especially so in these polarised times. After all, I want the bus to at least get close to the destination, not see it careering off a cliff from the wrong side of the road.

We’ll see tomorrow which scenario may be happening.

The weirdness epidemic

Until recently, the folks with odd political beliefs were on the fringes, the ones with bizarre beliefs even farther our in the void. These days, though, bizarre counterfactual beliefs aren’t limited to the shadows, the darkness where ordinary, rational people weren’t troubled by them. Instead, increasingly unhinged beliefs are creeping into the most unexpected public of places—like discussion about a new bus route.

This past Monday, a new bus service was launched herein Hamilton, liking the east and west sides of the city. Once the service is fully operational in October, the bus will run approximately every 15 minutes on weekdays, connecting the transport hub in the northwest part of Hamilton with Waikato University to the southeast, passing through the area I live, and the centre of Hamilton, among other parts of the city. This means that I could take the bus to get into the centre of the city rather than driving there, something that would probably mean I’d spend ages looking for a place to park. Other people will see different advantages related to their lives, of course.

In the comments to a Facebook ad promoting the launch, there were a lot of ordinary negative comments, similar to ones that can be seen on pretty much any public Facebook post. There were also a few railing about Hamilton City Council, and railing against one’s local government seems to be New Zealand’s leading indoor sport. However, there was also this:

“Hullo There’s that 15 minute brain tease again. Getting us ready for the 15 min city. No chnace. Vote them all out” [poor punctuation was in the original]

I’ll admit, when I first saw the comment, I thought it must be someone making an incredibly lame attempt at humour, which is pretty common when an ordinary person encounters bizarre comments like that. So I looked at the individual’s profile, and it was filled with promotions of conspiracy theory (including some very unhinged ones), attacks on those the conspiracy fans think are part of some sort of evil global cabal plotting to control them—in this case, by making their lives easier.

Naturally, the conspiracy nuts don’t accept there’s no good whatsoever about “15 minute cities”, which has become one of the more recent obsessions for the fringe. Here in the real world, the actual fact-based truth is obnoxiously simple and easy to understand. ABC (Australia) Radio National explained it this way:

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where neighbourhoods provide residents with the basic things they need — shops, schools, parks, leisure options, health care — within a 15-minute radius by foot or bike.

That’s it! The whole thing a framework for developing cities to make them more liveable and resilient, and far less dependent on using fossil fuels to handle the necessities of life. One of my biggest frustrations about where I live is that I have to drive everywhere to get anything I may need, and that includes healthcare and parks, but it’s the fact I have to drive to get a bottle of milk that really annoys me. Someday, there will be a commercial area just a few minutes’ walk form my house, and I’m really looking forward to that.

There’s nothing even remotely new about this idea—it’s as old as civilisation. People’s walking distance to basic necessities and amenities dramatics increased, or disappeared entirely, as private cars and their roads expanded (often with a fair but of corruption in the promotion of transport by car).

When Nigel and I visited the USA, he was shocked at how there were areas of ordinary cities in which it was impossible to to walk from one shopping centre to another. In fact, on our last trip there, we had to call a taxi to get us from one to another because there was absolutely no way to walk from one to the other.

And yet, being able to walk places is seen by some folks as just another “globalist conspiracy”, one that will, depending on the conspiracy fan, lead to government confiscating cars, forcing people to live in “ghettos” (an… interesting choice of words…), concentration camps (another interesting choice…), or open-air prisons that people won’t be allowed to leave without a permit. They say it would lead to fights for survival like out of the “Hunger Games”.

It seems to me that their obsession was fuelled by the fact the World Economic Forum promoted the urban planning framework, and to the conspiracy fans, the WEF is the embodiment and container for all the evil conspiracies the fans promote. Interestingly, the Left criticises the WEF, too, but for mostly entirely legitimate and rational reasons.

I have no idea how we as a society—as a civilisation—come back from this. How can we save the folks who are deeply the mired in obsession with imaginary conspiracies? How can we help them back toward being rational people who contribute to the body politic, and not exist entirely outside it? I have absolutely no idea, but as I’ve said many times, especially on my podcast, we must find a way, and if we fail to do so, it will be at our peril. [I talked about 15 minute cities in Episode 385 back in June, following a mob of conspiracy obsessives disrupted a simple public meeting in Hamilton].

One guy, so obsessed with conspiracy theories that he makes silly comments based on his bizarre beliefs on a public forum about a bus service may not seem like anything important or dangerous. However, we’ve seen time and time again how people who obsessively believe in bizarre conspiracy theories turn to violence when they grasp that no one outside their rabbit hole takes them seriously. The influence of the obsessives is growing, mostly because unscrupulous politicians pander to them in pursuit of power. We MUST find a way into our shared future that includes us all, and that means we must reject politicians who pander to the obsessives, and we must never ignore the fringe.

Personally, I’m glad for the busses every 15 minutes, and I look forward to the day when I can walk less than 15 minutes to buy a bottle of milk. There are far more people like me than there are folks who mutter darkly against those things, and that fact should give us all some hope.

The photo up top is of the brochure promoting the new bus service that I received last week. The cover of the brochure promotes the fact that weekday service will be approximately every 15 minutes. Maybe reading comprehension isn't necessary for conspiracy obsessives?

My voting details confirmed

It’s now August 1, and that means it's 74 days until the next New Zealand General Election, and while pundits and journalists are full of reckons about what may happen, no one knows for certain (whether they’d admit that fact or not is another matter entirely). Polling is extremely close, and we could end up with a left-leaning government or one leaning sharply to the right. Which it will be could well hinge on younger voters and people who care about climate change. I’ll have more to say about all that in the weeks ahead, but today I started at the very beginning of this year's process: I verified I’m enrolled to vote.

A couple months before every election—general, special, or local government—New Zealand voters are sent a form with all the details the Electoral Commission has for them: Name, address, and phone number, occupation (if stated), whether they have NZ Māori ancestry, which Electoral Roll they’re on (General or Māori, which is why ancestry matters), and what electorate they’re enrolled in. Voters are supposed to check those details and make sure they’re correct. If not, they’re to contact the Electoral Commission using the prepaid envelope, ringing them, or providing updates online. My pack arrived yesterday, but I only remembered to check today; my details were all correct, of course.

It may seem quaint in this digital age to send such a thing by mail, however, it provides the first way to check if someone’s properly enrolled. For example, if someone has moved house since the last election, the envelope would be returned to the Electoral Commission.

