The Australian Sex Party is online (link).
In the context of preferential voting and proportional representation in the Senate, this could become a viable little protest party.
Or rather an anti-protest, anti-pressure group party. It's appeal is straightforward:
"If you're sick of religious and anti-sex politicians like Steve Fielding, Brian Harradine and Fred Nile threatening to block legislation in the Senate and State Upper Houses unless they get their way on sex and gender issues, vote for someone who understands this rort."
Given the damage that Brian Harradine alone caused, and how little Australians like wowsers (that is, people who are obnoxiously puritanical and feel a need to legislate restrictive drinking hours, anti-sex censorship and so on), that's a good pitch.
The Australian Sex Party hasn't released its policies yet, and my opinion of it will depend on what they are, and what the character of the party turns out to be.
If the Australian Sex Party turns out to be a "leave us alone" party with support from the pornography industry, which is what it looks like so far, that's good. (Self-interest can encourage level-headedness, staying power and the habit of not being pointlessly annoying, for the sake of your bottom line. In this context, I think "greed is good".)
If it becomes a broad spectrum "progressive movement" party, that's not good, from my point of view. The last thing we need here is American style "8=hate" thugs going after churches, "anti-choicers" and anybody who believes in the traditional definition of marriage, or defining "hypocrisy" as being gay and not supporting a gay agenda, with "standing up to hypocrisy" defined as "outing" people.
If the party goes bad or goes nowhere, as most small parties do, it's not that big a loss. There are plenty of other worthwhile micro parties competing for my pro-freedom protest vote, such as the Australian Shooters Party (link).
Hat tips to Instapundit (link) and Jammie Wearing Fool (link).
My current Senate voting strategy is to put the gun nuts at #1 (in a vain attempt to get back some of our lost freedoms).
Now I'll have to choose between voting for gun nuts and sex nuts.
Is it too much to ask for a party that's pro-both? :) After all, sex and violence go together like.. well.. you just have to watch a Hollywood blockbuster to see that formula in action.
#1 from Nicholas:
It can't hurt.
#1 from Nicholas:
In a country where only a living thrill machine like Kevin Rudd could end the career of "Mister Excitement" John Howard? It probably is too much to ask.
I'll be very happy with the Australian Sex Party if they just stick to being pro-sex. If they stick to the script, I'll toss them a preference off the top.
What I don't want them buying into is the "progressive" side of wider gender and reproductive rights issues. I'm strongly pro-life, I hate the steady elimination of the handicapped, and I think there are a lot of people in our so-wonderful modern societies that need all the protection we can give them. I just don't think sexually curious and adventurous adults are among those who need protecting.
Two examples of what I hope "sexual privacy" will turn out not to be relevant to: (link) (link).I hope the Australian Sex Party sticks to sex. Not "reproductive health" with a tricky and politically inclusive definition, or anything like that.
I agree wholeheartedly, although I'm imagining a senate consisting entirely of special interest lobbies and I'm wondering if that would work at all. Probably not. However, that's extremely unlikely to happen, at least now, so for now it's just a mental exercise.
I kind of like the Israeli model where (as I understand it) anyone can vote for any candidate, much like our senate. However, that doesn't seem to have stopped them getting a completely ineffectual government. I have a feeling that given a sufficiently ignorant or apathetic voting population, or a sufficiently worthless group of leaders, no system of democracy can guarantee a complete lack of basket-case governments, at least occasionally.
"I agree wholeheartedly, although I'm imagining a senate consisting entirely of special interest lobbies and I'm wondering if that would work at all. Probably not."
Two party systems encourage stasis. Parlimentary systems encourage comprimise with the radical fringes.
Neither consequence is simple enough that you can definatively declare it a pro or a con.
My guess if that if the legislative body ended up fragmenting among microlobbies, you'd end up with continually shifting governments each dominated by a radical fringe allied with a coalition of different radical fringes each holding their nose to produce laws that on the whole noone wanted. The laws being instituted would not reflect particular consensus and in fact probably would be each individually opposed by the majority of voters, but that's not surprising considering that a legislative body dominated by microparties would reflect a total break down in national consensus anyway.
"I have a feeling that given a sufficiently ignorant or apathetic voting population, or a sufficiently worthless group of leaders, no system of democracy can guarantee a complete lack of basket-case governments, at least occasionally."
That's probably true, but I think that you also have a problem in any democracy when you have a total break down in national consensus. A democracy can pretty easily accomodate groups with a minority position, but as the majority erodes you end up with a government which breaks down because it reflects the voting publics lack of consensus. If debating points on the internet has taught me anything, it's that the fundamental basis of disagreement isn't a lack of facts or a lack of intelligence, but completely separate and irroncilable ways of interpreting the facts at hand.
