Wednesday 7 August 2013

A lack of pr is uncivilised

The problem with anarchy is that there will always be someone willing to claim property which is not theirs... and since we cannot objectively deduce what is owned by whom then we can see that an anarchist society is unworkable. In fact an anarchist society is an oxymoron because if there is a society there is a state of some kind whether it is recognised or not. If there is no state then all of the property will fall into the hands of those people willing and capable to claim it. The state protects the people from criminals. So then if we must have a state we can say that the state has certain obligations unlike other public agents. In general life we do not have an obligation to each other other than to leave each other alone... we never have a debt to society. But since we require a state to have rights above those of normal people then we can also ascribe to the state extra responsibilities. And clearly one of these is that it is democratic (which is satisfied by fptp). We can further say that the state has a responsibility to be as democratic as possible (which is not satisfied by the first past the post system). It is perfectly consistent to say that the state has a responsibility and a duty to hold proportional elections just as it has a duty to hold elections. We can say that the people have a right to fair and proportional elections just as they have a right to elections. Just as a state without a democratic mandate is invalid so too is a state without a proportionally elected legislature. A lack of proportionality is an affront (to civilisation) just as a lack of democracy is an affront.

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