MyBrainHurts

Okay, so if I'm advocating for direct democracy, it's more democratic than PR. So, this is PR vs non PR.

Or, do you not actually care about democracy? Because earlier it seemed that the only thing that mattered to an electoral system was how democratic it was. Hard to argue direct democracy is less democratic than PR...

I've heard such good things, it's top of my list. I might try and start a watching group on here or something. Think like a book club with an episode a week or something.

Great suggestion, thanks!

I'd never heard of either of those and they sound great, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, a 2 party system is generally not very ideal. Here in Canada we're lucky enough to have had multiple parties able to nudge one another into various directions.

and a two party system with one party actively dismantling democracy; I’d so so happily take the first one.

I'm not sure how PR would stop those attempts. And if anything, it could make them significantly worse.

where it’s a little hard to build a coalition that lasts more than a couple years,

It's more that those coalitions have serious trouble creating significant legislation, which still leads to issues like housing and climate change legislation being very unlikely. Except worse, it's now very hard to assign blame OR to propose bold reforms. So you just muddle through with things getting worse. There's a reason so many PR systems have started producing great outcomes for hard right parties. (The sort of anti democratic, racist parties that make the republican party look almost progressive.)

Why not have everyone vote on every bill possible then? Or are you against democracy?

You are correct, we aren't talking about the same thing. I am talking about the actual mechanics and serious downsides of PR. You seem to be talking about how PR does one thing well and then leaping to the conclusion that it is a good thing. Personally, I care about people and the country and PR would harm both. (To you, it seems the harms are just, well, other people's problems.)

It is utterly irresponsible to advocate for a system with significant downsides and then casting pointing out those downsides as not being a fan of democracy.

Have a good night.

If you're going to advocate for something, it seems wild to just hand wave "surely someone has written articles about this."

It seems like you are very excited about the goal of PR but haven't really looked into, or are unwilling to acknowledge, the dangers, pitfalls and harms. Sort of like when trump says he wants to help American workers, very hard to hate that idea but it's the details and how those details will play out that is the essential bit.

Great question! In the very short term, sort of. (Though from the start I'd point out that it is much harder to envision a party like the AFD gaining traction in an FPTP system)

PR causes 2 different styles of issues with the AFD. 1) It makes politics much less likely to produce significant or helpful change, so people don't see meaningful political improvements in their lives and are more likely to turn to extremist parties like the AFD. and 2) Because the AFD has so many seats, the winning coalition has to be super broad, basically the same coalition of the Conservative and Progressives that was seen as ineffectual the last time around. Admittedly, this time they can exclude the Greens. The same reasons the previous government collapsed and led to such a significant rise in support for the AFD are still in effect.

Austria doesn’t have an extremist government

Sure, but Kickl almost came to power in large part as a result of general dissatisfaction with politics in Austrai because... You guessed it, PR leads to not particularly effective government.

Israel’s democracy is flawed as the foundation of the country is dubious.

You can disagree with the creation of Israel etc but I fail to see how that means that we don't have to pay attention to their experience with PR.

Poland’s culture on issues is different

So the Polish culture is just inherently racist and tends to autocracy? I really hate this line of argument, it's the same sort of stuff that has been historically used dismiss the humanity of Black and Indigenous people.

If the majority of the people want fascism it’s going to happen in any electoral system,

Not saying FPTP is perfect. 2 party systems tend not to be great either. That's why I'm really happy that Canada has a wide mix, from NDP to the Bloc, to the Conservatives.

You also conveniently left out Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland

Yes... And you haven't pointed out all the successful countries that use FPTP, or do you really think there are no successful countries with FPTP?

How is that a “bad outcome” when it’s literally what people voted for.

You don't see how abhorrent racist parties taking power is a bad outcome?

Is this worse than the big tent parties we have now,

Yes. We've just passed a national school lunch program, are working on affordable day care and expanding healthcare to cover dental work. For better or worse, the Liberals have a very clear record you can vote on, whether you think they allowed too much immigration or you support their work on childcare, they have a clear record that they own and we are thus able to vote on it. This is not possible in a PR system. (What were the things your party actually made happen vs the results of messy compromises with a dozen parties? In the German context, as they'll need literally every party to avoid working with the AFD, how are you possibly able to apportion blame or praise on any party?)

We are discussing proportional representation vs non-proportional representation.

Again, I refer you to your quote: "The responsibility of the electoral system is to ensure **effective **representation in government" I'm pointing out that there are trade offs. You could establish 100% representation but it would be terrible. Similarly, sure you can argue that PR leads to more representation but that doesn't mean that it is effective representation.

Tends to produce bad outcomes how exactly? You would need to describe an outcome that you would not see under any democracy.

The ability of small parties to hold a majority hostage. Think about the extreme right in Israel, who despite being fairly unpopular are pushing ahead some fairly aggressive anti-Palestinian moves. This caaaaaaaaan happen in a fptp system but is much less likely.

Sacrifices the efficiency of government how? And is “efficiency” more important than policy that the majority actually agree on?

Again, I refer you to pretty much everything I've already written about the German system. Being paralyzed means the government can't pass significant legislation, which has led to significant problems and perversely, the rise of groups like the AFD.

Your argument against PR is that voting is “inefficient”, therefore we should allow non-proportional governments?

That's not at all what I've said.

How is it “temporary” democratic gain, when there are more mathematical criteria satisfied under PR systems for producing democratic systems?

In the short run, if you can vote for any party but none of the parties are able to really affect change, how democratic or useful is your vote?

In the long run, it leads to more people being willing to abandon democracy as PR systems tend to be unable to deliver significant change. If democracy doesn't help, more people are willing to turn to autocrats.

Oh dang, I do love me some Ayoade! (If anyone hasn't seen it, Garth Merenghi's Dark Place is one of the first things he wrote and is fantastic, trailer .