When I was in college, I had to take a communications class as part of my degree. In one student's oral thesis, she related how she had been the victim of a car jacking. This experience had given her the revelation that, "When someone points a gun at you, you lose all of your rights." We both agreed that that was a factual summary of the situation. However, she concluded from that revelation that we had to take away guns from the public. I concluded from that revelation that we had to ensure that the public always had guns. Same facts; completely different conclusions. No amount of arguing between the two of us would ever breach that divide. Life would either hit one of us in the face, and maybe that would change our opinion, or maybe it wouldn't. But the problem wasn't that she lacked the facts or that she was apathetic or that she was unintelligent. We would have been left to calling each other names or to at best asserting claims that were not provable. Neither is convincing.
Thanks for the feedback. As you know we are just on the beginning of this journey. Personally I think that sex is far broader than just what we do in the bedroom. We welcome all ideas!
"Personally I think that sex is far broader than just what we do in the bedroom."
Speaking of....
Yes, I agree. And speaking as the minority view in this forum, that is precisely why societies can have a legitimate vested interest in what seems on the surface to be a purely private activity.
We aren't the anti-sex party. We are just trying to make sure the spillover from what should be a purely private activity between two partners is limited.
Hey, fiona patten's awake at the switch, and not too big to talk back! That's a very promising sign! Hi, fiona patten. :)
From The Australian (link):
That's right. I blogged about this before, in the post Australia and China Versus the Free Internet: (link). Letting anti-sex crusaders like Brian Harradine get away with whatever they wanted has had bad consequences for Australia - bad for freedom and bad for telecommunications policy.
Counteracting that bad influence is a good idea. So the Australian Sex Party isn't just a joke with a name picked to startle people. It's a worthwhile and overdue project, in principle.
She's right.
Unfortunately for me, this is where I can't support it:
:(
I don't agree that abortion is a sexual freedom (versus wowsers) issue, I think it's a life and death issue and it's about protecting the most vulnerable members of our society. I can't compromise on that.
But in principle the Australian Sex Party deserves to succeed.
Re: #6 from celebrim...
I sympathize. It's frustrating to be labeled anti-sex when that's not what you are about.
Hi, re David's comment
Yep we are not going to be all things to all people- but hopefully we can make some positive change.
While I respect your opinion David, the funding I am talking about is money going to help women have healthy children and healthy sex lives. By refusing to fund these organisations they are not stopping abortion only stopping much needed resources going to the poorest of the poor.
I don't know if it is of interest but I have been member of ACCSEX for many years. Their objective to assist people with disabilities to be recognised as sexual beings with the same needs and desires as abled bodied people
#9 from fiona patten:
It is of interest - and that's a great cause! Thumbs up to you! :)
#9 from fiona patten:
That's one of the philosophical issues Winds of Change readers may want to discuss later in this thread. To make positive changes, a political party can't be "all things to all people". You've got to go with what you think is consistent with the cause you're asking people to support. If you accommodate all the people who need "just one exception," pretty soon you don't stand for anything.
But there's a tradeoff. The Australian Sex Party can't be all things to all people - and neither can I. There are always going to be would-be supporters of your party that can't go along with some stand you think you have to make. We all have a moral bottom line somewhere - or we should.
And from the point of view of "customers" of political parties, they can "bundle" issues together in odd and unwelcome ways. There are apparently lots of American readers of Winds of Change who support the economically conservative policies of the Republican Party, just not the "social conservatives" of "Jesusland". But the two come bundled together, if only because social liberals drift left on economics too. So you can't support all the issues you want. You have to vote against yourself, to some extent.
Anyway, any Aussies here: you've got the link (link), so check in on the Australian Sex Party when they release their policies, and maybe sign up for their newsletter, or even join the party. (They need 500 members to be a properly constituted political party under Australian law.) I think, optimistically, this may be a freedom party. And that's a good thing. If you don't see the same make-or-break issue I do over abortion, it may suit you to support it. Plus, it'll be interesting to see how this turns out.
We've got to be able to do better, as a country, than the compulsory internet filter, which puts us in the company of Red China. In my opinion, that's unworthy of Australia, and unworthy of the traditions of the English-speaking peoples.
When we talked about that before, one of the things people said was: "what can you do about it?" And I had no good answer. Supporting parties that oppose such restrictions on freedom is an answer. And if unreasonable restrictions on other freedoms ultimately stem from sex, in many cases, which in Australia they definitely have, supporting a party that wants the root issue taken seriously is a hopeful approach.