There are many disadvantages to universal suffrage and historically it has not been applied everywhere in the parliamentary system. Experience during the COVID “pandemic” suggests that “most people” (a boring contemporary cliché) want to follow the dictates of what they perceive as “authority” and in many cases also to target their fellow-citizens who are perceived (by “authority”) to be defying authority. This applies as much to the Left as to the Right, because the Right want the Left to be “opposition”, not government, and the Left want to be seen as “relevant players” and not as conspiracy theorists or something unacceptable like that.
It should not be taboo to see all these as simple matters of fact. The desideratum is to find ways of minimizing their negative consequences. Would providing an alternative to voting based on universal suffrage help towards achieving such an objective?
Sortition (choosing politicians by means of a lottery) had a part to play in the ancient Athenian democracy and should be included among techniques to be given rational consideration. The most obvious relevant problem would be that it could result in the elevation of inappropriate people. This could be countered by having a court whose task would be to identify not who would be suitable to play a part in public life but who would NOT be suitable. Citizens who feel that they are called upon to be public figures (or propose somebody else for such a role) should be encouraged to state this publicly and then the court (with assistance from input from the general public) should decide who is to be excluded.
As indicated, experience suggests that in any case the population is better at deciding what they DON’T want than they are at making useful constructive proposals. The selection of the politicians would be made by sortition from among the eligible candidates, who would then speak as individuals, would be off-limits to journalists and other would-be intermediaries and would communicate directly with their colleagues and with the public. There would continue to be the politics and the politicians we know now (in this case the “we” does not need to be in quotation marks”) but they would be competing for a mandate with the second chamber. Which chamber would make decisions and which would be advisory would be determined by the outcome of a referendum to be held every five years or other agreed period and there would be no other referenda.
The political base of the second chamber would be people who have indicated that they do not wish to vote for the politicians and candidates in the first chamber and they would not be allowed to do so unless they had made a decision to join or rejoin the electorate for the first chamber. This idea was first discussed by people of our (“our”) acquaintance during the COVID lockdowns by members of the World Freedom Alliance and is on record, with further elaboration, at https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1745
All Australian states except Queensland, and the Australian federation as a whole, which is with the majority, have a bicameral parliamentary system. Greece has had a bicameral parliamentary system twice in its modern history but finally opted (unfortunately, it today seems) for a unicameral alternative. The demands of universal suffrage can be satisfied if only one of the two (or more?) parliamentary chambers is based on universal suffrage, but the possibility of this is obviously dependent on the institution of at least two parliamentary chambers.
The parliament that has made the greatest steps towards reform (possibly even internationally) is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Its reform falls greatly short of what is advocated in this text, but still it is perhaps a subject on which relevant discussion may be started. It is the oldest parliamentary chamber in Australia and twenty years older than the oldest parliamentary chamber in modern Greece, which was not inaugurated until modern Greece’s “international-community”-endorsed Bavarian monarchy had been overthrown by Greek army officers.
Amalgamation of small anti-establishment parties in my view offers no potential for reversing the marginalization of pro-Truth and Freedom political groupings.
Since the period of the lockdowns I have argued that there is another possible way for dealing with political fragmentation. Not through perpetuating the logic of parties but through reform of the (or “a”) parliamentary second chamber, eschewing universal suffrage (for it) and making it into an “Independent Citizens Assembly”. Of course a court would need to be instituted with the power to decide who has the right, or better who does NOT have the right, to be deemed an “independent citizen”, with the result that non-independent citizens would be “confined” to the rights enjoyed by citizens today, i.e. the right to vote and the right to be a candidate in universal-suffrage elections. So “confined” is not the right word. Such a reform would give the population as a whole MORE, not fewer, rights than are currently permitted. And for the first time it would appear to be within the realm of possibility for today’s monopoly of party politics and dictatorial mass media to be broken. Direct democracy enthusiasts could then devote their energies to helping lawyers and a new breed of official to facilitate the workings of the court.