The commission will later start running ads (TV, radio, online) telling people that if they haven’t received a pack, they’ll need to update their details or enrol again. Later still, they’ll run ads reminding people the deadline is fast approaching. Anyone who isn’t enrolled on or before Writ Day (this year, Sunday, September 10) will have to cast a special vote, but they can still enrol afterward, and they can enrol and vote during the advance vote period (Oct 2 to 13) and on Election Day. In a typical election, the vast majority of people sort out their voter enrollment well before Election Day.

For a politics nerd like me, elections are like a sport fans’ Super Bowl, MLB World Series, Rugby and FIFA and Cricket World Cups, all rolled into one, including the passions around winning and losing, though, for me it’s more about the process and the mechanics of it all, and all of that is now officially underway with the delivery of our voter enrollment information. And it’s good to know I’m all set and ready to vote. For me, that parts a bit like Christmas, actually.

Ask Arthur 2022, Part 3: Ranking choices

This is, at the moment, the penultimate post in this series: I still plan on publishing the final post next week. However, there’s still time to ask a question (details below), should one so desire, and I can always add more posts.

Today’s question is back in sequence: While related (sort of) to Parts 1 and 2, it’s still its own topic. It's also from my pal Roger Green, who asked:

Please explain (again) how an instant runoff voting scenario would work v. first past the post. If you want to, use the GA runoff as an example of a wasteful government expenditure, IMO.

For most Georgia voters (about which, more later), the state’s runoff election is an entirely separate election, held four weeks after the November election. The better, and far less expensive option, is ranked choice voting, the collective name for many different flavours of voting systems, all of which are completely different from what Georgia and other places use for most voters. In the USA, it’s also known as "alternative vote" (AV) or "instant-runoff voting" (IRV).

What all ranked choice systems have in common is that instead of voting for the only ONE candidate for an office, like in a typical first past the post (FPP) election, voters rank their choices from one (the candidate they most want) on down to the candidate they least want. In every system I’m aware of, a voter doesn’t have to rank all the candidates on the ballot. This matters because if a voter deeply loathes parties or candidates, it’s okay to simply ignore them. It’s what happens next that starts to get complicated.

The goal with ranked choice voting is that the eventual winner has a majority of the vote, something that may not happen with FPP. Let’s assume that that we’re looking at an election for a legislative representative in a single-member district, which means only one candidate can win. Let’s also assume that there are six candidates running for the office, and no clear favourite.

Let’s now assume this was the result of the election: Candidate A got 25% of the votes cast, Candidate B got 23%, Candidate C got 20%, Candidate D got 15, Candidate E got 12%, and Candidate F got 5%. Under FPP, Candidate A would be elected with only a quarter of the votes cast because they got the more than any other candidate—BUT the vast majority of voters did NOT vote for Candidate A. This can happen in any FPP election with multiple candidates.

In the real world, votes aren’t usually as close to each other as in this example, especially in elections that historically lean toward one party. The point, however, is that FPP doesn’t always elect someone that the majority of voters are at least okay with, and frequently elects candidates that only a minority voted for. When that happens, it’s typically said the candidate declared the winner got “a plurality of the vote”, which is a nice way of saying that the majority of voters didn’t vote for the winning candidate. That masks how undemocratic the result is, in my opinion.

In Georgia, no candidate won 50% of the votes cast in the November election, though Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat running for re-election, won more votes than his Republican or Libertarian Party opponents. Under FPP, Sen. Warnock would’ve been reelected with less than half the vote, but instead there was the separate runoff election four weeks later, which he won.

In ranked choice voting elections, there are rounds (called different names in different places, but we’ll use that). In the example above, voters could rank their choices from 1 up to 6. The result only be the first round because no candidate received 50% of the vote. So, the lowest ranked candidate (Candidate F, in the example) is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the second choices of Candidate F’s voters. This continues with an as many rounds as it takes until one candidate passes 50% and becomes the winner.

This all happens through mathematics, which is certainly not my strongest subject, so I can’t explain the precise mechanisms. I understand what happens, but not precisely how it happens. The important thing is that it follows mathematics.

This gets at the biggest problem with ranked choice voting: It’s complicated. It’s hard to educate voters used to FPP on how the system works and how to use it. Once they understand the principle of ranking choices, though, it’s simple to use. The next question is, why use it?

The biggest reason is that it guarantees that the winning candidate(s) will have a majority of voters who, at the very least, don’t totally reject them. Under FPP, it’s very easy for someone disliked by the majority to nevertheless win. That also means that the “spoiler effect” inherent in FPP is vastly reduced: Under ranked choice voting, people don’t “throw away” their votes on minor party candidates because if they’re eliminated, their votes will be reallocated to other, possibly similar choices that might win. Under FPP, casting a vote for a minor party candidate could help a candidate one loathes to win. Partly because it reduses the spoiler effect, over time ranked choice voting encourages more minor parties, though, it must be noted, ranked choice voting results usually coalesce around dominant parties.

All that said, another (and completely different) reason to use ranked choice voting in elections is the savings: The immediate “run off” saves the costs of holding an entirely separate election day and having entirely separate vote counting. Equally as important, it spares voters from having to endure further weeks of incessant election advertising and campaigning.

In sum, ranked choice voting is fairer and more democratic than FPP, it encourages the development of smaller parties, and it saves taxpayers money, all while ensuring they don’t have to endure any more electioneering than is absolutely necessary. Infinite wins, in my opinion.

Even Georgia sees the common-sense practicality of ranked choice voting: Overseas Georgia votes (and maybe other absentee voters—I don’t know) were given a ranked choice ballot to use in the November election. This was entirely practical: It would be physically impossible to get run-off ballots to overseas voters and get them returned in time to be counted. What I don’t know is how they were counted. To me, it seems likely that they could’ve eliminated minor party candidates in the second round to get to the two in the run-off, then add those votes onto the total in the run-off. I should emphasise that I’m speculating, because I absolutely don’t know, and it’s also possible that the votes of overseas Georgians weren’t used at all in the runoff.

Finally, ranked-choice voting, in all its many flavours, isn’t merely always fairer and more democratic than FPP, it’s also a system that could be adopted everywhere in the USA without changing the country’s system of government or amending the US Constitution (or, probably, any state constitutions—I haven’t checked that). This would do more to change the USA’s poisoned politics faster than pretty much any other democratic reform. All of which is why the USA’s rightwing and their wealthy donors would oppose it with with all their might: Ranked choice voting would mean they’d lose their unearned, unelected power. To me, that’s just one more excellent reason for the USA to switch to ranked choice voting.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question!

It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. To avoid being public there, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page..

