Notes: Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Another Herald letter proposing preferential voting with discounting of the value of distributed votes:

Half measures

While we have a preferential voting system that values the second preference vote the same as a primary vote, we will rarely get a result that reflects the true will of the people. Preferences should be transferred at a lesser value - say half that of a first preference. This would reduce the horse-trading in preferences among parties and give us a more accurate assessment of what voters want.

Rob Hurdwell Bowral
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/consensus-works-for-all-but-especially-tamworth-20100824-13q8l.html?skin=text-only]

"Toleration, Ascendancy, Democracy"--article on the history of religious toleration in the British Isles

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33328

Long but interesting article. It begins thus:

Tolerance, according to the apostle of English Liberalism, John Stuart Mill, was the outcome of the failure of intolerance. The different factions of English Protestantism had a go at suppressing each other, including a civil war, and failed. They were therefore left with no option but to tolerate each other.

So religious pluralism appears as the unavoidable consequence of Protestantism--once public judgement (i.e. judgement by the Magisterium) has been replaced with private judgement, religious unity will inevitably break down, making toleration of any and all sects the only tenable policy.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Louis IX., King, Confessor, A.D. 2010