Comments Elsewhere

Womble, the distinction between meaningful democracy and majority tyranny, as those terms are usually used, has to do with protections for minorities and individual rights. It has nothing in particular to do with whether or not “anti-democratic” parties can be elected to office.

Do you think that believing in an inalienable right of free political association, or simply not trusting the incumbent government to be able to make the decisions about which competing parties are sufficiently “democratic” and which aren’t, is not only mistaken, but in fact an insane form of “blind ideological fanaticism”?

And, just to be clear, when you say that anti-democratic political parties ought to be suppressed by the government, just how far do you think that they ought to go in the name of democracy? Banning the anti-democratic party from competing in parliamentary elections? Banning members of the anti-democratic party from standing for individual sets? Dissolving the anti-democratic party by government diktat? Restricting their rights to electioneer or lobby or contribute to campaigns? Restricting their rights to meet or publish political literature? Rounding them up and shooting them? Less? More? (I ask because this bears partly on just what’s entailed by your answer to the first question.)