As hinted, an attempt to think about how to do all this was made during the COVID lockdown by members of the World Freedom Alliance (starting at minute 41.50. The soundtrack is in English). (The video has now been withdrawn but a transcript remains available: halva.proboards.com/post/2574 ) Our attention was focused on the European Parliament, but the idea could be floated anywhere representative democracy is established. In the EU, whose parliament is unicameral, (and indeed in Greece itself) a new second chamber would have to be custom built. Elsewhere, e.g. in Australia where the existing upper house is called the Senate, transforming it would presume recognition of the meaninglessness of “states’ rights” in a federation of homogeneous former colonies where the borders between the states, prior to their very recent illicit exhumation during “the pandemic”, were as inconsequential as the borders between municipalities. To cite some other Commonwealth countries: Canada’s Senate has never been democratic. Canadian senators are appointed by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister. In South Africa the post-apartheid upper house is called the National Council of Provinces but is also said (or was at least said not long ago) to be “hindered in its role of representing the provinces” because “the dominance of the ruling ANC in the provinces makes it difficult to determine whether mandates delivered by provincial legislatures carry the interests of provinces or those of the party in power.(1)” So in none of these places is anyone going to have fewer rights if an upper house of “independent citizens” – for whose individual members not everyone can vote – should come into existence.
The proposal for the European Parliament envisaged a second chamber headquartered in Romania, whose forty-year experience of Communist rule, ultimately overthrown with popular participation, is often plausibly said to have produced a population more politically alert than the Western European norm, and also independent from Russia and probably less susceptible to complicity with Russia-vs-the-West divide-and-rule scenarios. But the elements in the proposal of more universal applicability are those providing an alternative to the fragmentation of party politics and the vulnerability to manipulation that is a corollary of mass politics (i.e. universal suffrage).
Universal suffrage is regarded as an acquisition, a notion that is unlikely to change and cannot simply be challenged because it is nowadays seen as a necessary component of democracy. The task is one of finding a way to minimize, rather than resignedly accept, its damaging aspects, which have been acknowledged since antiquity. Democracy has been controversial since the days of the Athenian sophists and demagogues. Surely a first step for now would be to try to make available the option of choice: rule by a party or coalition of parties or rule by “independent citizens”.
Economic independence is typically sought by removing “middlemen” from transactions between buyers and sellers and the situation is not dissimilar when it comes to provision and reception of information. Members of an Independent Citizens’ Assembly in the envisaged scenario would communicate with their political base and with each other immediately and directly, not with the mediation of journalists or spokespersons. Resort to mediated communication would be a disqualifier, a sign that one could not be allowed to continue representing oneself as an independent citizen and that one would be required, if one wanted to continue in politics, to do so as a conventional politician, free to be in a party and to be subject to party discipline but not free to be regarded as an “independent citizen”.
Activists who have tried to address the issue of the media – whose disinformation has today become literally life-threatening – typically try to devise formulas for regulation (by whom?) or else propose boycotts and other measures requiring mass discipline which are probably utopian in the communities with which “we” are familiar. The solution of an alternative method of government to which the media have no access has not been investigated to any extent as far as I know. The Independent Citizens’ Assembly would have to be in a relation of competition with existing political institutions: competing for a mandate, perhaps in a (universal suffrage) referendum to be held every five years, say. Whichever assembly won the referendum would have actual power to legislate. The losing side would become an advisory body.
The confinement of referenda to the single issue of deciding which of the two competing parliamentary bodies would be authorized to legislate for a given period….. distinguishes this proposal from the customary recommendations of direct democracy enthusiasts and admirers of the existing Swiss mode of government, under which the role of referenda is extended to cover a whole host of policy issues. The question of “who is to decide” is simpler and in my opinion more realistic. Of course the Independent Citizens Assembly conception will be initially unfamiliar: competition between the two systems would not at first be between equals. When one of the two sides won its mandate in the five-yearly general referendum it would have to be possible, immediately after the general referendum, for the result to be challenged locally at every lower level: regional, municipal, etc. but then for this result to be respected until the time came for the next general referendum (at the end of the five years). Both assemblies would elect a leader, the leader of the side winning the general referendum would be executive head of the polity: the prime minister.
