Australia, Canada. I'm sure there are more bloodless democracies.
I never said there were no bloodless democracies. Also, Canada and Australia belong to the Commonwealth; whatever democracy came to Great Britain would eventually come to its white colonies. Let's not act like the history of the British Isles is one without blood.
No, I am not saying voluntary voting is the cause of the rioting. I am suggesting that the people currently setting fire to their city do not feel as though they belong. I bet they don't bother voting, because they feel so isolated and alienated.
This is the greater problem of French society and its failure to properly integrate these people. It has nothing to do with compulsory voting.
I think we have already discussed that compulsory voting does not involve coercion -people are still free to do as their conscience dictates.
It
does involve coercion; the government coerces its citizens into voting lest they suffer consequences.
I will say one last time, all compusory voting does is say "We believe that everyone should be a part of our democracy." This is not wrong.
It says more than that: "Vote or you'll have broken a law, and you will be punished for it."
And Joe, jc isn't over-simplifying. If democracy is worth being killed for, compulsory voting is not a violation of freedom.
If you guys insist on equating the two, can I assume that you supported the invasion of Iraq in hopes of building a foundation for democracy there?
I'm going to repeat, compulsory voting is not forced voting. People can still choose not to vote. I think it is a good thing for a society to say "It is important for everyone to vote " and this makes for a fairer system of government.
Do you not understand that force is more than physically exerted power? As Loriel said, the government is using its own power, in whatever form, to
force people to vote. The threat of harm (monetary, in this case) is used to compel.
The fact of the matter remains that a democracy was installed at gunpoint.
Yes, that is true. And what is inherently wrong with this? Installing a democracy does not
compel anyone to do
anything, it merely gives them the
choice to participate realistically where they were unable to before. Choice was installed at gunpoint. Rights were installed at gunpoint. You may respond that many thousands are dying without any say in it; but, if successful, these conditions will not last forever. A stable democracy, where people are free to participate in politics in a real way without the threat of death or torture, and where human rights have more respect; if it all works out, that is no thing to sour your face over.
Prior to that, a dictator-lite "administrator" was installed at gunpoint.
Dictator-lite? Are you serious? What was "lite" about Saddam Hussein's governance? He was a dictator in the likeness of Hitler or Stalin but without the power. He had the mustache though!
If the imposition of democracy on an individual level is abhorrent to you, why do you consider installing a democracy at gunpoint a "bonus"?
Can we really call it the installation of democracy or the removal of an oppressive dictatorship?
Why not simply keep the "administrator" in power?
He was an enemy of the United States whom I feel would have come into inevitable conflict with the West. Why should we leave him in power when the reason we went in there in the first place was to unseat him? With the absence of his brutal rule, we could not allow a vaccum to exist for both practical and moral reasons.
By your reasoning (that mandatory democracy is an abrogation of rights), the administrator is less of an imposition because he wouldn't require anybody to take time out of their busy schedule to vote.
Voting was indeed mandatory in Iraq whilst Saddam Hussein was in power. Of course, he was the only candidate and the ballot had only "Yes" or "No" options, but voting was compulsory. As far as I know, democracy is not mandatory in Iraq currently.
Now we have the foundation for a system where voting is not compulsory, has multiple candidates, and in which millions have already participated. Iraq is not stable and its people are not safe from the dangers of war, but such an undertaking is not easy work.
How absurd to compare compulsory voting, which is the removal of a right, and the removal of a brutal totalitarian government, which is essentially the deliverance of many more important rights.