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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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politics
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"1 in 5 Republicans admit they just plain don't like democracy."
How many people really like democracy when they are not part of the majority?
Democracy is four cannibals deciding what’s for dinner.
That'd be all human societies. Some of us are sort of like vegetarian, consciously refusing to eat humans. That would be libertarians and maybe left anarchists. But the basic system still is this.
Libertarians are the “vegetarians” of politics— they like everyone to equate them with vegans, but in reality have no issues eating fish, chicken and other meats, and in reality have a pretty loose definition of what’s “not meat.”
The real political vegans are those who go off to form their own communities and reject the ENTIRE political structure, not just the parts that don’t directly benefit them.
Not entirely correct, if you read about panarchy and contract jurisdictions and georgism and NAP, you might see that mostly they approach the same point of the river flow, just walking on the other shore, so to say.
We can agree on libertarians being the whole spectrum from "vegetarians" to "vegans" in politics, and left anarchists being only in the "vegan" area, if you will.
Still,
Still better than every other option.
There are variants of democracy. With certain groups differently represented in the population, democracy based on sortition is better than democracy based on voting if you want one's chance of doing something to be proportional to their faction's number. While with voting you can have 60% in favor of A and 40% in favor of B, and A will win 10 times in row and get their way, not 60%. While with sortition it will be 60% for a member of A to be chosen, and 40% for a member of B. Just math.
That's a bit more than just math. When considering a policy, I don't tend to take into account where the different parties stand. It's better to think for yourself and not resort to tribalism. With that in mind I do think the majority should win 100% of the time. It has been insanely annoying here in the US how some policies have had popular support for years if not decades yet go nowhere because of small interest groups who use cheap tricks like the fillibuster and the electoral college to ensure the will of the minority wins out. I do acknowledge the danger of the tyranny of the majority, but I think protections against it should be provided by the rights outlined in a strong constitution.
Sortition is connected to population numbers, so it makes the weight of a vote in the majority equal to the proportion of that majority, and same with minorities. It can't be compared to electoral college and filibuster.
It also is one way to kill the degenerate dominance of two major parties.
Also majorities are slow to change, and it's simply dishonest (and destabilizing) to have one's vote weigh less depending on which group they are part of.
I see where you are coming from in the context of the US, but our world had a democracy that took will of the majority to the absolute, it took just a couple of years for it to turn into dictatorship. Then after like 60 years that system (which never died on paper) was resurrected, with not the best results either. That'd be Soviets.
Well, and there are many countries around frankly with "good enough" (in year 1999) political systems, which don't seem good enough anymore.
"Also majorities are slow to change, and it's simply dishonest (and destabilizing) to have one's vote weigh less depending on which group they are part of."
It doesn't. Just because you are a part of the minority doesn't make your vote count less. It just means there are more people who disagree with you than agree.
I'd say countries that devolve into dictatorship aren't due to too much democracy but due to weak constitutional protections.
Right now in the US we are in danger of devolving into a dictatorship because of the extra weight added to minority votes.
Edit: and by minority votes I'm talking about policies with less than 50% support.
If your group's percentage is 45% and the chance of its common position becoming reality is less than 45%, which it is with voting as opposed to sortition, it is.
More people disagreeing with me than agreeing doesn't mean that they should always have their way (because there's more of them) and I never. It means that proportionally to our numbers sometimes they should have their way and sometimes I mine.
This is simply closer to the real wishes of the voters. And that can be delivered by sortition.
And I'm saying that that minority-supported policies should pass proportionally to that minority. 20% percent minority included, for example.
If you are afraid of what that 20% percent will make you do if their representatives get up through sortition - well, shouldn't give any central government the ability to hurt you that much.
I think we are talking about two different things. I'm talking about individual policies, and I think you are talking about elected representatives. I do agree that percentages of representatives should match the population, but votes on individual policies should always match what the majority of the population wants.
Eh, no. What good then are the percentages of representatives?
The whole point is that policies should average to matching what the average citizen wants. Not the majority.
It's fair - sometimes the majority gets their way and the minority has to obey. Sometimes other way around. With frequency according to percentages.
That's the point. Actual power to make decisions should be balanced by representation of positions in the society. Not held by majority.
Looks like it's about one third if you add Democrats to that number. Unfortunately.
Huh? Per the quoted text in your post:
Yeah, so if you add the 12 percent to 19 percent, that's 31 percent overall among the two parties in play for the presidency. If you count independents, it's a little lower. Still a disturbingly high number.
Those numbers are not additive.
If you assume that 50% of voters are Democrat and 50% are Republican, then you'd average them to get an idea of what percentage of Americans believe in that.