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Comment Vote with your feet? (Score 1) 455

(Looking in from Australia, having never been to North or South America)

On the surface our countries are fairly similar (mostly speak english, mostly settled (invaded?) by white anglos from england about 300 years ago)
Our country is a bit smaller and has a much smaller population, mostly in cities. We don't have a bill of rights or a civil war or a big history of slavery. We haven't ever had guns in as big a way as you but we do love our cars.

I don't have any easy answers, but I think some good non-obvious differences in our electoral system make a big difference:

Preferential voting (instant run-off / ranked choice)
- means you can vote for a minor party first, a major party 2nd, and the other major party last, and if your 3rd party candidate doesn't get in, your full vote goes to your next preference. In a first past the post system minor parties get shafted in the medium to long term and you end up with 2 dominant parties.

Voting on Saturdays
- means most don't have to choose between earning money and voting
- means you can have democracy sausage

Compulsory Voting
- means that politicians don't have to spend all their energy / campaign dollars / airtime to get people angry enough to bother to vote, instead can talk about the issues.

Comment Re:Just give the option to turn it off... (Score 1) 823

Unless you're blind, or happen to be looking the other way when the drunk in a prius bears down on you. Which is why some sort of fake engine noise will eventually be mandated (if it hasn't been already).

Once a car is going more than 10 to 15 the tyre / road noise is way louder than the engine unless the car is a "sports" car. So adding noises to Prius / Tesla doesn't make much sense.

Censorship

Submission + - Holocaust Dropped From UK Schools

dteichman2 writes: "It appears that UK schools are ignoring The Holocaust. A government-backed study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, found that some teachers are reluctant to teach history lessons on The Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. As such, many schools are not covering the subject. Additionally, similar problems are being met with lessons on The Crusades because these lessons contradict teachings from local mosques.

Isn't there a law that requires UK schools to cover these topics? Should there be?"

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