The ideas I introduce here will be competing for acceptance in our milieu with more familiar direct democratic conceptions based on wanting to involve “everyone” in political decision-making. If one can judge from the enthusiastic acceptance by quite a few people during the “COVID” lockdowns of the role of vigilante against “anti-vaxxers”, the desire to police one’s fellow citizens on behalf of “authority” is quite strong and probably stronger than the desire to devise constructive inputs for democracy. Activists who would like to politicize “everyone” should be encouraged to help with implementing court decisions to exclude certain individuals and groups from recognition as “independent citizens”. Those who are most comfortable being negative should be supported when their negativity has the potential to be useful.
There is of course an added complication with the European Union (in fact more than one) by comparison with simpler federations such as Australia, or even the United States. Some European Union member states are constitutional monarchies, some parliamentary republics, some presidential republics. The introduction of an Independent Citizens’ Assembly could complicate the question of who is to be head of state. It would, however, be possible to propose that the identity of the state’s executive leader (prime minister), irrespective of whether the existing head of state were a hereditary monarch or a president, should depend on the result of the five-yearly general referendum. If the mandate were won by the universal-suffrage parliament, the leader elected by that parliament would be prime minister. If the mandate were won by the Independent Citizens’ Assembly, the leader elected by that assembly would, likewise, be prime minister. The identity of the head of state would therefore be determined by election held either under universal suffrage or through a vote by independent citizens, depending on who had won the mandate. If the mandate were won by the Independent Citizens Assembly, and the head of state were a hereditary monarch, he or she would be confined exclusively to ceremonial duties, with constitutional functions assigned to a head of state appointed by the prime minister.
These are just a few points of further elaboration on discussions already opened here and here.
Will this vote by the European Parliament catalyse acceptance of the need for an Independent Citizens’ Assembly?
(1) Nzwana Erik Boskati: Promoting Provincial Interests: The Role of the NCOP in the National Legislature Abstract
One question that has arisen in discussion is who would have the right to vote for candidates in the Independent Citizens’ Assembly. It would seem that there would have to be separation of the franchises for the two assemblies. One would have to choose, except in national regional or local challenge referenda, which would have to be resolved through universal suffrage. It may also be a good idea to place a stigma on use of the first person plural for both representatives and voters of the Independent Citizens’ Assembly, to reinforce its non-party character.
p.s. Following inconclusive discussions with the writer Eric Zuesse, Nikos Vakolidis and I decided between us to add two more provisions to the blueprint for the Independent Citizens’ Assembly, namely that representatives should be chosen by lot from among the Assembly’s active supporters and secondly that there should be no payment for service on the Assembly.
Wayne Hall writes: In her second interview with Dr. John Campbell, Ros Nealon-Cook said: “I don’t actually have a lot of faith in the governments any more. After what I have seen in the last few years. And I hate to say that. It makes me sad to say that. I wish we could. But that’s not the case. I believe the governments, the systems that currently run us, need to change fundamentally. I don’t have the answer to how that might come about.”
In October 2024 Nikos Vakolidis and Wayne Hall travelled to Romania to speak to whoever among politically active and, as we judged, well-informed, Romanians we could contact, to try to further develop “the answer to how that might come about.”
We had already formulated some first thoughts, and we were given some feedback (Marvin’s response) by a Romanian writer (who has also published in English) Calistrat (Marvin) Atudorei.
Further elaboration of these first thoughts is obviously necessary. Unlike the European Union and unlike Greece, and unlike Australia, Romania already has both a bicameral parliament and a constitutional court. Their effectiveness is a separate issue, but for the moment let us dwell on the fact that they exist.
As to why Greece’s parliament is unicameral,” “AI Overview” says: “The country’s political history and modern considerations favor a single, more efficient legislative body. This decision is in line with modern democratic trends and avoids the potential for deadlock and higher costs associated with a bicameral system. While a Senate existed in Greece historically, from 1844 to 1863 and again in 1927–1935, Greece has since moved to a single-chamber parliament.” Freedom of association, universal suffrage, freedom of speech, religion and opinion are fairly universally accepted as basic democratic rights but by the same token discontent with “the system” has also reached very high levels. ”Alternative” politics has acquired great currency as a slogan but much much less in terms of concrete proposals of what such an “alternative” might be and whether it would be something different from competitive universal suffrage party politics on the one hand or universal suffrage referenda (on Swiss lines) on the other.