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

A decade-long inquisition
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 2: Indepen-dunce

NZ voters send local government a message: ‘Meh.’

New Zealand’s local elections closed at noon this past Saturday, with the earliest results available by evening. Today the preliminary results were released, with the final result to be announced in a few days. Traditionally, not much changes between the preliminary and final result. Overall, there were some surprises in the elections, but with fewer than 40% of eligible voters bothering to cast a ballot, it’s obvious that the message that the clear majority of New Zealand voters sent to local government was a resounding “Meh”.

New Zealand’s local elections are held on the second Saturday in October every three years (usually not the same year as Parliamentary elections), and the election is done by postal ballot—which makes the ever-declining rates of voting shocking to some observers. What’s certain is that New Zealand’s local election system is a disaster, and has been for a long time. Local Government New Zealand, which is an association representing local governments—basically, their lobby group—is calling for an independent review of the utterly broken local election system to figure out how to fix it. This is a very important thing, and so is it being independent (we can’t really trust Parliament or local governments to get it right). Still, the one thing that most people seem to agree on is that 2022 must be the last postal election in New Zealand.

People don’t use the postal system for much of anything anymore, something that’s true in countries around the world, of course. New Zealand Post delivered some voters’ election materials late, and failed to deliver them at all to potentially thousands of voters. These same delivery problems may also mean that thousands of ballots posted back in time may not have been delivered in time, and may not arrive until sometime this week, well after voting closed, and that means they won’t be counted at all (ballots had to be received by noon on Saturday, which is why I hand-delivered my Hamilton ballot to an official collection box—well, that, and the fact I wasn’t sure where I could post my ballot.

Against that backdrop, it’s difficult to be sure if the results are even representative of people who did vote, let alone the majority who didn’t. Be that as it may, we’re all stuck with wishes of the minority who got their votes in and counted, and that could be a problem in some councils. I’ll talk about Hamilton and Auckland in two different posts, but, for now, the important point is that things have GOT to change.

One problem we had this year was that a number of fringe extremists, or those supporting the extremist organisations, were trying to get elected to local government. According to Stuff, out of the some 3,000 candidates this year, around 200 “promoted false information or conspiracies”, and several were clearly affiliated with extremist groups. Of those 200, roughly a dozen were actually elected.

Local elections create an opening for extremists to take advantage of the pathetically low voter turnout to sneak into office and cause trouble, which makes those elections a huge vulnerability for democracy in New Zealand. In a time when democracy is under attack throughout the world, we must redouble our efforts to strengthen and protect it.

If postal voting was abandoned, what would it be replaced with? The obvious answer is in-person voting, as we have for general elections. Some people are pushing hard for online voting, but New Zealand’s security agencies have warned against that because of the huge potential for hackers to disrupt or steal our elections—even local elections, because adversaries would want to create chaos and division in NZ. However, I think the talk about voting methods misses the point: Why on earth would NZ voters care about local elections?

New Zealand has a unitary system of government in which Parliament is supreme. Local government has only those powers given to it by Parliament, and that doesn’t include many of the things that local governments look after in places like the USA, things like schools, police, fire, all of which are national in New Zealand. Local governments mostly administer legislation on behalf of Parliament—things like dog control, enforcement of the building act, and maintaining controls on the sale of restricted items (like alcohol, tobacco, vaping supplies). Local governments also maintain local streets and roads, collect rubbish, maintain parks and reserves, have events and promote tourism, manage public transport (if any), and take care of water and wastewater. The latter was a big issue among some—including the fringe groups—because of the governments proposed Three Waters Reforms, which is too big a topic for this post, but if Parliament pushed through the plans as proposed, it would’ve taken away one of the main things local councils do.

Because of all that, the argument goes that since local governments look after a lot of things that affect residents’ daily lives, if people can’t be bothered to vote—especially when the voting comes to their houses—it means they’re just plain lazy or too shallow. That’s nonsense.

People don’t vote partly, yes, because they either don’t appreciate or understand what local councils do, but local government is also confusing as hell, with very little information available to voters without them having to do a LOT of work and spend a LOT of time researching. Most people simply won’t do all that work, as we’ve seen. I’m on the side of those voters.

When voters receive their ballots, they also get a booklet with statements provided by the candidates themselves, all of which are (apparently) unvetted and unedited. The information booklet for Hamilton’s election was 36 pages long, and the booklet for the area we lived in on Auckland’s North Shore was 47 pages—and both were in relatively small type. Both booklets also had information on how to vote.

Aside from the booklets, some candidates advertised or had signs, some attended information meetings or debates (though in some places those fringe elements disrupted meetings by shouting at candidates so that no one could hear anything, especially from anyone the fringe didn’t like). There’s very little media coverage of smaller councils’ elections on the TV news, and not every place has newspapers—and even those that do aren’t necessarily any better informed.

The alternatives, then, are to spend hours and hours researching candidates, hours at public meetings on a weeknight, rely on that candidate supplied info in the booklets (and hope they’re not hiding being part of a fringe political group), or just don’t bother voting at all. Clearly the majority of New Zealand voters are choosing the last option.

What I think needs to happen is that postal voting has to be abolished and in-person voting has to be brought back—thenwe can think about online voting, though I personally think it’s a very bad idea, not just for security reasons, but because it would disadvantage older voters who may not be able to understand online voting, as well as poorer people who may not have a computer and/or an Internet connection at home. In-person voting, especially if conducted over a couple weeks like the general elections are, gets around nearly all those problems.

After the problem with voting is fixed, the next step is to have the Electoral Commission take over all responsibility for running local elections. Right now, councils run their own elections and are responsible for promoting them—and some councils are frankly useless at doing so. If the local elections were run like the general election, we can ensure they all work identically, that they’ll be promoted throughout the country, and that they’ll be secure.

I also think some systemic reforms are needed. All local government elections should be run under the Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system to reduce the ability of fringe/extremist candidates to sneak in. Kirikiriroa-Hamilton just switched to STV this year, something I wrote about when the decision was made. I also think that single-member wards would be better than either completely at-large, or, have multi-member wards (Hamilton has two general wards, each with six councillors, and Auckland’s wards have one or two councillors each), because it would greatly simplify and reduce the amount of research voters need to do. However, if there must be electorates with two or more members to be elected, STV is on the only rational way to do it.

Voter registration should be automatic at age 18. There’s evidence that if someone doesn’t vote by the third election after they turn 18, they will probably never vote. We need to make it as easy to vote as possible, and automatic voter registration is one of the easiest ways to do that (people who have an objection should have to opt out, in my view, rather than expecting young people to opt in). I do NOT support making voting mandatory because forcing someone to vote doesn’t automatically make them care about elections or results. A better way to do that is to have robust civics education in schools, something New Zealand is set to make compulsory.

