Should Democracy Be Compulsory?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Hi, my dear navel gazers! Here's our gazillionth installment of impossibly simplistic and hilariously polarized situations, inspired by the [Poll #1879633]

I'm sure you've learned by now why the options are so terribly extreme.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He does have a point that there are no superior options to democracy at present. And if all people do is bitch about the established system without any concept of what to replace it with, eh.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting replacing anything. I see democracy as a valuable tool. Romanticizing it the way it's being done by several supporters of the proposition in the OP as well as romanticizing the concept of social contract pretty much identically to the way conservatives do with the concept of what patriotism means.

There are many calls to reverence of and deference to the social contract and democracy as to why we should support this, and any other benefits (other than 100% turnout, which hasn't been shown as somehow inherently good) are highly grounded in supposition and circumstantial evidence.

Democracy is a tool, and while it's a good one, it's side effects are best balanced out with other institutional tools.

There is no reason to automatically defer to a tool as its own agent for justifying desired legislation.