Comment by oceanplexian
1 year ago
I guess it might be quite ironic but if people want to vote in a dictatorship, don’t they have the right to under a true democracy?
1 year ago
I guess it might be quite ironic but if people want to vote in a dictatorship, don’t they have the right to under a true democracy?
No, that's a meta-democratic vote, not a democratic vote. Many constitutions disqualify insurgents and revolutionaries from running for office for this reason. At a minimum you'd have to follow the super-majority process for amending the constitution if there is one.
In practice, it's no different from having a revolution. Might as well wear the shoe if it fits. Congrats to the generalissimo dictator!
In this case the question would be, do citizens in a democracy have the right to dissolve their government peaceably, provided they meet whatever threshold is required in that system (Could be a super majority, for the sake of argument)? I’d argue it must be or it’s not really a democracy.
They have the "right" to have a revolution too - many countries treasure the revolutions they had. They can amend the constitution and make another democracy. They can also amend the constitution and make a dictatorship. Or just have a dictatorship without bothering. Those do not need constitutions at all.
To have a vote that turns a democracy into a non-democracy is a meta-democratic vote, not a democratic vote. Abusing a democratic system to surreptitiously make a non-democratic system is just a caveat that dictators find convenient to use.
3 replies →
> No, that's a meta-democratic vote, not a democratic vote.
Now whoever decides which votes are democratic and which are meta-democratic is the de-facto ruler of the country, and elections are just a show. Any time you don't like the result - "well, it was meta-democratic you see, and therefore does not count". It's frankly incredible that people put out arguments like this with a straight face.
The only way elections can work is if you actually abide by the result, whatever it is. If you get to reject some of the results, then you might as well not do elections at all, just let us know what results you want.
Twitter has been saying, "you can vote yourself into a dictatorship but you have to shoot your way out."
Pure democracies will ALWAYS vote themselves into dictatorships. That is why Constitutional Republics that use representation are more long-term stable.
Switzerland has been a pure democracy since the 1800's and they're still not a dictatorship.
It's not clear to me constitutional republics are superior to monarchy for stability.
There's plenty of historical examples of monarchical governments where the king/queen/emperor was pretty good (or even great), but then died and was succeeded by their shitty son/daughter and things quickly went to hell.
The primary strength of a democratic republic (or a monarchy where the monarch has no power at all and is merely a figurehead, as is the case in many of today's monarchies) is avoiding this scenario. It doesn't guarantee stability, but monarchies are guaranteed to be unstable precisely because children are frequently not like their parents, and those systems don't have a way of removing shitty rulers, so you only get stability as long as the monarch is alive and of sound mind.