Re: [lace-chat] Civics/Citizen education
Yes, Sue Ellen, voting is compulsory in Australia. When you go to the polling place, your name is taken, and marked off on an electoral list. After the election, the names of those who voted are checked against the master roll, and if you haven't voted, you get a letter asking you to explain why. If the excuse isn't a valid one, then you get fined. Travelling (at least within Australia) is not an excuse for not voting. If its a Federal election (i.e., right across Australia), then you have to go into a polling place wherever you are and lodge an absentee vote. If its a state election only, (i.e., there won't be polling places in other states,) you have to arrange to lodge a postal vote before polling day. Ruth Budge (Sydney, Australia) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:I am taking part in some classes and salons on the philosopher-citizen as a decision maker and it came up that citizenship is a concept in flux: that it has different meanings in other states or countries and that it was taught so very differently in the past. I would love to hear from all of you, particularly those in different states and countries (I'm in California) about what citizenship means to you and what citizenship education you received in school at all or various levels. (It would then help to know ages.) For instance, I have heard but don't know if it is true or how it would be enforced, that it is illegal to not vote in Australia. Thanks, Sue Ellen To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies. http://au.movies.yahoo.com To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Civics/Citizen education
I lived in Poland up to the end of high school. We did have citizenship education, but nobody took it seriously - that was the class we used to play games under the table or do homework for other classes. It was pretty boring, too. I'm not sure how true that really is, but it seems to me that in Poland there still isn't much concept of citizenship, because our goverments have been our enemies for so long. Most people I know, my age at least, don't regard the law as something very important (it's practically good to follow it sometimes, because bad things may happen if you get caught, but it often seems to have no particular ethical value). I think part of the reason (or maybe it's the effect...) for that is that we have lots of laws that aren't enforced - high school kids get drunk on a regular basis, bus ticket-checkers take bribes, etc. Here in the US I haven't developed much sense of citizenship yet (makes sense, given how I'm not a citizen g), but I might given time - I intend to stay, and I like a lot of things about the country. One thing that seems to me strange in terms of citizenship is how the voting system is set up so that in most states voting is pointless, since everyone knows what most people in the state will vote for anyway. The two-party system is sort of strange too. We don't have to take any citizenship education at Caltech (most people do take law or at least economics, but I'm trying to stick to psychology). Weronika On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 08:57:53PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am taking part in some classes and salons on the philosopher-citizen as a decision maker and it came up that citizenship is a concept in flux: that it has different meanings in other states or countries and that it was taught so very differently in the past. I would love to hear from all of you, particularly those in different states and countries (I'm in California) about what citizenship means to you and what citizenship education you received in school at all or various levels. (It would then help to know ages.) For instance, I have heard but don't know if it is true or how it would be enforced, that it is illegal to not vote in Australia. Thanks, Sue Ellen To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Civics/Citizen education
It is illegal not to vote in Australian elections, if your name is on the electoral role and is not crossed off at the election then you get fined. Someone tried to publicise some way of making a stand against the compulsory voting without the possibility of getting fined - they got fined for doing that. That's amazing... You can understand why they make it compulsory if you could see the ballot paper for the Senate (Upper house) it seems to get larger every year, last time I think it was about 3ft by 1 ft. The paper is divided into 2 sections you can put one cross in the upper section which is basically voting for a party. Or you put numbers 1 - 10 in the lower section which has the names of each candidate in the order of your preference. It seems like that would just make people vote randomly, since they didn't want to do it in the first place and it's so complicated... Maybe they should try to make it simpler instead of forcing people to do it. In the UK where I originally hail from voting is not compulsory - I think I only ever missed one local election. Citizenship is not taught at schools, as such, depends I suppose on what you mean by citizenship. Part of education, partly by school and mainly by parents is what it means to be a good citizen - I suppose I talking morality and ethics. I'm not sure how much that's related. It seems perfectly possible to be an ethical person and an anarchist... Then again, maybe that just shows my personal idea of citizenship g. But I really don't see countries as very important - both the people you interact with and people in general seem to be more important groups to be ethical towards. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
