Wednesday 9 April 2014

Fptp is fine if everyone likes one of the main parties

If people genuinely want to vote for one of the big and established parties then first-past-the-post is not a problem. If no one wants to vote for a party which is not one of those protected by fptp then no one will see a problem with the system. It is only if people are inclined to vote tactically that there might be a problem with first-past-the-post. We can think of fptp as a fully-proportional system if almost everyone wants to vote for one of the main parties. It is only if some people don't like either that fptp is oppressive. If people are voting tactically under fptp then the system is oppressing their democratic rights and imposing more government on them than they want. We can assume to oppress democracy is to impose more government on the people than they want otherwise there would be no reason to have democracy to begin with. (It is to prevent communism that we have democracy.) So tactical voters are anti-government voters who are being ignored when using the fptp system. If there is tactical voting in a fptp system (and some people dislike both of the main parties) then fptp is being oppressive to democracy and therefore oppressive to freedom. First-past-the-post is anti-freedom if some people are inclined to vote tactically. Fptp is neutral with regard to freedom if almost no one is offended by both of the main parties (most people can accept at least one of them). Tactical voters are liberal (libertarian) so then fptp is arrogant (anti-democratic) and oppressive. First-past-the-post is democratic only if most of the voters are satisfied with at least one of the (two) main parties. If some people don't like both of the main parties (voting tactically or for smaller parties) then fptp imposes more government on the voters than they want (unless democracy is authoritarian). Fptp is authoritarian unless everyone likes at least one of the main parties.

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