Thursday, 10 March 2011

We have no right to vote

The danger of democracy is that people seek to immunise their actions from prosecution, we seek to make something which is normally illegal, tolerated by the courts. In normal criminal justice until the crime is perpetrated, nothing happens. Under democracy people try to make sure that what they plan to do will not be punished by the courts beforehand. But there is no special case for the government. If someone has done a crime (and you seek to retaliate) then there is no requirement to seek the permission of the courts beforehand, you should just do what you plan to do anyway. Democracy gives permission (from the people) to the state to be aggressive. It is not a crime for ordinary people to take an opinion poll but the state is different and to remove it (elections) would be to expose the difference between the state and an ordinary citizen, in legal terms.

If democracy is by definition a mechanism whereby the state seeks permission for its actions (and is not merely an opinion poll) then we can say that it makes no difference that a government is popular with the electorate, we still reject the violence. It is still wrong to persecute a minority even if we have been given permission to do so by the majority. A crime is still a crime even if other people don't mind. No one should be allowed to vote.

Proportional Representation would allow more parties and hence viewpoints to be heard

If there is a reason to have a parliament it is so that decisions are made by more than one person, the solitary leader. If this is not preferable we can select a single ruler, but we do not. So then, the ideal type of voting system will be one whereby a diversity of views is given.

Assuming people are loyal to their party affiliation, Fptp negates the advantage of having a parliament in the first place because the diversity of views provided by the parliament (having more than one member) is removed. It is only if representation is more proportionate that there is any point in having a parliament. PR allows a diversity of views to be present in parliament, it allows more than just the main parties to be represented. Fptp reduces the range of views heard to only those of the dominant parties.

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Only if someone is an obstruction to someone else are they in the wrong

If we are not in the way of others than we are doing nothing wrong. We have a right to complain about the actions of others only if they obstruct us in some manner.

Monday, 7 March 2011

Asset price inflation is not evidence of the creation of wealth

Without deposit insurance it would be more difficult for people to get loans because banks would be reluctant to lend, due to the legitimate expectations of customers with deposit accounts. Cheap credit is easy to acquire because of inflationary banking. In a free market it would not be possible for a large proportion of the market to gain assets with borrowed money. In a free market houses would be cheaper.

The ordinary taxpayer is not liable for bank debts

If banks don't have enough money for their depositors they should be allowed to fail, it is not the responsibility of the taxpayer to help, there is no reason to promise to protect the banks. It is a violation of natural rights to make taxpayers liable for bank debts, deposit insurance is a myth, we have no obligation to pay bank debts.

There is no reason why banks need to be part of the state

If banks are protected from failing then bank credit will have artificial value and inflation will result. It is a contradiction that a bank should be prevented from failing and to take private profits, no free market company is too big to fail. No bank is allowed to fail if it has deposit insurance, unlike every other business. There is no reason for banks to be part of the state, free market banking is possible.

There is no reason to oppose the introduction of proportional representation

To 'vote' is not a positive, selective act we are rejecting the majority of candidates which have been offered. If we have only one 'vote' we are able to exclude from our rejection only one candidate and reject everyone else. Given that, under Fptp there is only a single winning candidate it is useless to exclude from our rejection someone with very little chance of doing well anyway. We might as well 'exclude from our rejection' someone who might do well (from one of the leading parties) if we want to influence the outcome. If more than one candidate is able to go through this means that we can assume a handful of popular candidates will do well and that we can influence the result for less mainstream parties. More people are allowed through the gate meaning that our vote is not well used if we vote for a candidate which is likely to go through anyway so a vote for a less well known party has a chance of success. With only one winning candidate it is only worthwhile choosing between parties that are expected to do well which hands a huge advantage to the established parties. There is no reason to restrict the parliamentary decision-making process to only two or three parties, there is no loss in broadening it out and enabling other voices to be heard. There is no reason to oppose the implementation of proportional representation.