• @arin
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      310 months ago

      Popularity in a nutshell

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          No, it’s not. Unless you use the definition of democracy that only fascists use to attack the concept.
          Democracy isn’t a total dictatorship of the majority. The term implies protection of basic human rights, even if 50+% vote in favor of something that would violate them.

          • MacN'Cheezus
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            310 months ago

            No, you’re confusing the concept with the implementation. Nothing about the concept of democracy says that human rights MUST be protected, it’s just something that enough widespread agreement exists on that we assume it to be universal.

            In the US, those fundamental assumptions are protected by the constitution, but that can technically be amended with a large enough majority.

            As a more practical example, consider children, who do not have the right to vote and therefore must accept whatever the majority of adults decides. Their human rights only extend as far as the right to free housing, food, healthcare, and education, but they do not get the right to self-determination. As long as their parents feed, clothe, and house them, they can practically and legally keep them as indentured servants until they reach the age of majority. Perfectly democratic.

            • @[email protected]
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              -110 months ago

              I disagree completely. Protection of human rights is a fundamental part of the concept of democracy.
              A political system that decides everything purely based on majority vote, with no protections whatsoever for minority rights, is NOT a democracy.
              You may call it one, but then you’re simply redefining the word.

                  • MacN'Cheezus
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                    110 months ago

                    Pro tip: it helps to actually read an article before posting it.

                    Mob rule or ochlocracy is a pejorative term describing an oppressive majoritarian form of government controlled by the common people through the intimidation of more legitimate authorities. Ochlocracy is distinguished from democracy or similarly legitimate and representative governments by the absence or impairment of a procedurally civil process reflective of the entire polity. (Emphases mine)

                    What this is really saying is that there’s merely a fine line of constitutional red tape and governmental procedure that distinguishes democracy from mob rule.

          • bruhduh
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            110 months ago

            deleted by creator