Saturday 31 August 2013

Tyrannical statists don't like democracy

If the majority of people want peace then the elected government will reflect this and those who want aggression will be powerless against the government. If most people want war then (elected) government will be bad but then so too will anarchy be bad. Democracy is always an improvement on its absence.

Clearly proportional representation is more 'democratic' than first past the post because the voters are not motivated to vote tactically. Pr is like having direct democracy for each issue because the voters are able to be represented by someone who very closely matches their views. If we concede that pr is more democratic than first past the post then it is more like (legitimate) government than fptp which then is more like anarchy. But since democratic government is always better than anarchy (for reasons given above) then pr is always preferable to fptp. Pr is better than fptp for the same reasons that elected government (and democracy) is better than anarchy. (If democracy (the ability to refuse government) is not better than anarchy then there might be arguments for fptp over pr.) Only someone wanting to use the government for unpopular and illiberal reasons would object to more democracy. If people want a government there will be one so the best approach to prevent tyranny is to make sure that those who oppose the government are powerful which means to have the most democratic system possible. People neglected by a lack of democracy are always dissidents of the government... only (tyrannical) loyalists to the state want less democracy.

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