Do you live in the centre or on the boundaries ?

 Consensus doesn't work as a focus because the cutting edge is on or near the boundaries.  That is,  Parliament is a mess if it ties itself up in party policies that stick to the centre.
Parliament  can be happy too to talk about edge stuff - but not be there
Life is not safe out on the edges. Even though  its never safe, somewhere near the edge is where I wannabe .( and its only an anal ..ogy )
Mind you too, the love of innovation ( and us edge dwellers ) by parliamentary parties  is dangerous .Dangerous for their credibility and dangerous for us .They can't tell whether their care is pushing us too hard or too softly .  
Most importantly for TODAY --Our parliament doesn't seem to care that most of our food producers are always living and working near the edge .The point is - they need not be  and some consumers have realised this reality. That parliaments paradigm is all wrong , Non caged eggs cost only a little more ;  Some Consumers  have realised what ten years of question time would never teach them ( because the gallery mostly believe the same stuff on this )  - our world can become so less poor by paying a little more .  
The sleepy drunken sailors on the fast sailing ship  don't seem to realise that pushing people to the edge all the time is oppression . The greatest evil being done in the name of the best intention . Speed and greed are being confused . The age old adage of "enough is enough"  and "leaving the corners of the field for the widows"  is gone. People participation and power is taken away and must now rest, by law with the government--- who assumes the role of god.
Not everything thats important or even functioning quite well is made in the image of the machine ( where efficiency is the only master ) .
Somethings were made in the image of God .; made in the image of striving as well as settling , cooperation as well as competition .
You can only really live well if you live in tension;( not one or other but 2 together )  You can only really live well if you can rest easy and cut some slack too . Take the command to rest ans good forya and stay back from the cliff . Ask me for  my article on "scarcity and abundance' and how to manage them.  
And now that you have read this far Please, whoever you are ( wonderful person that you are for reading thus far ) ___Try telling  that to the bookeepers and accountants who try to run this country next time -- woodya ! woodya please ! Together we can release all the captives from the cages - even those who inadvertantly lock themselves in one .

Consensus and how to get it

Consensus is NOT built on unity, but on respect for diversity.

What this means is that we can destroy any real unity we already have by forcing diversity into a mold . For many of us the key to life is diversity and the part we play in making things happen together . What this means is that we can fail to find real consensus , or undermine one that currently exists.
What this means is that if we insist on a new form of unity that doesn't really exist - one on paper , or one in legislation  we can do great harm to the building process.How do we ourselves avoid fanaticism in the face of growing demolition and deconstruction and distraction and denial ( esp in relation to earth limits )

None of this is obvious of course,  otherwise people would follow what i am saying here more easily .Am i saying choose unity NO,  am i saying work with diversity YES and to achive that avoid coercive effort .
Such ideas as a  forced unity is one that a silly over confident government or powerbroker might assume exists. This sort of simplifying is of course is a great risk  with cultural matters as the things that contribute to culture and its diversity are subtle - best protected , as in law by,  common law and common sense (Cf common pedantry and lawyer ascendancy ). Try and tell Emperor Julian that - he spent and he failed !
An age which is desperate to prove that every good and perfect gift comes from what's rational is especially prone to make the fanatical assertion ( equality and unity ) here .
Fortunately most Governments in our sector have had enough common sense to stay out of trying to drive cultural debates ( Clearly they have done it as strong parties within the divides ) . The smoothing over Chamberlain heresy is  territory where angels fear to tread but that doesn't stop  the ignorant ( who have no sense of danger) who go there naturally. We pray every day for careful leaders who take advice and who listen to someone other than what's going on in their own heads ( The brain that grows and heals itself ? )

God help us if the government decided that because AFL football is the only football game worth watching,  we should let Collingwood's constitution frame the game . Its stupid right ,  but for some reason we do stupid things sometimes. Its good intentioned enough on both sides too which helps explain why we ALL get drawn in.  We want people to see what's really important - how Geelong plays the game , for example .

Does any government have the right to deliberately force a false unity on its culturally diversity? Of course not . But does that stop them trying ?The very word governance implies subjection to diversity and balancing diversity and growth in various sectors of oikonomia. Good governments know which games they best not try and play !Good leaders though will play and play hard for one side or the other . The problem ofetn with our declining print media is that noone has had any time for the old game ( of trying to cover all games in the one cover sheet) or is not able to find the game they want to watch ( until Twitter , Blogger and facebook came along - hooray!)

Worse , as in the case of redefining marriage to a definition not sustainable in history( BUT  currently before Australia's parliament ( August 2012 ) , Only a blind and self destructive government  could not also see that giving in to those who insist on their" entitlements" is a process of diversity reduction that is quite capable of destroying our delicately balanced oikonomia.  How we define life together, is after all  the key to life itself .It certainly not about letting the loudest , the oldest ,the strongest ,the most insistent , the most talkative, the most sexyist ( in terms of hormone diversity ) and the most self centred determined determine  what the rest of us should be required to do .- what game we play in our own households ( the GL are about to talk to kids in Victorian Primary schools who are trying to work out what  a boy or girl is (their own identity )  that they can have a sex change - if they want to ) Legislating rights can be denying people their rights
 In the West in the past  , legislation WAS often only attempted when absolutely necessary to preserve diversity. Not always of course ( every Englishman has to go to Anglican services for a while or be penalised - this was the govt , not Christians in the  radical tradition of the founder  ) Unity is not about words ( legislation ) because mere words  are not diverse enough to cover the territory. Real freedom must  be based on having real choices( Copyright EA aug 9th 2012)  

In a week which has seen our leaders spruking their heroes , you would think real leaders who respected democracy would mention the name of a truly great man of literature who knew the supreme dangers  of mere" equality" arguments - George Orwell's books  were consensus based required reading in " our culture"
The cultural idea of Marriage is how our culture has established and defined it , not how some small group or some innovative driven government wannabes  want try to define and redefine  it.There are are times when the governments must follow the people-- most of the time ! ( you heard it first on Blogger and from EA )