All the reforms I back will help, but they won’t fix everything: You can lead a person to the election, but you can’t make them vote. I certainly understand why some people can’t be bothered to vote in local elections, even if I think they “should” care and “should” vote—because I do? Probably. But the danger is that with a highly-motivated extremist fringe that, while tiny, is well-organised, we could have our democracy stolen in plain sight. We MUST change the way New Zealand’s local elections are done—while we still have a democracy.

Update – October 11, 2022: I decided to wait to talk about the election results in Hamilton and Auckland until after the final results are announced on Friday. As I said in the post, not much changes between the preliminary and final result, but, maybe something might? At any rate, it's probably best to wait until the counting is truly over.

Pōti ahau – I voted (2022)

Today I cast my vote for Hamilton City Council and Waikato Regional Council elections at the St Andrews branch of the Hamiton library, the closest drop-off point to my house. It was a 20 minute drive in traffic.

I was originally just going to post it, but since that meant driving at least 15 minutes, I decided to see how long it would take—and how difficult it would be—to go to the library closest to my house. There was a drive-in and drop-off thing at a supermarket in Dinsdale, not far from the Dinsdale branch of the library (the next-nearest branch to my house), though the drive-on thing was only announced this morning, which seemed a bit poor. The main reason I chose not to go there was that the driving time would’ve been longer than what I chose.

The only trouble I had was that Apple Maps sent me a different way than I’d have chosen—though I couldn’t know that at the time, since I’d never been to the area the library’s in. It was fine in the end.

Hamilton City Council has done a pretty poor job of making it easy to vote, a topic I’ll return to soon, but the main issue this year was that there were FAR too few drop off points, and none at all in the entire northwestern part of the city. I’ll go into more detail about all that when I talk about reforming New Zealand’s awful systems for local elections.

Right now, I’m just glad it’s done for another three years. Also, a kind librarian snapped the photo above for me. Where would the world be without librarians?!

Fixing the NZ Census

Yesterday, the New Zealand Government announced a raft of changes ahead of the 2023 NZ Census that will hopefully prevent another Census disaster like we had in 2018. It looks very promising.

It wasn’t hard to see what went wrong with the 2018 Census, even before the reviews were completed. I said at the time:

…it’s widely believed by us ordinary people that two of the factors were that the 2018 Census was, first, that this was the first conducted entirely online—there was no mass distribution of paper forms this year. Second, the previous National Party-led government, which drew up the budget that funded the 2018 Census, underfunded the whole thing.

While National denied underfunding the Census, it’s clear they did: They demanded budget cutbacks for two Census cycles, and dramatically cut the availability of paper census forms for large swathes of New Zealand. For example, there was significant undercounting of Māori and Pacific Island people, who, historically, have less access to computers and the Internet. The govevernment has plans to help with both.

Statistics Minister David Clark said that, “The 2023 Census will have more of everything—more boots on the ground, more paper forms, more hours worked and more community engagement”. This will be done by investing around $110 million more into the census to improve the results.

Part of the work will be to increase awareness, particularly among undercounted populations. Associate Minister of Statistics Meka Whaitiri said that a lot of work has gone into ensuring the nationwide survey will increase the response rate for Māori. “One of the new initiatives for the 2023 Census includes Te Mana Whakatipu, a pilot to build iwi data analytical capability and to deliver iwi-led collections in two locations where response rates have been lower in the past,” she said. “Led by Te Kāhui Raraunga, the operating arm of the Data Iwi Leaders Group, 2023 Census data will be collected by iwi collectives in the Far North by Te Ōhua and on the East Cape by Toitū Tairāwhiti.”

I’m sure I’ll complete the 2023 Census online, as I have since 2013, so this doesn’t affect me personally. However, as a citizen, taxpayer, and statistics and political science nerd, I’m incredibly keen on seeing a quality Census this year. It won’t erase the disaster that 2018 was, but at least it’ll give us better data for all sorts of things we need to know about in order to plan a future that’s right for all New Zealanders. I think the government is doing exactly what needs to be done.

New Zealand’s 2023 Census Night will be on March 7, 2023.

Worth Quoting: Grant Robertson

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson, posted this message on Facebook today:

Let’s start with the obvious. I support the right to protest. I have in fact led protests on Parliament's grounds—including one where we as students protested against spiralling education costs briefly occupied the steps. When I led those protests we often discussed the fact that if we crossed certain lines we knew we would get arrested. I was always of the view that the cause or the issue was what mattered most, and we would strive to make our point, and then move on to live to fight another day.

Protest is important in our democracy, but like all freedoms it comes with responsibilities. The protest we have seen at Parliament this week is driven by wild, false, dangerous conspiracy theories and people with an extreme agenda. Even then the people involved have a right to be there. But when they threaten, harass and disrupt people and a whole city they lose that right. They have been trespassed, they need to leave.

I have had so many constituents contact me over the last week distressed at what is happening to our city. School pupils spat at and harassed for wearing a mask, roads blocked delaying public transport and emergency services and businesses shut down.

Not to mention the obvious threats of violence against politicians and the media. Looking down on a protest that wants to hang me as a politician, a sign that compares the Prime Minister to the March 15th terrorist, calls for arrest and execution of me and other leaders you might understand why I believe the Police need to move them on.

It is entirely up to the Police how they enforce the law, and it is important that it stays that way in our democracy. I want to thank them for doing their hard and difficult job in trying conditions. As the local MP I have been in regular contact with them and the City Council to support the rights of Wellingtonians to go about their lives free from harassment and severe disruption.

I am confident that this will happen, though it will no doubt take some time.

I am also re-assured that this group of people do represent a small minority. Just yesterday, two things happened to remind me of that. Northland DHB reached 90% first dose vaccination rate. We have done what no one thought could be done—all DHBs have reached this target.

And yesterday afternoon, we passed the 10 million vaccines mark. This is New Zealanders looking after themselves and each other. We have done so incredibly well. Thousands of lives have been saved and while it is tough for some sectors, we have kept people in jobs and the economy moving forward.

So, thank you again Aotearoa, you are the best.

Grant Robertson
Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand
Minister of Finance
Member of Parliament for Wellington Central

Don’t be a vote ghost

New Zealand, like all Western democracies, has a major problem: Younger voters don’t vote. That means that as a share of the population older people are way overrepresented, and younger people are way underrepresented, in elected bodies. Over the years, there have been many attempts to change this, to get younger people to vote, but those efforts have had limited—sometimes no—success. Even so, we must continue to try to get younger people to vote so that the governments we elect better represent us all.