I have not seen the idea of instituting competition between parliamentary houses rather than between parties put forward by anyone. Could it form the potential basis for a more just and more effective political system? Where a Senate already exists it will likely either be comprised of political appointees or else based on universal suffrage like the existing “lower house” (in the English-speaking political tradition this kind of duplication is the result of “democratic reform” ostensibly targeting “elitism”).
Converting such an assembly into a house of “active citizens” will mean abolition of universal suffrage but as long as it is applied to only one of the two (henceforth competing) parliamentary chambers it will amount to an extension, not a limitation, of rights. Where compulsory voting exists, the compulsion will have to be abolished.
Citizens will then be required, if they wish to exercise their political rights, to decide whether they opt to do so through voting for representatives in the lower house or whether they want to be eligible for political office in the Senate. It will always be possible, if a citizen wishes to be eligible for appointment to the Senate but is judged by the Constitutional Court, to lack the necessary qualifications, that he/she can revert to exercising his/her political rights as a voter and/or a candidate for the lower house.
Senators will be appointed for a fixed term and chosen by sortition. Their salaries will be pegged to the amount they earned in their employment prior to elevation to the Senate and they will be not granted any right of mediated communication, i.e. through journalists or other intermediaries. Whether the Senate or the lower house will exercise legislative or advisory powers will be decided through a five yearly universal suffrage referendum.
Apart from breaking the tyranny of the media-political system dictatorship the proposals being ventured here aim at combating the bad effects of divide-and-rule politics implemented “top-down”. Of course the divide-and-rule reflex is implemented at every level of society by an infinite array of players, professional and “amateur”. It appears wherever there is disagreement and/or wherever disagreement is desired by some. It is inseparably associated with imperialist domination and its only imaginable generally acceptable justification is the need for a global lingua franca, a language that “everyone”, or at least as many people as possible, can understand and use for communication. The English language seems to all intents and purposes to have won this competition, and if that is so it is difficult (for me) to see any further justification for “globalist” politics. Can ethnocentric single-language English speakers be sidelined? This is a battle to be waged in the U.S., the U.K., the English-speaking settler societies of the Commonwealth. Do China, and even Russia, challenge this viewpoint and seek to impose their own language(s?) as international lingua franca? I don’t think so. France, whose cultural politics is less liberal than the Englisn-speaking norm, will probably continue to claim a niche market as an elite language. And then there is Spanish. Liah Greenfeld, whose book “Nationalism” explores the nationalism of England, France, Russia, Germany and the United States, totally ignores Spain. Why? Can one receive an answer to this question?
It is a commonplace that Israel has secured a status as a master of “divide-and-rule” and in its case the linguistic lingua franca need does not look like arguable justification. Will it ever be possible for a prohibition to be imposed on actively supporting viewpoints with which one does not agree, for the purposes of sowing division in opponents? Can such an objective ever be explicitly professed and implemented?
Is this what the Clintons did with Trump?
New Year’s Day 2026
Politics – What is to be done?
The Greek historian Herodotus, who grew up a subject of the Persian Empire attributes the following to the young Darius as the latter engaged in comradely debate with fellow-conspirators: “In a democracy malpractices are bound to occur. Corrupt dealings in government services lead not to private feuds, however, as in oligarchies, but to close personal associations,(to collusion), with people putting their heads together and mutually supporting one another. This continues until somebody comes forward as the people’s champion and breaks up the cliques which are out for their own interests. This wins him (her?) the admiration of the mob and this person finds himself (herself?) entrusted with absolute power.” The implication is that the cycle will then start again from the beginning.
When he became emperor of Persia, Darius’ solution to the problem of corruption was execution, hopefully of the corrupt in the first instance. In more recent times, after the failed English revolution of Oliver Cromwell and subsequent reforms in Britain and the United States, the chosen remedy for corruption was “separation of powers” including bicameral parliaments, with democratic legislatures being monitored and supervised by “their betters”.
