Wednesday 12 February 2014

It is a crime to use first past the post

In any non-tyrannical society we assume that the innocent are given their freedom. This is what it means to live in a free society. This means that the government doesn't have the right to arbitrarily imprison individuals. But if there is not democracy then we can think of the people as being oppressed (since the state is then arbitrary) and we do not have a free society. To have a free society which is not anarchist requires democracy. But some forms of democracy are more liberal than others and it can be shown that proportional representation enables the voter to better express their preferences. If there is a winner-takes-all system voters must consider voting tactically since few parties have a realistic chance of success. So then we can see or it can be shown that pr is more liberal and at least there is no strong argument to show that it is illiberal. If there is no evidence to show that proportional representation is worse and more oppressive than fptp it should be adopted based on the principle of free-unless-guilty. If some people want to do something or to use a particular method of voting then in a liberal society they are permitted to do so unless there can be found evidence of harm or the risk of harm. Since there is no evidence of harm associated with pr (many peaceful countries use it) then in a liberal society it would be adopted. The rejection of a liberal voting system for which there is no evidence of harm demonstrates an illiberal society. Since there is no evidence against pr any country which refuses to adopt it is illiberal and totalitarian.

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