The New Zealand Electoral Commission is attempting to do that through its “Don’t be a vote ghost” campaign. The video above is their 30 second ad, and it, and their shorter versions (below), are currently in heavy rotation on NZ television. The first goal is to get younger people registered to vote, and then to also get them to show up.

The reason that this is necessary can be seen in a chart from FigureNZ (the original version, at the link, is interactive), using data from voter turnout for the 2017 General Election:

I’m well aware that other countries would envy New Zealand’s relatively high turnout among enrolled voters (putting aside the percentages of unenrolled people), however, it’s clear to see that people under 35 vote at significantly lower rates than do those who are older. According to the NZ Electoral Commission, in 2017 nearly a third of enrolled voters under 35 didn’t vote.

There are many reasons why younger people don’t vote, and even more theories. Back in March, John Holbein looked at what we know about young people’s voting in the USA for the American Political Science Association’s Political Science Now. It’s worth a read.

Whatever the country, there are a number of issues that young people care about that could be dramatically affected if they actually voted, but this is about far more than mere issues: Young people’s issues seldom receive much priority from older politicians precisely because politicians don’t need to rely on the votes of younger people, so they feel they can largely ignore them. This also means that younger people have very little representation in government, including having younger politicians, but also older politicians who agree with the priorities of younger voters. If government is to truly represent the people, then it must truly represent the people. Young voters can help ensure it does.

The TV ad campaign includes several short versions of the ad above. Both of them use a netball seen that’s not in the longer version, the shortest of them focusing on that.

First, the 15 second ad:



Finally, the 6 second version:



I think the longer two ads are effective at conveying the campaign’s message. In my opinion, though, the 6 second version is the weakest of the three. However, that one’s obviously intended to reinforce the message of the longer ads, meaning it usually runs in the same ad bloc as one of the longer ads (based on what I’ve personally seen so far). That’s a common practice among many advertisers.

This campaign won’t, by itself, increase the turnout of younger voters. Like most countries—though nearly as much as the USA—New Zealand needs systemic reform. Because there are a lot of reasons that younger people don’t vote, though, it’s obvious that no single ad campaign can ever address all the obstacles. But even if it only helps just a little, it’ll be well worth the effort.

And, yeah: Don’t be a vote ghost. Boo.

Local democracy to increase

New Zealand’s city of Kirikiriroa-Hamilton—my current home—is about to gain some more fairness and local democracy. The City Council has just voted to replace the old-fashioned and anti-democratic “First Past the Post” (FPP, or sometimes FPTP) with the more democratic and fair “Single Transferable Vote” (STV) system for the 2022 local elections. This is a major step forward for local democracy.

Hamilton City Council ran an online survey between June 17 and July 17, and received 928 responses. 726 respondents (78.1%) wanted to switch to STV and 202 (21.9%) wanted to keep using FPP. (Full disclosure: I took part and said I wanted to switch to STV). To be honest, I’m not certain that a high response among a tiny minority of people represents a statistically significant thing to base a major decision on, even though I support it. Still, I prefer councillors to make the decisions we elect (and pay) them to make rather than kicking everything down the road by holding referenda. If we don’t like what they decide, we can vote them out and put in people who will do what we want; the whole point of representative democracy is that we’re represented, and we’re the final arbiter of whether they got it right or not.

Quibbles about what they based their decision on aside, I do support the move for the reasons I stated in my submission:

STV ensures elected candidates don’t get in with a small minority of votes. It also removes the spoiler effect in which votes for one candidate might accidentally elect the one we least want elected. All of which encourages diversity among candidates, and so, the people elected.

The video above from C.G.P. Grey explains STV, which really is a pretty confusing system for anyone who only knows FPP. The important point is that it introduces proportionality, unlike a system called “Alternative Vote” (AV, or also called “Instant Runoff Voting”, used in parts of the USA). While both systems eliminate the spoiler effect that FPP actually encourages, STV is the only one of the two that discourages the descent into a two-party system, which both FPP and AV encourage.

STV is best used in multi-member districts, and that’s exactly why STV is best to elect Hamilton’s city councillors.

Hamilton elects its city councillors from two wards, East and West (of the Waikato River), both of which elect six councillors (the mayor is elected citywide). In the 2019 local elections, there were 22,284 votes in the East, and 18,213 in the West, for a total of 40,497 votes citywide.

The mayor, Paula Southgate, was elected under FPP with 13,452 votes, some 3,000 votes more than the next candidate. What that means, however, is that more than 27,000 people didn’t vote for her—twice as many as those who did—she won with about a third of all votes cast citywide (629 votes in the city weren’t for any official candidate). This is the fatal flaw of FPP voting: It makes it easy for someone to win an election with a minority of the vote, something that also happened in the races for City Councillor. (Full disclosure: I wasn’t living in Hamilton at the time of the election, and so, had no vote).

In the East Ward, the top candidate got 8,342 votes, which means that 13,945 voters in East Ward didn’t vote for him, and that he won his seat with around 37% of the vote. The other five candidates, obviously, had even less voter support.

In West Ward, the top candidate received 10,105 votes, which is more than half of all votes cast, but all the rest got less than half the vote, including the second-highest polling candidate who was just below half.

Electing councillors from the six candidates winning the highest number of votes in descending order means that candidates can—and often do—win with less than half the votes cast, and it also encourages voters to vote strategically, such as, to vote for one or two candidates only to avoid electing someone they like the least, in the hope it will put their favoured candidate over the line. In a one-winner scenario, like for Mayor, strategic voting is even more important

STV eliminates the need for strategic voting, but, ironically, makes it more potent at the same time. This is because under STV, voting to block a candidate isn’t necessary. However, it allows voters to rank the candidate they want the most as first without risking electing someone they detest. If their chosen candidate doesn’t win in the first round, then the second choice can still help block a detested candidate by advancing one who’s not as bad (this is shown in more detail in C.G.P. Grey’s video below). In this way, it encourages independent and minor-party candidates, which is both more fair and democratic, while also not forcing voters to choose only between the lesser of two evils.

Still, STV isn’t a one-size-fits all solution. While it introduces proportionality to an elected body, for true proportionality a system like MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional), which is used to elect New Zealand’s Parliament, is much better, more fair, more representative, and more democratic. It could be used for city councillor races, but councils’ small size would make it hard to achieve proportionality, and no one wants hundreds of councillors just to ensure proportionality. STV is a logical alternative.

