‘Democracy is the power of equal votes for unequal minds’, an expression attributed to Charles I of England in the seventeenth century, can be countered by Abraham Lincoln’ No man is good enough to rule another man without the consent of that man ‘, in The Nineteenth Century.

Thus, over time, it happened that, in developed Western nations, citizens acquired the right to vote in almost periodic elections, to choose who would govern them for a specific period (but with some flexibility of duration). Votes would be cast primarily for political parties. The hope, optimism and opportunism of individuals and some small parties would be limited, almost inevitably, by the evolution of 2 important but ideologically opposed parties.

Those qualified to vote do not vote for the people offered to represent them in each electorate. Instead, they vote for the party of their choice, since their electoral candidates are chosen by the party leadership, not by the electors. No statements of duties mentioning required qualifications, work experience and fitness for work are included. A genius or a donkey, how could the voters know?

How prescient was RWEmerson in the 19th century when he said, “Democracy becomes a government of thugs tempered by publishers”?

Worse still, in most Western nations, voting is not mandatory, facilitating entrenchment for those who gain control of the major parties. Yet it is this form of democracy, known as Western democracy, that is being sold or demanded of developing nations around the world.

The primary goal of this marketing effort is to replace tribal leadership of the traditional, historic, and generally enduring type with tribal leadership of political parties. Of course, it is easier in a Western democracy to replace one political party, or the leadership of one party, with another; except that this would be similar to replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee from ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’.

In the case, couldn’t one honestly state that when voters are given the opportunity to change governments, it is effectively only on fringe issues? What could these fringe problems be? Trying to protect the environment, foreign investors needed for feather mattress protection, subsidizing some of the rich, unspecified foreign aid, some middle-class welfare, and so on?

In Australia, the population is not represented by the main political parties on human rights. A national bill of rights is denied, as this would apparently interfere with the practice of governing the authority of certain churches. Voluntary (repeated, voluntary) euthanasia is not allowed even when the best palliative care is considered to be clearly inadequate to counteract the most severe pain in specific cases; but family pets can be “euthanized” (that is, killed) without challenge.

The mantra evoked by opponents of voluntary euthanasia refers to “killing,” the “slippery slope” and the implicit mendacity of the descendants of those who might be seeking relief from a terrible existence.

It is difficult to understand why the stance of the involved Christian churches on this issue, as well as the issues of birth control and abortion, is supported by a majority of politicians of all colors in Australia, when around 30% of Australians population denies institutional religion, and dogma-driven religious make up far less than a quarter of the nation’s population.

Clearly, the Australian federal parliament has fallen under the control of religious conservatives on both sides of the political divide. The media, of course, are careful not to draw attention to this. Therefore, the political leaders of the “emerging” or underdeveloped nations will be encouraged by the operational demands of Western democracy as commercialized by the major Western nations.

As William Penn said in the 18th century, “Let the people think that they rule and they will be ruled.”