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But should you respect someone's freedom to vote? What if they vote against freedom? And then what if that leads to the same result as them killing you?
by chmod600 5y ago
But should you respect someone's freedom to vote? What if they vote against freedom? And then what if that leads to the same result as them killing you?
- imgabe 5y agoThere's many steps between a vote and getting killed. Someone tries to kill you, you try to kill'em right back.
- chernevik 5y agoYou have no choice but to respect that freedom. The only alternative is to establish a tyranny of your own -- that's the only way you can tell people how to vote. Democracies can suicide. The Weimar Republic did (though notice that Hitler never actually won a popular majority vote). This problem was exactly what the American Founders had in mind as they shaped their Constitution. They wanted to identify the ways a government could be turned against its own people, and create barriers against those attacks. The US doesn't trust majoritarian government, which is why it isn't exactly a democracy. Items like the Bill of Rights, and features like the separation of powers, are intended both to secure liberties and hamstring oppression. (The Federalist Papers are a fascinating discussion of all this.) But at the end of the day, constitutional features can only slow down an oppressive majority. If a majority wants to dominate a minority, eventually they are going to find a way. The only real security for freedom, over long term, is to raise up a people that think and feel and act in those ways that are consistent with freedom.