4 ms·

Well that’s a silly thing to say. I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. See that’s another silly thing said. Your opinions of FPTP

Well that’s a silly thing to say. I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. See that’s another silly thing said. Your opinions of FPTP voting have absolutely nothing to do with anything. The government was elected as per the defined rules.

School-Cotton 5y ago
North Korea's government was also elected as per the defined rules. It would be absurd to claim that that means it's democratically legitimate. > I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. FPTP vs. good election systems is not a trivial distinction like this, so your analogy is invalid.
- geenew 5y ago
  And yet somehow there is regular turnover of the governing party approximately every 10 years, and the dominant parties have almost to a one been centrist. Not a terrible system.
  - saila 5y ago
    Centrist by definition or by some objective measure? In the U.S. for example, the "center" is quite conservative compared to some other western nations. If people could vote as they truly wanted without fear of throwing away their votes, the center would almost certainly move. As to the back and forth between two major parties, that's hardly surprising. I'm not sure that indicates much in terms of what people actually want.
    - geenew 5y ago
      The idea is that parties have to appeal to a various groups in society in order to win elections, preventing them from taking any position that is too obnoxious to any one group. Thus, centrism. Systems with ranked choice or similar measures to encourage smaller parties end up with a similar situation, but with less stability. Since those parties appeal to narrower bands of society, they are unable to form a government. Eventually they are forced into coalition, which brings them to the same place as the major parties in FPTP: compromise. Yet, since coalitions are inherently more fragile than parties, you get less stability, and less institutional pressure on individuals in government and cabinet to represent wider interests.
- afarrell 5y ago
  FPTP is really quite common in the western world. Going so far as to say it makes the government “barely legitimate” is a strong claim. Without other evidence, this claim relies entirely on how much we trust your sense of proportion. Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    > FPTP is really quite common in the western world. I don’t think this is true outside the English-speaking countries. Most “Western” countries are in Europe and have systems with some degree of proportionality where coalition governments are the norm. > Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion. It was an intentionally extreme comparison to show that “operates according to the rules” is not sufficient for a system to count as democratic. Of course Canada is much closer to counting as a liberal democracy than North Korea is, but for reasons other than “it operates according to its own internal rules”. Perhaps a better analogy would have been Hong Kong a few years ago (before the situation there became worse and things became more directly controlled by the central Chinese state). Hong Kong has never been a democracy by any reasonable definition, but did have robust rule of law and liberal rights, despite elections being basically rigged due to the functional constituencies system.

School-Cotton 5y ago

North Korea's government was also elected as per the defined rules. It would be absurd to claim that that means it's democratically legitimate. > I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. FPTP vs. good election systems is not a trivial distinction like this, so your analogy is invalid.

geenew 5y ago
And yet somehow there is regular turnover of the governing party approximately every 10 years, and the dominant parties have almost to a one been centrist. Not a terrible system.
- saila 5y ago
  Centrist by definition or by some objective measure? In the U.S. for example, the "center" is quite conservative compared to some other western nations. If people could vote as they truly wanted without fear of throwing away their votes, the center would almost certainly move. As to the back and forth between two major parties, that's hardly surprising. I'm not sure that indicates much in terms of what people actually want.
  - geenew 5y ago
    The idea is that parties have to appeal to a various groups in society in order to win elections, preventing them from taking any position that is too obnoxious to any one group. Thus, centrism. Systems with ranked choice or similar measures to encourage smaller parties end up with a similar situation, but with less stability. Since those parties appeal to narrower bands of society, they are unable to form a government. Eventually they are forced into coalition, which brings them to the same place as the major parties in FPTP: compromise. Yet, since coalitions are inherently more fragile than parties, you get less stability, and less institutional pressure on individuals in government and cabinet to represent wider interests.
afarrell 5y ago
FPTP is really quite common in the western world. Going so far as to say it makes the government “barely legitimate” is a strong claim. Without other evidence, this claim relies entirely on how much we trust your sense of proportion. Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  > FPTP is really quite common in the western world. I don’t think this is true outside the English-speaking countries. Most “Western” countries are in Europe and have systems with some degree of proportionality where coalition governments are the norm. > Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion. It was an intentionally extreme comparison to show that “operates according to the rules” is not sufficient for a system to count as democratic. Of course Canada is much closer to counting as a liberal democracy than North Korea is, but for reasons other than “it operates according to its own internal rules”. Perhaps a better analogy would have been Hong Kong a few years ago (before the situation there became worse and things became more directly controlled by the central Chinese state). Hong Kong has never been a democracy by any reasonable definition, but did have robust rule of law and liberal rights, despite elections being basically rigged due to the functional constituencies system.