What's so great about democracy? Is liberty served when 50% + 1 can push the minority around? Ron Paul takes on President Obama's suggestion that mandatory voting might be worth considering. How about actually having more political parties and a real choice?
What's so great about democracy? Is liberty served when 50% + 1 can push the minority around? Ron Paul takes on President Obama's suggestion that mandatory voting might be worth considering. How about actually having more political parties and a real choice?
What's so great about democracy? Is liberty served when 50% + 1 can push the minority around? Ron Paul takes on President Obama's suggestion that mandatory voting might be worth considering. How about actually having more political parties and a real choice?
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
Today with me is Daniel McAdams, who is the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Welcome, Daniel.
Thank you.
Good to have you here.
I'd like to talk a little bit today about a proposal that was put out by our president, who thought it might be a good idea to have mandatory voting.
Get everybody vote.
Everybody participate.
We're all Democrats, you know, so let's get everybody out there to do that.
For some reason, this sounds a little extreme to me.
I still like the idea of being pro-choice.
You know, if you don't see any candidates that you like, maybe you just feel like you don't have to vote if you don't want to.
But no, it looks like it might be mandatory, and yet I think the president, hasn't he actually backed away from that idea?
I think he has.
And, you know, I was recently looking back at one of your old speeches.
Sorry, Mr. Franklin, we're all Democrats now.
And you talked about the idea of democracy.
And I think probably the president had good intentions.
He wanted people to feel part of the system and to, you know, he wanted more democracy because the idea in our country is that more democracy is always better.
But our founding fathers weren't that awfully crazy about it.
No, they spoke about democracy and they didn't like it.
And Franklin, of course, was the one that said a republic if you can keep it.
And they never advocated democracy.
And, you know, it's sort of strange how people emphasize this democracy.
If you just have everybody voting and 51% can decide everything, it's the worst thing you can do to the minorities.
If you have a minority opinion, if you're from a small group, 51% become a dictator and then dictate to everybody else.
So I think it's the opposite of what a free society is all about.
Fortunately, I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but I think it's logical for some of these individuals who like this notion of getting endorsement.
I don't think it has anything to do with having an honest election.
I complain quite frequently about our foreign policy being designed to spread democracy around the world at the point of a gun and spending money.
You will do this.
And then they have elections and we don't like the people they elect and then we get rid of them and so much suffering occurs from this.
So I don't like this notion that you can correct it by a mandate.
What about, you know, some of the people aren't, you know, they just don't want to vote.
And what do you think would happen if we actually had mandatory voting?
Well, you know, you've always been critical of the two-party system, you know, that they won't let any other parties rise up.
You know, maybe having more parties would make people more interested in voting.
Yeah, sometimes I think, you know, minorities, if you really wanted to protect minorities, you should have a system more that's European, you know, where if you have 10%, if 10% are libertarians, you get 10% of your legislative body.
That might be fair.
But what happens on mandatory voting and you only have two parties and the two parties are the same?
And a lot of people have come to this conclusion.
They said, that's impossible.
They're fighting and screaming and they spend all this money.
I always think that's just for who gets to influence and who has the power and who has the money.
But, you know, policies just don't change by these elections.
But I just think that this is an example of pushing the notion to the extreme of believing that democracy is something very sacred and that you can solve these problems.
And to me, it's probably exactly the opposite.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I'm glad that this is not likely to come about, but I think it's worth talking about, you know, and why people come up with this.
I think they want sanctions.
Why would a country that has, you know, we read stories about a country that has the mandatory voting, 98% of the people come out, they only have one choice.
And to me, that's sort of the way this is, that we only have one choice.
In some ways, I always wondered about this whole idea that, you know, when dictators, when an authoritarian regime captures somebody, you know, for political reasons, but in order to kill him, execute him, they want him to confess.
And they'll torture or do anything, and then they execute him.
Why bother about it if he's a bad guy?
Do you have any ideas?
Why in the world would they, why would they put him through all this?
It's exactly as you say, looking for the legitimacy of the process.
You know, we can prove we went through the process legitimately.
He did confess, even he said he was guilty.
And make them look, make them probably feel better.
Oh yeah, he confessed he was a bad guy.
I think it's the same with voting.
If they have everyone saying that Joe Smith is the president, then you can say that everyone participates.
And it also, what does it do?
51% Dictating Much00:01:10
It also reduces the ability of dissenters.
You know, if it gets, I have an idea.
Now, let's say it's moving along and we're going to have, everybody has to vote.
I think the one thing that could help us on this is if we insist that you put on every ballot none of the above.
And then maybe we'd find out who really wants to vote on this.
But it's such a shame that 51% can dictate so much.
And I think the biggest fallacy here is those individuals around the country for various reasons on the different groups that declare their particular rights are all for pure democracy.
And yet it's the worst thing for them because for a minority group of any sort to be protected, you cannot endorse the idea of pure democracy.
So what I'm working for is more pure liberty, as much total freedom as you have, and the smallest government possible.
And voting would be there to pick leaders, but nothing more.
Anyway, I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.