Bicameral parliaments including a house of review are supposed to make possible some kind of check or limitation on corruption and have been experimented with in modern Greece (from 1844 to 1864 and again from 1927 to 1935) but Greece ultimately opted for a unicameral universal suffrage parliament, supposedly for reasons of efficiency and economy but also to promote equality. Athens also chose to dispense with a constitutional court, though even e.g. Romania has judged that it needs such an institution.
In Greece voting is compulsory, formally speaking, though in practice many Greeks don’t vote, whether because they can’t be bothered or because they actively choose not to. We (“we?”) take the position that mandatory voting should be abolished, and so should universal suffrage.
But it is the obligation that should be abolished, not the right. Anyone wanting “universal suffrage” should be able to have it and anyone wanting something more to their liking should exercise their imagination and create it.
Some people see themselves, and/or are seen by others, as potential politicians or, more politely, “representatives”.
Let them declare this explicitly and let it be recorded. Those who don’t aspire to being “representatives” but simply want a society that is more just, more human, less environmentally destructive, let them make this explicit too. Then there will be two clearly separate categories of non-voters with different degrees of politicization and ambition or vanity.
It will then be up to the constitutional court to decide which citizens do not qualify to be what they aspire to be. This would limit their rights to the rights currently enjoyed by all citizens, namely the right to vote in universal suffrage elections and the right be a candidate in universal suffrage elections. It goes without saying that all citizens should have the right, permanently, to be in, or to revert to, the category of today’s regular citizen, enjoying all the corresponding rights.
As for the candidates for membership in an alternative legislature, those who survive the scrutiny of the constitutional court and can evade the fate (and bring to mind the disgraceful precedent) of former favoured Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, will have won the right to participate in a sortition process. An alternative legislature will be assembled and given the name of Senate, Legislative Council, or something like that and proceed to compete for a mandate with the legislature of elected representatives.
The experience of the “COVID 19” lockdowns confirmed that the mass of the population is much quicker to join in denouncing to the authorities what the authorities in question forbid than it/they can come up with ideas for positive reform. This human weakness could be turned into an advantage if the habit of condemnation could be harnessed to provide backing for the deliberations of the constitutional court (on the proviso that this institution can be kept trustworthy). If the constitutional court forfeits its trustworthiness the ball will be back in the court of universal suffrage.
The members of the alternative legislature will speak in the first person singular, as individuals, and will communicate with the public and with their colleagues directly through channels over which they themselves exert control, not permitting any mediated communication in their name. Resort to a journalist will be ipso facto grounds for expulsion from the alternative assembly, which would mean that any subsequent attempt to stay in public life would necessitate securing election as a conventional politician. The income of members of the alternative assembly would be pegged to the amount they obtained prior to their political appointment.
To recapitulate, tomorrows bicameral parliament would not be like its Hellenic predecessors of the 19th and 20th century (or the parliament of the Australian state of Queensland prior to abolition of its upper house) where the parliamentary chambers were complementary. They would compete, as parties do now, and would continue to do in the conventional chamber. And the chambers too would compete with each other for the popular mandate.
As indicated, every member of the alternative chamber would speak as an individual.
Does anything need to be added to this formula?
An attempt was made to answer this question (in English) in the discussions held in Romania (scroll down) in October 2024.
Αustralians who don’t like this development should examine the record of modern Greece’s assassinated first governor Ioannis Capodistrias, who was sworn in as head of the revolutionary new state on the (for Australians) iconic date of 26th January (1828). The “international community” of the day did not recognize this inauguration and modern Greece did not become internationally “respectable” until Capodistrias had been killed and replaced by a Bavarian king. Apart from promoting tribute to Capodistrias himself Australians might also adopt the idea of promoting Captain Arthur Phillip as “the Capodistrias of the global south”. https://halva.proboards.com/post/3270 Arthur Phillip was admittedly no great distinguished diplomat but in a modest way he shared many of Capodistrias’ notable virtues. A policy along these lines would be greatly preferable to being “soft” on racism and (more accurately) Islamophobia. Capodistrias was a pioneer in opposing prejudice against Jews and extending the same rights to Jews as were recognized for Christians. That was what was required in 1828, and is required today.
