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Comment by 1stop | Hacker News Reader

Healthcare is free in that anyone anywhere can go to a hospital with anything and be treated for it without paying anything. (And everyone who earns enough money pays taxes).

You really want to argue that healthcare isn't 'free'?

Gun control isn't 'authoritarian' it's sensible. Only with a screwed up U.S agg-prop point of view could you construe it as 'authoritarian', there is no mention of guns as a "right" in any of Australia's (or almost every other country in the worlds) constitution or case law... So could you justify how you came to your point of view?

There are no active internet filters in australia... Though there is talk of them, and some ISPs filter stuff... Do I need to remind you about Wikileaks getting it's Amazon servers shutdown... Even if there was a filter in Australia, it would be 'closer' to the US not further in similarities.

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Did you mean "agitprop"?

It's been a while since I've seen that. Thanks for the belly-laugh.

Australia is very authoritarian. They actually confiscated the guns. not just made them illegal. They threatened law abiding citizens with prison time for not turning them in.

Here http://rense.com/general81/ligun.htm when other authoritarian regimes have confiscated guns.

Not only that, but crime went up in Australia. Obviously the criminals didn't turn in their guns.

Australia also makes it mandatory to vote. Any kind of forced action like that is very authoritarian.

They made it illegal to own (certain) guns, then offered a buy back scheme, then they confiscated guns from those that didn't bring in... This works much like how 'drugs' are illegal, and the police confiscate them, so the U.S is just as authoritarian (but with drugs) in this regard.

Gun crime reduced dramatically, though when categorised as violent crime, the reduction was smaller and overall the crime rate has decreased year on year... so I don't know what you are referring to.

Mandatory voting is 'authoritarian'... are you kidding me? It stops 'vested interest' or disenfranchisement of portions of your population, and moves closer to real 'universal suffrage', I can see there is valid criticism in arguing it impinges personal freedom, but authoritarian again just seems you are pushing some odd right wing agenda here.

Compared the the U.S, Australia sits well and truly to the left, but the similarities I was referring too, was about the make up of the populations, Australia is a good test case (for the U.S) for assessing policy outcomes, especially when Australia has implemented said policy and has strong correlative outcomes.

You seem to have derailed the thread some-what with your propaganda and pro-gun agenda, which I have sadly fallen for.

My original point stands.

Mandatory voting is more democratic. The US should do the same.

What does mandatory voting mean exactly?

Can I still vote invalid?

What ist the punishment for not voting?

You have to show up (or post) a vote, there is no requirements on your actual vote (it can be completely blank, or a picture of ponies... but you have to put your bit of paper in the ballet box (or postbox)).

Punishment for not voting is usually a fine. Though encouraging people not to vote or to post invalid votes (i.e. subversion), can carry jail terms of up to 12 months (from memory).

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