So, from 2022, Hamiltonians will elect their city councillors using a system that will eventually encourage a more representative and diverse city council. In the meantime, we won’t risk decreasing representativeness on the council merely by casting votes for the candidates we really want. But I bet a lot of voter education will need to take place first.



Related:
“The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained” [WATCH].
“The Alternative Vote Explained” [WATCH].

A path to redemption

We need to talk about redemption, and of scale. This is about more than just politics, it’s also about the way we treat other people, especially prominent people, who are accused of misdeeds of one kind or other. We need to accept that not all of these transgressions are equal, and also that we need to find a way to allow people to redeem themselves. Our common humanity requires us to gain some perspective. Which is why we need to talk about it.

During the height of the “MeToo” frenzy, there was a simple equation: Accusation meant guilt meant certain punishment. There was seldom any chance to evaluate the allegations, nor any opportunity for the accused to receive a fair hearing, much less do anything to redeem themselves. I talked about this in an answer to an “Ask Arthur” question back in 2017:

The problem is, first, not all allegations are equal, no matter what the Left says. There’s a HUGE difference between someone accused of rape (actual or attempted), child molesting (actual or attempted), and someone accused of making sexually-suggestive remarks/propositions. Yet at the height of the frenzy, they were all treated as if they all carried exactly the same seriousness and had to be punished equally seriously.

That attitude set the stage for several high-profile cases. I talked about that in that 2017 post:

The allegations against Conyers were very serious, and his resignation seems like a good outcome. But unless there were more allegations against Franken that we weren’t told about—which is absolutely possible—forcing him to resign seemed excessive (I certainly raised my eyebrows at what seemed like an over-the-top response from Kirsten Gillibrand). Still, maybe there’s more that we don’t know about, but, if so, forcing him to resign seems like a good way to prevent those allegations from being reported. Which is why I have my doubts that forcing him to resign was the right move. But, I can certainly be persuaded.

We’ll probably never know if there were more allegations against Franken that justified the harsh reaction to the ones we knew about, but, at the time, the response seemed all out of proportion to the alleged transgressions. However, we do know that we’re still dealing with the consequences of that saga, with Gillibrand’s role in it being part of the reason her presidential campaign never got anywhere and she had to drop out.

The issue that became obvious is that there was no permitted way for Franken (or anyone else) to adequately apologise or to find a path to redemption. The equation created in those fevered days, that allegation = guilt = need for severe punishment, is with us still, and it’s a huge problem.

The first problem with the harsh punishment that results from allegations alone is that it could make victims of behaviour that, while objectionable, was neither violent nor criminal, and that fact could easily make them refuse to come forward because doing so could destroy someone who made a mistake. That, again, is because the perpetrator could have no way to apologise or atone. So, this determination to punish at any cost can actually discourage victims from coming forward.

There’s a bigger problem, though, and it’s this: If we’re forever trapped by the wrong things we’ve said or done, we’ll never have any incentive to do better or become better.

I doubt very much that there are or ever have been any humans who haven’t said or done something they later regretted. Many people have even done or said things that they’re later ashamed of. Were they prominent, their transgressions may become public, and their chance to atone could be taken from them.

But suppose, for example, a perfectly ordinary, non-famous person made inappropriate sexual remarks. Later, they realise how wrong they were, and they try to educate other people about how bad that sort of behaviour is. Maybe they also donate to charities that deal with victims of sexual assault. As a perfectly ordinary, non-famous person, that would probably be the end of it. They would have come to the realisation that they’d behaved inappropriately, they’d learned from that, and they tried to atone for it.

In recent years, when has any famous person ever given the chance to do anything similar?

And that gets to the third problem: It’s bad politics. That sounds crass, absolutely, crude, sure, and it’s even more than a little cynical. But, it’s also true: That vast majority of voters who are not “woke” don’t care that someone made inappropriate sexual remarks, and they’re not interested in seeing such a person harshly punished for their past, especially if the person had come to the realisation that they’d behaved inappropriately, they’d learned from that, and they tried to atone for it. “Move on,” ordinary voters would say.

One of the things driving ordinary voters away from the Left are those demanding harsh punishment for even the smallest transgression (that's not the only factor, obviously). That happens, first, because they perceive the reaction as an overreaction and as grossly unfair. Part of that reaction is because they’re well aware that there are not now, nor have there ever been any humans that haven’t said or done something they later regretted, and that many people have even done or said things that they’re later ashamed of. Perhaps they have, too. By demanding harsh punishment for even minor transgressions, plenty of ordinary people will see themselves in the crosshairs, and that makes progress on the larger issues unlikely or impossible: They've not only stopped listening, they've tuned out completely.

None of which is to say that we shouldn’t punish crimes like sexual assault and rape—of course such charges should he heard in court and, upon conviction, the person should be punished. But that relies on due process, a fundamental concept underlying everything democracy is built on.

A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that’s the same for any alleged crime. Their guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before they’re punished, and that’s what’s been missing from all this.

On the other side of the equation, we’ve been told we must believe the women, always, and without question—a standard we’d never accept for any other alleged crime. We must listen to the women, and also take their allegations seriously—but we’re under no obligation to assume that allegation = guilt, regardless of whether the accused is famous or not. This isn’t because of the myth of “false rape accusations”, which are so statistically insignificant as to be pretty much irrelevant. Instead, this is about due process, the fundamental concept to which everyone, accuser and accused alike, is entitled.

If we’re forever trapped by the wrong things we’ve said or done, we’ll never have any incentive to do better or become better. We must always strive to be better people, and for most of us, that will mean attempting to atone for the things we’ve done or said that we’re now embarrassed by or ashamed of. How can that ever happen if there is no path to redemption?

We need to talk about this a lot more.

Good 2020 ads

Amy McGrath is running for the Democratic nomination to take on long-time US Senator Mitch McConnell, who was first elected to the seat from Kentucky in 1984, 35 years ago. She has produced some very good ads as she ramps up her campaign to win the nomination, though the ads are clearly aimed mostly at the General Election. Here are two of them.

The ad up top is her latest, “10 Hour Bus Ride”. It’s about former coal miners with black lung disease who road on a bus for ten hours to meet with Mitch McConnell, who only gave them one minute of his time. In so doing, it shows that the current Senator has ignored coal miners, an important constituency in the commonwealth. The ad does a good job underscoring the consequences of McConnell ignoring key constituencies, but it’s also good for letting ordinary people do the talking, telling their story and why it matters to them that McConnell ignores them.

