The Queen’s Coup

The easy answer is if you don’t have anyone you want to vote for: don’t.

I still vote, but much more selectively and I retired the belief I used to have that if you don’t vote you can’t complain. I have priorities, and I know for a fact there isn’t another human being on this planet, let alone one in my general locality that would match my voting preferences perfectly. Nothing wrong with prioritizing because the best you can hope for is good enough for government work.

Yes, apologies - my several prime ministers ago aside was very much a tongue in cheek utterance. I'm painfully aware that Scott was the one to reset that record.

As to 'Only the US has two realistic options' - you appear to be switching in 'realistic', and overloading 'options', when comparing other countries.

I'd contend, f.e. that even with 33% of people not voting for the Labor or Lib/Nat coalition in Australia, we're still in the regrettable situation of only have 'two realistic options'.

In the sense of 'who'll be head of state' (or PM in Canada, AU, UK, etc) it's well understood going into an election who the two candidates for that job are, and undeniably that has an influence on voters in electorates where that person isn't running (ie. almost all voters).

I know nothing about Canadian politics, but was living in London in 2010 - pop media were struggling to understand & describe how a coalition could even work. Anyway, that went as well as we expected, and my point is mostly that there was only two potentials before, and zero doubt after the election, about who the prime minister would be.

You observe that other parties present candidates and win seats in the UK and Canada (and presumably everywhere except the USA?) - which is true, but misses my point. Consider, if an independent in the US won a seat, could that conceivably change the selection of president?

Aside - a model I'd love to see employed more widely is a Swiss-style Federal Council.

In the sense given by this proclamation: https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/proc...

Well, I make no bones about the fact I loved the Queen. So take this with as much salt as you think you need, but I honestly think that there isn't really a better solution than what we have. Queen Elizebeth did not want the role of monarch. She literally prayed to God when she found out that she was in the direct line of succession. She asked for a brother, so she wouldn't have this heavy burden of responsibility.

If we want a single, final, sole, human decision maker I do not see how we can accomplish this without a monarchy that doesn't come with the massive downsides of attracting those that have a lust for power. That the monarchy is essentially toothless in all but the most dire circumstances is a feature not a bug.

It's like the folks in the military that get slated to man the nuclear weapons silos. Very few want the job because they know that they're only need in the very rare circumstance where the whole world is on the line.

It's illiquid power.

As for the rest of it, the holdings, etc. I looked at the Queen as essentially a guardian of nature and an encourager of those in the military, intelligence and of the many charities that exist across The Common Wealth. Yes, she had many fancy dinners, but we got more than what we paid for. Whether encouraging a single little girl to become a doctor when she grows up or slapping a good-hearted wealthy guy on the back when he donates a colossal fortune to helping orphans the return on investment is obvious. Fifteen minutes of her time yielded (and continues to yield) tremendous return.

Incorrect. This is a lie we tell other people to guilt them into voting because if we can at least get them to a ballot box we can maybe also get them to at least partially vote for our preferred set of outcomes; it’s not actually true. Not voting is simply not voting: abstaining from making a choice or making the choice to not make a choice if you prefer, and how someone exercises their voting power and how much is a personal choice.

Not voting is at worst, voting for whoever actually won in a given election. In my case I live in a single-party county in a single-party State. So voting one of two ways is either wasted ink on the winner or a protest vote for the loser and I’ll sometimes do it anyway, but when the winner is going to be same officeholder who has held office for 30 years and won with 80% of the vote last time, it’s definitely more of an emotional exercise than a rational one no matter how you voted, and this will only be subject to change once that person retires. There was also one office where the incumbent was running unopposed (and has been for years) so I stopped wasting the ink.

Given how voting differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, everyone has their own calculus for voting so knock off the patronizing propaganda.

If it makes you feel better, I at least partially fill out my 10 page ballots packed with offices across three or more elections with four or five different kinds of voting methods, plus State and local ballot initiatives, but only to the degree that I am satisfied with it or can be satisfied with it, and that’s all that is really necessary.