• Compulsory voting was created by power hungry politicians who knew that winning votes on policy merit alone was never going to get them anywhere. By including the demographic that didn’t give two hoots about who would win the election they opened up marketing strategies, funny names, free gifts and great profile photos as the keys to success
• All politicians have great haircuts
•  Every politician has a sidekick which, unlike superhero comics, is much better than the politicians themselves in managing and providing what was promised
• Politicians are under qualified and overpaid

But hey, even though I’m all sour grapes about the political system I truly do love voting… It’s a great game. A lot of people underestimate the amount of fun that can be brought from a day of observation and the maltreatment of Queensland’s future.

I remember my last voting experience like it was yesterday. I made my way to the closest primary school in my area. The car park was full of cars and there was a line-up of locals which extended far beyond the front gate. I thought, Oh poo there’s a big line-up of locals…but wait there are lovely ladies handing out reading material for my wait. I get to the line and I’m bombarded with photos of old men’s faces and lovely bright text telling me to ‘VOTE HOWARD’. The bright colours had my attention for a good part of my wait but I was getting bored so I decided to start looking at everybody in the queue. It was amazing that almost everyone was pulling the same face. It was the face of apathy, lethargy and ennui all rolled up in one which gives a look like this (if you were wondering):

The voting face

Further down in the queue and I received more posters and brochures telling me absolutely nothing about what changes were going to be made by this politician, but rather a mellow motto which was as specific as a horoscope.

“Bob PooFace – Changing your community for the better”

I mean isn’t that what a politician’s policies are basically? It’s not really a promise but rather a crafty generalised prediction that probably won’t happen but we can pretend it did with ‘it’s somewhat done’ clauses.

If only I found one brochure out of the lot that said something like “Mike Smith – Will make your neighbourhood better with more visits from Home Ice Cream” he would have had my vote hands down but sadly politicians aren’t that accommodating (another interesting fact).

So anyway, I get to the part where I have to vote, and I’m in two minds as to who to vote for… In my left hand I have a photo of a man that has a nose that would bring me much laughter every time I saw him in the media but in my right hand I have Bob PooFace who has promised me the world. I couldn’t make the choice (and couldn’t fill out the ballot properly) so I looked over my mum‘s shoulder as she chooses her votes wisely (or at least it seemed with the way she was concentrating on her ballot). I just copied what she wrote and walked out with a warm feeling (the feeling of not having to pay a fine for not voting) and now we have a recession but I think this was a coincidence and not because I voted indolently.

Well this time around I’m definitely not going to do the same thing. In fact I’ve taken the liberty to do some research before I vote. Now that I’m all ‘educated’ on politics I am very much looking forward to this upcoming election for one very big reason. My good friend Evan Moorhead is waiting for my vote (he doesn’t know me). I know I’m going to vote for him because I have already checked all his other competitors and they have far less comedic names.

What’s the moral of this story? Even the most boring and compulsory activities can be made fun with bright colours, tiny pencils and lucky-dip style ballot collection boxes. So next time you have to vote don’t complain about it. Be a good civilian and vote for your favourite face.

Before I start with that I would just like to go off on a tangent and mention how easy it is to create a personal blog. It took me roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes from purchasing a domain to installing word press and blogging away. It was incredible.

Ok so let’s move on to the really educational stuff (not really). I have been thinking about how the internet liberates me in ways I never thought possible. Back in the day as a child in order to express myself I would have to use my outside voice to get my point across in a family of five. Now we have this amazing thing called the internet that lets me broadcast whatever the hell I want and potentially billions can read it. I then thought about the reason why I spend so much time on the internet and I realised it’s not just all about the interesting content out there. It’s the fact that when I’m surfing the net I have virtually no governance from others and I’m basically cut off from any kind of political control….and I really hate politics. This is where the real feeling of freedom kicks in for me.

I then thought about it a little further (yes I have way too much time on my hands at the moment) and became conscious of the fact that the only reason our internet is so liberated is because of our great Nation’s democracy. We are in fact a lucky country. While we complain about the government as they put fluoride in our water or protest the hogwash fact that recycled water is icky there are countries out there which arrest bloggers for having a point of view.

Accurate illustration of freedom levels

I then had a quick look at the great Wikipedia about internet filters and which countries use them. I found an amazing trend (haha it’s not amazing in the slightest) which I have thoughtfully placed in an extremely legible graph for you:

Although my graph was hand drawn in paint, a trend is evident here. More political control leads to more restrictions on the internet. Why? Because the only way to act out against a government is to create a following and what better way to create a following than to use the internet.

I have placed Australia under mild filtering. Now some will say that’s not right, Australia has no filtering. This is somewhat true. We have restrictions on hosting hardcore pornography but that’s about it. We are for the most part a working democracy but we take a look at the other countries which have a hard time trying to use google without breaking a sweat and see how fortunate we are. Saudi Arabia filters immoral content in general and even has a security committee that can block whatever the country’s internet users can see. Moving up on the graph and we have South Korea who actually censor and delete blog posts which criticize the government in any way. Then we have Iran….Iran is a lovely country, but seriously I would crawl up into a ball and die if I had to live there with their internet laws. Iran has actually arrested bloggers for expressing their opinion. They also block women’s rights websites, weblogs and online magazines. This is an outrage…ladies I’m all about women’s rights but their most ambitious block is youtube. Who the hell blocks youtube?

Anyway that’s enough ranting for one day. Stay tuned for more mediocre blog posts from me and make sure you look at the “drunkie pants” category once it shows up. I am full of epiphanies once inebriated; I just haven’t had a chance to be so yet.