this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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No.
If you must vote and vote for the "correct" party then you don't have a democracy. Either we exercised our democratic responsibilities this year or we lost our democracy a decade ago and we're just now finding out about it.
Either way, lesser evil voting is not a democratic ideal.
Neither is staying home and not voting at all.
If you can't abstain then you don't have a democracy. (Yes Australia i'm looking at you) You have a system of coerced consent where the political parties wouldn't even know how to change, but that's okay because there's no incentive to change in such a system either.
It's literally the fastest way to get Party AB instead of Party A and Party B.
Great you started with the conclusion that not voting is fine and then tried to find a way to justify it. You failed.
I'm not going to write a 20 page paper for you. This is what it is. If people have to vote then the sitting parties have no reason to respond to voters.
What the hell are you talking about? Your solution to making democracy work seems to be telling people to stay home on election day. Fucking brilliant
No. The people can certainly go vote if they want. They can also stay home if they want.
You prefer the latter, or I wouldn't see you defending that shit in every fucking thread.
I prefer actual democracy.
Then people could abstain by writing in someone else. Not voting is a serious problem.
Write ins aren't actually a free for all in most states. You have to qualify with signatures for the state to bother counting them. So no, not really.
Look up what “ideal” means, and note that it doesn’t mean “only option.”
You specifically chose the word. I am responding to that. And to that end: Not participating in an election is NOT an ideal way to have a democracy. In fact- it flies is the face of it.
So in political philosophy ideals are only related to the common definition. This wiki page gives a good use of the philosophical definition in action.
I probably should have used a different word on Lemmy though.
"Democracy is when I like the choices my fellow citizens make, and if I don't like it, it's not democracy"
Holy fucking shit. This is "Democracy is when GOOD, and non-democracy is when BAD" level reasoning.
You beat that strawman, go on. I heard it talk shit.
"If my practical choices are reduced by the preferences of my fellow citizens, it's not real democracy"
Go on, tell me about how it's only democracy if your preferred candidate is within striking distance of victory.
Nope that's not what I said either.
Considering that the discussion was not in the context of Aussie-style forced voting, nor legally restricted election choices, but in that voting for anyone other than the Dems in this election was the action of a total cretin, there's no other realistic interpretation of your words unless we're presuming that you spoke without any connection to the matter at hand, and were just spewing out random thoughts with no relevance to any context in this post or comment thread.
The statement stands on it's own. If you must vote for a party then you don't have a democracy. Even if the ruling class is benevolent and lets you believe you have a choice, it's still not a democracy.
I'm sorry, were we rounding up people with our Dem paramilitaries and forcing them into the Voting Fields(tm)?
"The statement stands on its own"; no, it's dribble that you refuse to assign any meaning to, because that would mean having a position that could be addressed instead of vagueposting.
Or, it's basic democratic principle that shouldn't need explaining in a western country.
The basic democratic principle of "If there's only one moral choice, Party A, because a supermajority of people support either Party A or the very immoral Party B, it's not REAL democracy, which would suit MY ideals, not that of those filthy unwashed masses!"
I think you might want to use a term other than 'democracy' for your sentiment.
No. You're mad because people didn't like your choice, and more people liked the other choice. But that's what a democracy is. Nobody working in good faith promised you that democracy would always live up to the greatest human rights and global trade ideals.
So now you're reversing your position, and admitting that it is a democracy. Great. Peak consistency. Fucking ridiculous.
What am I reversing? The Democrats didn't convince people to vote for them.