Recently, our team in Sydney, the Democratic Club, has been flat out preparing for YPAT 2024.
It has come together well, with a stellar line-up of speakers and a healthy number of attendees. We are really looking forward to bringing you a report on it in a future edition.
This year we also trialled some experiments, adding to the complexity and coordination involved. We had people coming from all over the country and we even had some international guests.
Underlying all our work is the core idea that democracy relies on formed and connected citizens, building a community for the good of all. Democracy does not run off slogans or social media or petitions. Democracy runs off people knowing who they are and what they can do, and then those people working together to make the world better.
As a people, we have lost a lot of common skills over the years. Educational outcomes have gone backwards. Community engagement has collapsed. This is not due to some innate incapacity in people, but results from a lack of formation.
We run programs like YPAT, TMC talks, conferences and dinners to bring people together and redress this deficit. We enthusiastically support institutions like Campion College, where we are hosting YPAT, because they are part of the solution.
Back to Basics
At a time of such extreme tensions, it is more important than ever to get back to the fundamentals of our civilisation.
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are making threatening moves around the world. The demands of climate activists are crippling our energy security. Various radicals are set on dismantling the respect and legal distinctions that protect children, marriage and the family.
However, we are finally witnessing small signs of hope, of the beginning of a wider conversation about how to keep our civilisation going.
AUKUS and the increasing focus on national security is welcome. Greater recognition of the problems with housing and financing matter. And the need for realistic solutions to our energy woes is increasingly obvious – even to people who do not track the issue, but are watching their bills skyrocket.
Peter Dutton’s commitment to nuclear power is a step in the right direction on energy. It is proposing a real solution to a real problem – how to satisfy a population bent on decarbonising, while still delivering cheap and reliable baseload power.
We need cheap and reliable baseload power for industry and dense population centres. Solar with batteries is a good option for a decentralised system, but Australia does not have a decentralised power system.
Freedom to Cooperate
In some ways, there is something even more important about the nuclear debate. It is the fact we are having a debate in the first place. Democracy needs debate and discussion. It needs a range of voices expressing their views and arguing them out.
This is what distinguishes Australia from totalitarian regimes. This is what gives us our distinctive character. Democracy is not “set and forget”. Civil society is not the default setting. Such things need constant work and constant renewal. This is why we run YPAT. This is why we do what we do.
The Movement exists because democracy is an active process that always needs work. Please help us realise it.
