Self-Determination and Democracy

[mishalak]

I have been thinking about democracy and self-determination, I think in some areas they are incompatible. If everyone has the right to vote then we are all dependent upon the education and knowledge of others in being able to make well reasoned choices. If too many people choose to not be educated in choosing a candidate who actually serves their interests, rather than being fooled by propaganda, then democracy fails and devolves into leadership by popular strongmen not dissimilar to imperial rule in the Roman Empire.

It would seem that the choice is either to force information and participation down the throats of the unwilling or else allow the vote to be restricted to those meeting some metric of education or service. That would seem to be rather dangerous as by manipulating enfranchisement would be very tempting for those tasked with determining what the metric should be.

I do not know where I am going with this thought, but I am sure to stick my foot in it at some point.

Comments

[tobesv.livejournal.com]

Democracy sucks as a governmental system. Problem is that everything else is worse.

I believe Chuchill said something along those lines.

[nikulai.livejournal.com]

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Well I guess I steped in it already, because I was not trying to say that democracy sucks. I was trying to express that democracy fails when people are not educated about things like party platforms, what candidates stand for, critical thinking about propaganda (advertizements), and so on. The more power the voters have the more educated they must be, and so it would seem that a democratic system needs to be a bit unfree to the extent that people do not educate themselves about these things.

[nikulai.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Heinlein's Starship Troopers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441783589/qid=1137435207/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/104-4995543-1243145?n=507846&s=books&v=glance)? One of the notions in the novel is that only those who ahve completed military service have the right to vote.

Compare that to countries like Israel etc. where national service (military or other wise) is compulsory.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

As I said, I dislike systems that disenfranchize people, I think it is too prone to manipulation to preserve power. See also: poll taxes, reading tests, property requirements, etc... The only one that I feel was of any use was the disenfrancizement of people who do no pay any taxes. Then at least people who cannot vote at least do not have to pay for what they do not get a say in.

[nikulai.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... is the converse true? An ex-patriot living in the US and paying taxes to the US should have the right to vote? An illegal?

Not criticizing - just testing the limits.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think living in the US for a set amount of time and paying taxes would be prime evidence of de facto citizenship. E.g., five years as a buy in time that shows the person in question is here to stay. Further I would register people based upon where they work, rather than where they live, at least for all those offices supported primarily though payroll taxes.

Though immigration reform is a whole huge can of worms, starting with the fact that we need to dry up the demand for illegal laborers if we want to stop people from coming to the US illegally. The illegal immigrant problem would go away if the government both made it easy to check on an employee's legal status and have serious punishments for employing illegal immigrants.