this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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There wasn't any good reason to vote no, other than you didn't want rural Aboriginal people to be communicating with the Prime Minister... As that's all the voice was really about.
Also, a yes vote would have been a small step towards becoming a Republic.
The reasons I saw from the no campaign were 1. Unclear wording in the constitution 2. Bringing race into the constitution (either for all or none) 3. Lack of explanation as to how the changes, again to our constitution, would tangibly “close the gap”. I largely blame labour for it failing. Plenty of nos could have been yes if the campaign was more clear and informative imo but I don’t doubt racism played its part. Blaming it exclusively on racism and political apathy is disingenuous and certainly won’t inform people nor change their minds.
The campaign was plenty clear. People just didn't want to hear it. "Don't know, vote no" worked, even though the right response to "don't know" is "do a modicum of fucking research".
I feel like you could have sought out all that information though... So that's not "reason" (which is what I said) - that's you having further questions you could have answered with google, looking into it, and asking around the yes campaign.
Sounds like you fell for the no campaign and were just too lazy to give things a second thought.
P.S The constitution already contains stuff about "race" and identifies Aboriginal Australians as distinct from people who came here. It's always had race in it ...hence your argument that it "will bring race into the constitution" - is again just you not questioning the no campaign.
People being lazy and not bothering to find shit out isn't the same as "having a reason" to vote no. It IS a reason a lot of people voted no, but that's not the same as having had a legitimate reason to.
I’m providing some of the reasons I’ve read or heard from the campaign. Not that I support them or their validity. Regardless of whether people “could” have sought it out if labour wanting to put forward these changes the onus is on them address all the “concerns” either directly or by be being more informative in their campaign.
Which is all an aside, my point remains there were other reasons people didn’t vote yes contrary to what the writer of the article asserted.
Cool, but yeah, I do think modern western government are struggling to get messages out in the digital age of media consumption. People don't have to go look for info, and often don't care to, so they get bubbled in their own algorithms.
Agreed, even worse is algorithms continual boosting of “ragebait” or emotion centred content. Why read/watch an article that will “just” be informative when you can watch something claiming how any step forward means you’ll lose something.
The Liberal party literally wrote all their questions to the Yes campaign and they refused to answer any of them.
They didn't refuse to answer, and some of the questions were designed to derail the effort, such as "Define Aboriginality" when that's not in the purview of the Australian government (just like define britishness wouldn't be), the Australian government can only (in a parliamentary setting where the questions were tabled) define Australian, and only do so in legal terms.
The reasonable questions were answered, such as "Would it be a decision making body" the answer being no, it was an advisory body.
But yeah, that the Liberal party wanted to play party politics with the good will and unity of the Australian people and the desire to settle historical and cultural divisions isn't surprising and isn't the win you think it is.
It's just another sign they're not responsible, and not fit to be in a leadership position that requires unity and good will, not attempts to derail the country by plunging it into culture wars.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/01/10/peter-dutton-letter-indigenous-voice-parliament/
Voting yes was explicitly voting for racial supremacy.
Rightwingers always have these stupid teleological arguments that just completely jump the gun to extreme "civilization ending" conclusion that are never ever not even once accurate or even remotely true and it looks dumb as dogshit ever single time.
Social welfare is Communism!
Gender equality will cause the fall of Rome!
Immigration is white genocide!
...
And what's this, a new contender; the Yes vote was explicitly going to create a racial supremacist society!
No, the PM would just have to listen to some Aboriginal leaders now... Wouldn't have to agree, or do what they said. Just he'd be mandated to every now and then, listen to the people we stole the country from.
The vote was about giving a portion of society additional power to create rights for people based solely on their ethnicity.
Yes, that's racial supremacy.
The fact that you say "we stole the country from" whilst complaining about the right jumping to telological arguments is fucking hilariously ironic.
We didn't do anything. Not a single Australian alive today was even born under British rule, let alone during the actual colonisation period
No shit no one alive "did anything"*, it's a euphemism for a part of history, it's intended to impart a general understanding of the transaction in a brief amount of words that sums up events. It's not intended to accuse modern people of litteral thieft.
It's okay insecure white man, no mob is going to come a knocking with a deed to your property. They didn't even have a system of written language, and your property didn't exist.
That said there will still be people alive today who either were involved in the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their parents (because there was a spate of that in 1960s still, as per the "bringing them home" report, about the "lost generations"), and/or whose grandparents and so on were involved in stuff like that. Samantha Armitages' family, and probably Gina Rhinehart's... That's part of the psychology of why some are paranoid on the issue.
But paranoia is by definition an irrational fear. The voice simply isn't about reparations.
As for the idea it will give some racial groups more power than others - again this isn't true because it wasn't just about race. Does nothing for big city Aboriginal people for instance.
It was SPECIFICALLY about people from very remote Aboriginal communities who barely count politically and are unlikely to have any affect or contact with the PM otherwise. People who can't just mount a protest in a capital city as most Australians could (90% of us live in Capital cities).
So it was about addressing a disadvantage creates by distance AND race/culture, caused by just how large Australia is (as well as our history, and why pockets of rural Aboriginal communities exist in the first place).
So nah, addressing the unfortune of being a small community that goes ignored isn't a function of over powering them or giving them a "racial supremacy".
No, it's not. It's you actively blaming current Australian people for actions of people who lived generations ago.
Ah yes, and I'm the racist.
I never said you were racist, I joked about Aboriginal people showing up with a deed to your house.
You feeling blamed when I'm saying it's a historical injustice, not a matter of modern theift, isn't the same thing as me having blamed you.