Jewish NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Labor have purged the Police force of Chaplains
New contract clauses forcing NSW Police chaplains to name the officers who use their services and hand over private disclosures have triggered mass resignations, leaving the force with no full-time paid chaplains from 21 August.
NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns, a member of the Jewish fraternity, is purging Christianity from police ranks, following UN dictates and those of the Islamic-oriented federal Labor government.
Lyle Shelton
Family First National Director Lyle Shelton has demanded Premier Minns immediately reverse new NSW Police chaplaincy contract conditions exposed by The Daily Telegraph, describing the changes as a direct breach of religious freedom that has already gutted the service and will strip vulnerable officers of one of their last confidential supports.
The Daily Telegraph revealed there will be no full-time paid NSW Police chaplains from 21 August, when the resignations of the final two paid chaplains take effect, with many of the service’s 80 volunteers also expected to quit over the new conditions.
“This is a straight-out breach of religious freedom,” Mr Shelton said. “Chaplaincy has always depended on the seal of pastoral confidentiality — that’s the whole point. The Labor Government has taken a 50-year-old support service that has married officers, buried their colleagues and sat with them through the worst nights of their careers, and told the chaplains running it they must now dob in the very people who trusted them.”
The new contracts require chaplains to disclose the full names of any officer who has used the service upon request, and to report any psychological distress, workplace conflict, trauma exposure, fitness-for-duty concern, health condition or financial hardship they identify to that officer’s manager.
Jewish Labor Premier Chris Minns purges Christianity from NSW police ranks
Yet NSW Police’s own psychologists and Employee Assistance Program counsellors continue to offer officers confidential support — with the Force’s own wellbeing material describing EAP counselling as free and confidential and covering the same territory of trauma, distress and personal hardship chaplains are now compelled to report.
“Police officers can see a psychologist or an EAP counsellor in confidence about the exact same issues — trauma, distress, financial hardship — and that conversation stays private,” Mr Shelton said. “But if an officer instead turns to the chaplain they trust, that chaplain can now be forced to hand the same information straight to their manager. You cannot run a two-tier system where confidentiality applies to everyone except the pastoral carers officers have relied on for half a century.”
One serving officer told the Telegraph chaplains had “married us, buried us, christened our children and been there if we just wanted to talk” for 50 years, asking how that could continue if chaplains were ordered to give up anything officers told them in confidence. The Police Association of NSW says it has been swamped with members complaining about the collapse of the padre service.
“Every one of these resignations is a loss the Labor Government should be ashamed of,” Mr Shelton said. “Family First is calling on the Government to scrap this disclosure regime immediately, restore genuine pastoral confidentiality to the chaplaincy service, and properly fund and expand it so every officer who wants that support can get it — without having to choose between their faith and their privacy.”
Ben Franklin should be invited to the 200th anniversary of the swearing-in of modern Greece’s first governor in Aegina on 26th January 2028. 26th January is the internationally (and nationally) unrecognized date of inauguration of the post-revolutionary modern Greek state. Greece should once again have a bicameral parliament (like New South Wales and all Australian states apart from Queensland) as it has had twice in its history since the establishment of modern Greece. But this will need assistance, It is not on current agendas.
Save-Europe-Act-Mediterranean Solidarity are an informal grouping of signatories to the Save-Europe-Act which we have signed despite, in some cases, misgivings about specific wording. For us the priority is on recognition of the overall urgency of the initiative and demonstration of solidarity with its spirit. We agree on the importance of protecting the ethno-cultural coherence of the peoples of Europe. We agree that it is unacceptable to be required to tolerate newcomers who are “a threat or burden to our society”, though they are not the root of the problem. We agree that when lawmakers cannot be trusted, the distinction between legal and illegal immigration loses its significance. We would prefer the term “Western” not to be used as criterion for distinguishing between the welcome and the unwelcome. While our signature on the Save-Europe-Act means nothing more or less than unqualified support, the majority of us probably see the provision of financial assistance as dependent on removal of the terms “right” and “left” as synonyms for “friend” and “opponent” respectively.
Lyle Shelton
Jewish Labor Premier Chris Minns purges Christianity from NSW police ranks