Thursday 26 June 2014

Freedom comes from the people and not the state

It is inconsistent for freedom to be imposed on the people without their consent and such freedom is not true freedom. The notion of a benign dictator who imposes freedom on the people (whether they like it or not) is false because if the state is unaccountable there cannot be freedom. And if the state is imposing freedom on the people with their consent then the state is not required.

The notion of first-past-the-post democracy works on the assumption that we only seek to choose the best candidate and not that which has our interests at heart. Since there can be internal conflict within a nation we need pr so that internal property claims can be reflected in government. Without pr it is likely that both of the candidates on offer share a view on many things which the voters do not agree with. Since if the government and the voters disagree (there is not full democracy) this is always to the detriment of freedom then fptp is to the detriment of freedom.

Freedom comes from the people and not the state and it is for this reason that anarchy is consistent with liberty (and not crime). Since freedom comes from the people then the most direct and proportional voting systems will lead to the most liberal states. If democracy is suppressed as with fptp then there will be less freedom.

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