The other ad, below, is called “The Letter” and focuses on the essence of democracy, serving the people. It’s theme is summed up in the tagline at the end: “Defeat Mitch. Defend Democracy.”



Both ads are good, but the strategy is also good: Get Democratic voters to see Amy McGrath as the challenger to McConnell. While the effort may be a long shot, she probably has the best chance of any Democrat.

Talking about this race in early July, Geoffrey Skelley wrote on FiveThirtyEight that literally any Democrat is up against it in deep red Kentucky. However, McConnell is among the most unpopular US Senators in any state, with a 36% approval rate and a 50% disapproval rate, according to Morning Consult. The means that Mitch is even less popular than the current occupant of the White House is nationwide. Worse for him, though, Mitch is far less popular than the current occupant is in Kentucky, where the current occupant had 55% approval rating (and 40% disapproval rating) at the beginning of July, also according to Morning Consult. Put another way, their poll standings are pretty much the exact opposite of each other.

So, Mitch’s weakness provides an opening for a strong Democrat, like Amy McGrath, to defeat him. Skelley correctly spelled out the challenges any Democrat might face in doing so, no matter how strong a candidate they are, but Mitch’s unpopularity could cancel all that out.

The polling so far also suggests that whoever the Democratic nominee is, they’ll have to run against Mitch, and not the current occupant of the White House (assuming, of course, that his popularity in Kentucky doesn’t do a huge nosedive, which is possible, but not probable). In other states, a Democratic candidate tying an incumbent Republican US Senator to the current occupant might help, but it appears that, for now, anyway, it wouldn’t help in Kentucky.

Another unknown is how the Democratic presidential nominee will affect the race. If the nominee is unpopular in solidly red states, it could encourage Republicans to go to the polls to vote against that candidate, and in Kentucky they may go farther and hold their noses and vote for Mitch. They might split their ballot, of course, but in the deeply polarised politics of the USA, that seems far less likely to happen now than it did in the past. In any case, because of Kentucky’s partisan makeup, motivated Republican voters would probably be a bigger force than motivated Democrats and Independents.

Still, it’s early days yet. The Kentucky Primary Election isn’t until May 29, 2020, and no one can possibly predict what might happen between now and then. Mitch won’t give up without a fight, obviously, but if this turns out to be an election cycle that favours Democrats, that will make his challenge much harder.

In the meantime, these ads are example of what can be done, especially in red states: Appeal to real people and highlight real issues. Voters respond strongly to authenticity, and that, combined with some good luck and a strong tail wind, could just be what’s needed topple Mitch.

Let us all hope so.

What have we become?

There’s been a marked increase in abusive and threatening behaviour directed at New Zealand politicians and even those who work for government at any level. The video above, from TVNZ’s One News, talks about the abuse and death threats received by Auckland Councillor Penny Hulse, as well as some of the others who have been threatened. The reporter, Katie Bradford, has also been abused and threatened on social media. What have we become?

To normal people, it’s obvious that it’s NEVER okay to act like this, to abuse, bully, or threaten the lives of people especially when they’re just doing their jobs.

My friend, Councillor Richard Hills, publicly shared the link to the video on Facebook, saying, “this shouldn’t be happening and it’s happening way too much.” He added, “the abuse and vitriol directed towards politicians and staff especially female staff/politicians is out of hand and should not be tolerated.” No sensible person could disagree with that. But then he also added:

I get obsessive bizarre homophobic stuff that I ignore and police investigated my own death threats earlier in March and council followed up on some death threats and other comments on a certain page last year. It’s disappointing that’s for sure.

I was aware that he’d received homophobic abuse, but I wasn’t aware that he’d received death threats, let alone that they were referred to the police. But the saddest thing of all is that I’m not in any way surprised about all this.

However, things have become a LOT worse in recent years.

The One News report touched on some of the wider context, namely, that the extreme abuse is often related to specific issues or aspects about politicians. As the One News report mentioned, Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman was given Parliamentary Security escorts at Parliament following an escalation in threats made against her after the lone MP for the neoliberal Act “Party” called her “a real menace to freedom in this country”. [See also: “Golriz Ghahraman on dealing with the ‘scared, panicked, angry mob’”].

It’s also not just politicians who receive harassment and threats of violence. For example, people working for Auckland Council are frequently abused and threatened, too, though most of the time the newsmedia doesn’t report it. One time recently the media did report it—by participating in the abuse.

In April, a woman from Auckland’s North Shore dumped 19 dead ducks, presumably killed by avian botulism, in an Auckland Council customer service office. The article claimed that “allegedly” the dead ducks had been “left rotting beside North Shore ponds for three days” before the woman took them and dumped them in the Council offices, thereby endangering the health and safety of the staff, anyone visiting the office at the time, and any staff who might attempt to remove the dead ducks. Worse still, the Stuff news site clearly knew about the stunt in advance, since they had a reporter and camera crew there to report it, yet they did nothing to stop her. Why doesn’t that make Stuff an accessory? [Note: Stuff’s irresponsible and reckless behaviour is why I won’t link to the article; if you must read it, copy and paste this link: http://bit.ly/2x6eENc].

The most serious threats, such as death threats, can always be referred to the police, but the larger question is, how do we stop this reprehensible behaviour from happening in the first place? It starts with the rest of us. When I shared Richard’s post on my personal Facebbook, I said:

Each of us can play our part: There are things we can do to stand up to the bullies while still keeping safe from them. But one of the best strategies is to be kind to everyone all the time, and for one simple, powerful reason: Children are watching; we need to live like the adults we want them to become.

Let me be clear: Practicing kindness by itself won’t fix this, but it can help by setting an example for children to follow, and it can also give the victims of abuse a level of support—a kind of soothing of their wounds. There are also specific things we can actively do, too, while keeping ourselves safe.

Most of this sort of abuse and bullying happens or begins on social media, and there are anonymous ways to deal with that. When we see a comment on social media that’s particularly vicious, and especially if it threatens or advocates violence against someone, we must report it. Facebook and Twitter alike often choose to ignore threats, but reporting’s an important to do, anyway, and the bad people won’t know we did it. I do this all the time, so I can vouch for the fact it’s safe.

If we feel a little braver about a comment left on a Facebook Page, we can report it to a page Administrator, however, they may sympathise with the abuser, and we may end up being attacked on their page. We must choose our battles carefully. Don’t post screenshots or summaries on Facebook/Twitter to “name and shame” the aggressor; ironically, that could make the companies punish you for bullying.

