Sunday 11 May 2014

Direct democracy is not representative

It is an act of fairness to reject injustice wherever we can. Sometimes we might not be powerful enough to be able to reject and oppose injustice and in those circumstances we must (with regret) do nothing. But in many cases we have the power to reject injustice and so then in those circumstances we should do so. Certainly if it costs us nothing to reject unfairness then we should do so even if we ourselves are a beneficiary of the unfairness.

We know that the Tory party benefit from the first-past-the-post voting system and they are certainly in a position to resist it so then they are accepting an unfair system which they could prevent. There is no justification for those in government to allow an injustice which could be prevented. The purpose of government above all else is that it prevents injustice. Given that the Tories have the power to prevent fptp they are committing a state crime by failing to do so. The state has an obligation to prevent injustice where it has the power to do so and since to alter the voting system to one which is fairer is a costless activity we know that the state has the power to do this. Since to switch to pr is costless then the only reason to retain fptp is to protect an injustice which is the opposite of what the state is mandated to do. The state is acting criminally if it accepts the first-past-the-post voting system.

It is costless to remove the unfair fptp voting system (and replace it with a directly proportional system) and so then for the state to fail to do this is an act of injustice. For the state not to act against crime when it could easily do so is in itself a crime (since the purpose of the state is to prevent crime).

It is a crime for the state to tolerate a crime which it could easily prevent.

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