Do you ever wonder what our society would look like if everyday people were calling the shots? If everyday people had more influence rather than a few privileged rich and large corporations? Would we have sold our public utilities? Would the centre of Melbourne look less like Manhattan; have less poorly constructed and dangerous residential towers?
Over recent centuries in the history of the West government has been about people and people’s rights. This led to some progress – at least formally, if not in practice - in relation to the rights of individuals. Such civic protections have been enshrined in systems of law and legislature i.e in formal constitutions which limit the power of leaders/rulers over the people. Formal constitutions often follow a tradition of establishing representative parliaments, an independent judiciary and an executive (in Australia, the Government’s cabinet) or some variation thereof and linked to the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta tradition is about protecting people from summary execution, or summary jailing or confiscation of property.These protections were sometimes far from perfect. Property rights were certainly not well protected for many English villagers who were removed from their land during the period of enclosures and industrialisation. Others such as Habeas Corpus – protection against arbitrary detention – have been somewhat weakened with recent anti-terrorist laws. The main point here is that for a past few hundred years (at least) the focus of constitutions for western governments has been on protecting the rights of people (and property rights).
Will our sovereign rights be signed away with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (the TPP) Agreement? Matthew Mitchell examines the likelihood in this article. Originally posted on the Australian Independent Media Network
I am leveling the following charge against our Australian constitutional system: Everyday Australians must follow the rules, but they cannot change them. Australians have no real say over their own system of government, at either state or federal level.
If this accusation is correct the implication is that Australians are not free, they are subjects of the Elite.
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