In the real world, we can sometimes stand up publicly and challenge someone who’s being abusive, at least if they’re not violent and unlikely to become so. However, the person may have a weapon (most likely a knife in NZ, unlike the USA). It may be safer to do other things. If the person seems to be violent, or likely to become so, ring the police. It’s better to ring them for nothing than to risk it escalating into something terrible. After you ring the police—and only after that—you might start videoing the abuse. It could be useful in the event the police prosecute, however, if the person sees you doing that, you could become a target.

Sometimes we can safely intervene directly, as I did back in 2017. In that post, I also shared a graphic (at right—click for a larger view) by artist Maeril, who shared it on her Facebook Page. It shows an approach we can take if we see someone being harassed. It’s not without risk, obviously, but it can be very effective, regardless of the reason they’re being harassed.

At the moment, the best long-term strategy, and certainly the safest of all, is to model the behaviour that we’d want children to copy. If enough of us do that enough of the time, it will help. But the bigger solutions to actually fix this? At the moment, no one actually knows what they are. In the meantime, we all know one thing: This is not who we want to be. It’s up to us to make sure that this sort of thing will never be acceptable, that it will never be who we’ve become.

Footnote: Ironically, I first "met" both Richard and Penny through social media. So, social media's not all bad, all the time—but it could be so much better than it is. In my opinion, Richard and Penny are both awesome, and Auckland and New Zealand need more people like them in government and fewer bullies and harassers.

Does silence really equal consent?

There’s a Latin Proverb that’s survived into modern times: “Qui tacet consentiret”. It means, basically, “silence means consent”. The phrase is loved by activists on the both the Left and the Right, and for much the same reason: It serves as a self-perpetuating form of social control, especially control of public discourse. Trouble is, the phrase is ridiculously silly.

The whole Latin phrase is: “Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit”, which can be translated as “He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to, is taken to agree”. The middle part is key here: The person has to have had an obligation to speak—ideology warriors insist everyone has that obligation—but they must also be able to speak. There are plenty of reasons why people may not feel free to speak, but it’s the presumption of an obligation to speak up that’s at the very root of the absurd promotion of the phrase. In reality, people have no obligation to speak up.

The concepts of personal freedom, liberty, and autonomy require that people must have the right to choose for themselves whether or not they’ll speak up about something they don’t agree with or don’t like. They cannot be compelled to speak up if they choose not to, no matter how much the ideology warriors may demand they do.

In his essay Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.” He was talking about the obligation of people to resist unjust laws and government rule. Immediately before this quote, he wrote, “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” How can that not also be true for the socially presumed obligation to speak up? If we don’t think it’s right to speak, for whatever reason, we cannot be obligated to do so.

Among the reasons that people might remain silent is that they simply don’t care about the topic. Whether they ought to care is subjective: Ideology warriors will always assume that someone “ought” to care, but that doesn’t make it so. Among other things, no one has an infinite capacity to care equally passionately about everything, so one must choose one’s battles. This is especially necessary in light of our busy lives and many competing demands for our attention, including work, family, and our own needs. It’s pretty arrogant to demand that everyone must also engage fully on a topic just because we care very much about it.

There’s another, possibly more common, reason that people don’t speak up in this Social Media Age: Retribution. Examine any comments section on the Facebook Pages for media companies, or look at pretty much anyone stating an opinion on Twitter, and it’s almost inevitable that they’ll have someone or many people swoop in to condemn them for their opinion. It doesn’t matter whether those attacking them are real people or trolls/bots (as, indeed, many of the worst offenders often are), it’s still unpleasant, to say the least.

We can all watch such attacks happening in real time and conclude that stating our opinion just isn’t worth the nearly inevitable harsh (over)reaction, or what I call drive-by bullying—attacking and then ignoring all replies. From there, however, it can get much worse. Too often someone will engage in “doxxing”, the sick tactic of ferreting out and revealing personal details and information about people as a weapon of retaliation for not supporting whatever the attackers’ positions are, or for daring to express an opposing view. So, offering an opinion might not just end up being “unpleasant”, it may even be dangerous.

If no one can care equally about all topics, and they can’t, and if expressing an opinion can lead to unpleasant or even dangerous consequences, and it can, then the surprise isn’t that more people don’t express their opinions, it’s that any rational person would.

Naturally, reality doesn’t stop ideology warriors.

This “silence means consent” nonsense is loved by the Left and Right alike, who —even in real life outside of social media—try to shame anyone on “their” side who doesn’t speak out. That tactic seldom actually works, because, why would it? We can all see the consequences of speaking out, so doesn’t that mean that by default silence is the better option?

I think there’s a middle option: Judicious and considered choosing of when, where, and how to speak out.

Social media is usually the worst possible place to express an opinion. I almost never do, except in response to something a friend has posted; I never comment on a public Facebook Pages (except, of course, for the AmeriNZ Facebook Page or other moderated pages), the comments section of a public site, including YouTube, newspaper websites, etc. (because they’re seldom moderated), and I rarely post anything on Twitter anymore. I also freely use the “block” function on Facebook and Twitter so I never again have to see the trolling or simply bad behaviour of some ideology warrior, Left or Right. Those, however, are defensive moves only. How else can one speak out relatively safely?

Obviously a blog is one possibility. Most personal blogs will have a small, possibly tiny, readership, so we’re unlikely to come to the attention of trolls and boorish ideology warriors. It’s even possible to blog with a high degree of anonymity if we want; in fact, that was the reason that I was so guarded and anonymous when I began blogging and then podcasting: I wanted to protect myself from trolls in particular, and it worked (though the small readership of this blog probably helped a lot, too…).

Calm personal discussions can be an option, too, because people often (though certainly not always) behave better towards someone right in front of them. In real, face-to-face life I’ve never had anyone call be a “libtard”, for example. However, even this must be done with some caution: People are capable of being dicks in real life, too.

What all of this means is that no one has an obligation to speak up, and there are many—and good—reasons why someone may choose to remain silent in the Social Media Age. We can infer absolutely nothing about someone or their positions merely because they choose not to speak up, except that they’re not speaking up, as is their inalienable right. It doesn’t matter what we think about their silence: Our opinions and feelings about their silence are irrelevant.

The phrase “silence means consent”, though loved by activists and ideology warriors on the both the Left and the Right, is nothing more than a self-perpetuating form of social control, especially control of public discourse. And that’s why the phrase is ridiculously silly.

Of course silence doesn’t really equal consent. But if those ideology warriors were any good at stating their positions, people might agree with them and say so—but only if those ideology warriors didn’t attack people they disagree with so freely and fiercely. Silence does NOT mean or even imply consent. Ever. It’s well past time we stopped pretending it does.