Wednesday 2 July marked the end of the period for public consultation on the possible introduction of assisted suicide, which Labour calls euthanasia. "Numerous", "voluminous" submissions were received that still needed to be analysed. Yet the following day Robert Abela boldly announced his government will introduce a "euthanasia bill". 

If Abela had already decided to introduce assisted suicide why did he bother with the public consultation? Wasn't the exercise an extremely expensive waste of time and energy? No.  Abela can now deviously claim he "consulted" the public, and that this is a democratic country led by a democratic government which upholds democratic principles.  Of course it's all a facade, a thin veneer that barely coats Abela's autocratic tendencies while paying lip-service to democracy.

With every submission to that phony consultation, the many contributors cast a permission slip to Robert Abela to subjugate them, to steamroll over their views and opinions.  Abela's mask is off.  He declared he'll pass a euthanasia bill irrespective what those submissions contained.  When he realised he'd put his foot in it again, he tried to fudge it. He backtracked frantically.  "There are many submissions that need to be analysed....if one had to publish the bill tomorrow, it would mean we ignored the submissions, that would be a disservice to the people....we are going to listen and look at the different perspectives".  Clearly not.  Abela has already decided.  He will legalise assisted suicide.  He's trying to fool us by claiming he'll be analysing those submissions and will "listen".

All those who took the trouble to submit their views were probably just wasting their time - and playing into Abela's hands.

Abela presented the consultation as a shining example of democracy in action.  Instead, it's simply authoritarianism with better marketing. Labour has relentlessly used taxpayer funds to promote its position in favour of assisted suicide. It's done everything it could to suppress and denigrate contrary views on the subject. Abela claimed that "society is participating in the debate in a civil manner - that's what I wanted, for the debate not to be politicised and I hope it isn't politicised".  How can the debate not be politicised when Labour took the explicitly clear view that assisted suicide should be legalised?  Abela himself politicised the issue by taking a stand in favour.  The issue wouldn't have been politicised if Abela took a step back and remained neutral until those submissions were analysed. 

But Abela publicly declared his support for assisted suicide. His entire media machine drummed that position into the public's mind. The issue was completely politicised.

Solomon Ash's 1950s conformity experiments showed that 75% of people will abandon clear evidence from their own senses to avoid disagreeing with their own group.  If we can't trust ourselves to identify which line is longest when the answer is clearly obvious how can we trust thousands of fellow citizens to reach a rational position on such a sensitive issue when their beloved leader is rooting for assisted suicide?

In 2006 researchers at Emory University conducted brain scans on partisan voters while they processed information about their preferred political figure.  When confronted with their idol's failures and wrongdoing the brain regions associated with reasoning showed no increased activity.  Instead the emotional circuits of the brain lit up. Those voters weren't just ignoring uncomfortable and  incontrovertible facts.  Their brains were physically rewarding them for avoiding cognitive dissonance.

Labour's democracy functions as a polite dictatorship.  Robert Abela promises something irresistible - the feeling that you matter, that your voice counts, that he will listen, that complex social problems can be solved through collective wisdom.  But the truth is that it's a scam. Abela gives you the opportunity to voice your opinion in the public consultation only to discard it before it's even been read - because he's already decided what's going to happen.

Labour perfected something authoritarian regimes could never achieve - mass participation in our own subjugation while feeling empowered in the process.

Everything is stage-managed. The public is flooded with taxpayer funded messaging in support of Abela's position.  Participants at public consultation activities are hand-picked.  While Labour claims to welcome petitions and submissions it conveniently ignores them and forges ahead with its original plan.  This is the psychological genius that Steven Levitsky calls competitive authoritarianism.  By submitting your contrary views you feel you're resisting Labour's dominating manoeuvering but in fact you're simply legitimising their ruthless authoritarianism.

Democracy generates cognitive overload which creates a demand for simplification.  And that's exactly what Robert Abela provides.  Assisted suicide is the simplest solution to life's most complex problem - suffering.  The quickest, easiest way to solve suffering it to terminate the sufferers. That's the epitome of simplification. Extrapolating from that reasoning, the simplest solution to all human problems is to end humanity itself.  The solution to hard-hitting criticism is to terminate critics. The simplest solution to a journalist exposing inconvenient truths is to liquidate the journalist.

Modern neuroscience explains this intense desire for simplification. When faced with information overload the brain's prefrontal cortex responsible for critical thinking shuts down.  Instead, the limbic system mostly responsible for emotional responses takes over. Instead of making rational decisions, the gut instinct decides, ignoring all the facts. Every new dilemma intensifies the desire for the strong leader who exudes confidence and promises to solve all your problems, who claims to have all the answers.

Abela promotes himself as the solution to the very ills his party created - the massive overpopulation, the collapse of basic infrastructure, the inability of public health services to cope with demand, the stagnant traffic, the widening gap between rich and poor, the environmental degradation.

Yet Abela's confidence keeps being rewarded even when reality catastrophically intervenes.  When Vitals collapsed, Steward went bankrupt, Pilatus was shut down, and the AUM imploded,  Labour's voters still hailed those projects as amazing Labour successes. Now Abela's autocratic discarding of the public's opinions is being lauded as the pinnacle of democracy.

Robert Abela promotes himself as the only hope for prosperity and stability.  Only he can guarantee economic progress while burdening the nation with the most massive debt problem ever.  Only Robert can make us healthier while making cannabis abuse legal. Only Abela can improve the quality of your life while planning legislation to help you end it.