The notion that democracy is designed to give people some agency in governance is preposterous. It's designed to give people the illusion of choice.

In Australia (and America) we don't have a democracy. We have a democratic republic. We don't vote on issues, we vote for people to vote on the issues and we trust that those we elect to office will have our best interests as their top priority. But it is simply is not the case. We don't have a say in our governance but we do have a say in how our governing appears. It's the illusion of choice.

Right now we have a Prime Minister who is making choices that oppose the general consensus of the nation. He is literally doing things that the majority of Australians are against and not doing things that the majority of Australians are for. Where is my agency in governance?

I don't see why everyone needs to included in the democratic process. Voting is mandatory in Australia and yet in 2010 1.5 million out of the 15.5 million eligible voters were missing from the electoral role. 900,000 of those on the electoral role didn't vote anyway and 700,000 of the ones that voted did so in a manner that intentionally made their vote invalid.

20% of the eligible voters in Australia could not care any less about their governance. Why should they be given the opportunity to vote when they quite clearly don't want it?

Why should the most gullible and emotional and irrational people be given just as much voting power as everyone else? Why do complex issues need to be chopped down into 5 second sound bites so that the morons can think they're informed when they sit down to watch the "news".

The major issues in last years federal election were illegal immigration and somehow, foreign aid spending and "balancing the budget". The currently elected PM literally said he would "balance the budget" and that was it. He didn't explain how to planned to do that or why it was so important. He just said that same phrase over and over again.

Foreign aid spending (NATO promise) was cut by $4.5bn over 4 years and the authority, AusAID, that has managed the Australian Governments foreign aid spending for just under 40 years was dismantled and closed. I don't know how, but $4.5bn dollars in foreign aid spending became issue number one. It was on the front page of newspapers and on the nightly news for weeks leading up the election. $4.5bn cut out of an expected 4 year deficit totaling $56.3bn. Issue number 1 for the nation was 7.9% of our projected deficit and only 1/3 of 1% of our 4 year revenue. 0.3%. Zero point three percent of our budget over the next four years became issue number 1. Is this a joke?

The other major issue was illegal immigration. The stupidity of the average Australian on this issue is insane. It was for almost a year the single most talked about issue in Australian politics judging by the media. Sensationalism should refer to Australia and illegal immigration in the dictionary. Our current PM campaigned on "stopping the boats". It was one of the few polarized issues in Australian politics and every moron in the country has a (stupid) opinion on it. 20 million people live in Australia. All documented illegal immigrants that came to our shores in the last 40 years could sit inside the MCG a couple of times over. I'd like to know how a few thousand illegal immigrants entering the country is an issue worthy of attention?

According to Australian Parliament we have had 58,273 "illegal boat people" since 1975. 20 million Australians are being invaded by a force 0.29% of their size. STOP THE PRESSES!

I don't know who else to blame for the sheer stupidity of the "issues" in Australian politics or for the complete lack of information conveyed by the media to the Australian people.

I do know that the media serve women. I know that the most child like and gullible demographic in any voting pool is women. I know that women get the power to vote with non the responsibility of the nation in which they live. Women won't go to war, women won't earn as much as men, women won't learn as much as men and women won't produce as much as men.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the labour participation rate for men is 80% and between 60% and 65% for women. There are more unemployed women than men and female labour is more underutilized than males. Surprise surprise.

I spent some time looking at the gender gap in Australia in STEM careers and university courses. I couldn't find much aggregated data but every profession I looked at showed less women than men. 40% of graduate architects are women and yet less then 20% of registered architects are women. In 2013 women accounted for 28% of positions above senior lecturer in Australian universities and 17% in STEM fields. Meaning just under half of those women hold positions in useless fields like gender studies or liberal arts.

Women clearly contribute less to the societies in which they live. That doesn't mean they are not valuable, they are. But the notion that they should be given just as much say as the men who create and further that society and civilization is simply stupid.

Men are responsible for the running water I use, the sanitation of that water, the collection and disposal of waste, the house in which I live, the computer that I use, the infrastructure I use, the medicine I may need, the armed forces that protect me, the electricity I use, the food I eat, the car I drive, the roads I drive on, the bridges I pass etc, etc. Men are responsible for civilization as we know it. Why should a demographic that are not involved in furthering civilization have just as much as say those who are responsible for it?

I didn't mean for this post to become such a tirade. I don't mean for this all to be aimed at you either, OP. You're a victim of my cathartic process.