Saturday 16 February 2013

First past the post is elected dictatorship

We are not governed with our consent... it makes no sense to think of the consent of the governed because by definition if we are being governed we have no choice in the matter. To have a government is to have an agency which has the right to tell you what to do. Government is absolute power or it means nothing which is why it never has consent. We might not object to all of its laws but that doesn't mean we consent to it entirely and this is why fptp is a problem. If we consent to the government then it is not a contradiction to arrange an election whereby the winner of the most votes takes absolute control. Since (it is assumed) we generally agree with the concept of being governed then we would have no complaint with this arrangement. We are lead it is assumed and the election is merely to choose who is the most competent to perform that role. We are choosing the best person to be the leader... and it is assumed that there will always be a leader. If we are leaderless then it makes more sense to have proportional elections since these are similar to self-representation. To have a proportional election enables people to choose representatives who will vote similarly to the how voter would on legislation. It is like replacing all parliamentary votes with a referendum (on each law) since our representative will vote roughly as we would do ourselves. Proportional representation is like having perpetual referendums. We are choosing someone to vote on legislation on our behalf. With fptp we are choosing a leader for the country as a whole. With pr it is like the entire country is the parliament. With fptp we choose a 'leader' who can veto or approve legislation on our behalf. With pr no one makes the rules (although rules are made) and with fptp a single leader makes the rules. With fptp a single person makes the rules on our behalf (who is delegated by the people to govern them) but with pr the people retain the ability to set the rules... and no one has any special status. (Pr is like democratic anarchy.) With pr the people are the government so there is never any question of their consent being violated... it is impossible for the people not to give consent to themselves. Fptp is not anarchy because to give a single person absolute power over the people is not anarchy... even if that person is chosen in an election. With fptp we choose a dictator but with pr there is no dictator because we own and rule ourselves.

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