Thursday 28 November 2019

"Why do so many [people] across most of the ideological space equate freedom with democracy? Do these [people] not see that oppression by a majority of one’s fellow citizens is oppression no less than is oppression by a minority of one’s fellow citizens?" #QotD


"Why do so many [people] across most of the ideological space equate freedom with democracy? Do these [people] not see that oppression by a majority of one’s fellow citizens is oppression no less than is oppression by a minority of one’s fellow citizens?"
          ~ Don Boudreaux asking 'Why?'
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3 comments:

MarkT said...

Anyone visiting this site should know that democracy and freedom are not the same thing - but to answer the question posed, the confusion occurs because they're not entirely unrelated either. Democracy is the means of selecting politicians that is most consistent with freedom, because it provides some degree of checks and balances on any one individual or group getting power out of proportion to the majority. Of course by itself it's nowhere near sufficient (a constitution or similar limiting the power of government is also required), but I can appreciate why the confusion occurs. There's also correlation between the two, in that there are no non-democracies that are remotely free, and democracies very rarely start wars.

John Hurley said...

negative freedom = no shackles but (as the freed slaves realised) they lacked skills or capital so they lack positive freedom (liberty). However when governments exercise positive liberty (as they can do by stealth). They impinge on the negative liberty of others. For example when they bombard us with te reo. That's what progressivism is on current form?

SteveD said...

Perhaps it's harder to get 300,000,000 people to agree to vote away your rights, than it is for a single dictator to simply implement it?