I don't even know you, you're just some stranger on the Internet.
Pointing out this history of the country is just being honest. The people who can't handle that are the ones being dishonest.
Anyways, if you need to lie and misrepresent the basic positions of the discussion, and the terms involved - I think that shows you're not operating from reason.
So like I was saying, there was no reasonable case made by the No campaign during The Voice.
You feeling accused, isn the same as a reason, because reason operates on actual statements and substantial facts, not mischaracterisations and tangential FEELINGS.
It's normal to have feelings, so sorry you let yours cloud your reasonable judgement of the actual facts and arguments being made. In that particular case (and that alone as far as I can tell) you ARE guilty.
When you say "we stole their land" then yes, it's not a historical injustice, it's a modern one.
The history is irrelevant.
Either we are all equal. Or people have more rights based on their ethnicity than others, which is racial superiority, which is exactly what you're asking for.
That's because of your political views that see you blame white people for the ills of everything that's wrong today.
It's normal to have feelings, so sorry you let yours cloud your reasonable judgement of the actual facts and arguments being made
Christ you're really on it with the accusations of me being the emotional one when you're the person who can't seemingly understand why deciding rights based off of ethnicity is a bad thing.
You're a racist. Plain and simple. As was the whole and entire Yes campaign.
You don't and shouldn't get treated with special privilege because of your skin colour. Everyone in Australia is equal regardless, and it should stay that way.
This constant victimhood screeching by you is not factual, it is pure emotional and based in nothing but fantasy
:::
Like imagine for a sec, being a little boy in the 70s and seeing this on the nightly news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE7YP-ZGy6w
...and you're going to pretend some people don't have a harder cultural background to come from, or weren't living under the threat of castration for being a different colour. You're doing white-victimhood, and denial of racism. Grow the fuck up, and learn about your country dumb ass.
No, your political views see that REGARDLESS of what I say, what links I provide to the Stolden Generations phenomena still being on going, legally quantified and RACIALLY MOTIVATED as recently as the 1970s your still going to pretend I'm claiming your were involved with that, or that all white people, are therefore to blame.
But you probably weren't involved with it directly... You're just denying that it would impact modern Aboriginal people and communities still... You're saying "the victims we're talking about - shouldn't feel victimized by being, or having had relatives forcibly taken from their families."
Your saying "nah, that's 'equality' - they were treated equal."
You're preaching cultural ignorance of the impact history has on a people.
You're being a fuckin Racist, and that's why YOU voted no. Because you don't know jack shit about Australia, which is why you're pushing AMERICAN victimhood culture here.
You're doing a claim to white victimhood and pretending it's about all histories being equal. I was willing to talk to you, and give you the benefit of the doubt.
But I guessed right about you from the start when I said people jump to unjustified assertions, and that's a trend on the right wing (particularly in America)... And now you've shown yourself as doing exactly that.
So it turns out, yes I do think you're a racist now, and I do think the voice was about helping communities of RURAL Aboriginal people have more of a voice (hence the name) would have been a good thing.
I'm not a dishonest coward like you, I can look history and inequality in the face without pretending it's some attack on "white people" (P.S that's not a real race or country, there's no nation or culture by that name) or a racial take over. Bizzare assumptions you're hiding behind, just like you're sweeping racism within living memory under the rug - pretending cultural difference have no modern effects on people.
It's utterly dishonest bullshit... And yeah, I'm not going to spend my time talking to scum like you.
"I'm not racist"
Is the epitome of racism.
Way to make up a stawman quote I never said.
You'll note that most of my comment was spent saying you're deceptive, and have to twist words... So the fact you responded by fabricating a quote because you couldn't find one, is hilarious.
But no, races don't exist... Ethnicities do. Go look it up for yourself. There's more genetic diversity within "darker skinned people from Africa" than there is between light skinned people (what you would call "white people") and dark skinned people (whom you would call Africans).
Race doesn't exist, it's not a scientific concept (genetics exist). Ethnicity as a social construct exosts, because it's a mix of culture, shared history, and appearance (and no, that's not a euphemism for race because it includes how groups dress/behave), so no, "White people" isn't a real race.... But Finnish people exist as an ethnicity, Germans exist as an ethnicity, French people exist as an ethnicity....
They all have different cultures, languages, traditions, dances, customs. Things constructed culturally.
They all share superficial bodily characteristics (as do the rest of humanity)... But there's no unified culture or country called "White". Nothing meaningful is defined that way other than Racism.
Like I said. There's more genetic diversity between "African" ethnicities (and sometimes within them, even where people look the same) than there is between superficially "white" people and "black" people. But you're just doing an evaluation of people's skin colour and how they look superficially and saying that's race. Go look up whether race is a scientifically valid concept. Go find the country of "White"... It's not a thing.
The world has cultures, histories, and ethnicities, not races.
Race is socially constructed not a scientific matter of genes and procreation, that would be genetics. That's why albino indians are still ethnically indians. They're not suddenly Finnish or German just because of sharing a skin colour.
Anyways, I'm sure you'll misquote me then pretend a misinterpretation you put in quotes yourself is what I was saying....
.... because like I pointed out earlier, no matter what I say you're going to have to twist it. Because not only are you a believer in an outdated ideas of Racism (bloodlines and purity and what not, when in actual fact we all trace back to the same people), you also have to lie and construct strawman arguments out of desparation.
It's not surprising you don't know Australian history. You also still think race is a scientifically valid concept. You're a liar, outdated, and ignorant of the facts, as expected. You're a racist.