On the Necessity of Militancy for Democracy

[Xeng He]

Depending on how strict you are with the label I might be anti-democratic. I would want to limit voting to those capable of proving they're informed on the issues.

[Elwher]

This is a really interesting question. To what extent should democracy eschew democratic principles to preserve itself?

Lastly, not all elected autocrats do it through completely democratic means. The NSDAP consolidated it's power by merging the positions of Chancellor and President when Hindenburg died, as well as slowly banning political parties and muscling out the left-wing. It only got about 33% in the last free and fair legislative election. Mussolini marched on Rome after gaining a significant minority of political support and took over the government in a coup. If autocrats always use semi-legal means to achieve power, they cannot claim legitimacy and so it would be unreasonable to claim that they should be respected in the democratic process.

Either way, I'd argue that militant democracy is necessary for the survival of democracy and the survival of democracy is far more important than the right of some fascists to brutalise minorities using state violence. I would advise that militant democracy ought to be about the survival of democratic processes generally, rather than specifically liberal democracy. I do worry that some would prefer for the preservation of liberal democracy over an even more democratic system, though I think that even in Germany's case, the concept of militant democracy has been used to combat only Nazism.

Is it not possible, however, that an autocratic leader could be elected without the use of semi-legal means? And if so, would it be democratic to prevent him from taking power if that is truly what the majority of the people want?

[Elwher]

Depending on how strict you are with the label I might be anti-democratic. I would want to limit voting to those capable of proving they're informed on the issues.

Literacy tests to prove the ability to vote reasonably were all the vogue in the South before 1965.

[Xeng He]

Depending on how strict you are with the label I might be anti-democratic. I would want to limit voting to those capable of proving they're informed on the issues.

Literacy tests to prove the ability to vote reasonably were all the vogue in the South before 1965.

1. If a state is deeply racist and the registrars are given a lot of discretion in terms of how to handle the test, it's going to lead to racist outcomes. We don't have the same structural problems now as then, and we don't have to leave up to (potentially racist) registrars things like how hard the material you're being tested on is, how you did, etc.
2. I would ideally not be testing literacy at all. Plenty of middle-class Republicans without much political knowledge can read a passage, but they might not know the content of a bill.

[Anurial]

This is a really interesting question. To what extent should democracy eschew democratic principles to preserve itself?

Lastly, not all elected autocrats do it through completely democratic means. The NSDAP consolidated it's power by merging the positions of Chancellor and President when Hindenburg died, as well as slowly banning political parties and muscling out the left-wing. It only got about 33% in the last free and fair legislative election. Mussolini marched on Rome after gaining a significant minority of political support and took over the government in a coup. If autocrats always use semi-legal means to achieve power, they cannot claim legitimacy and so it would be unreasonable to claim that they should be respected in the democratic process.

Either way, I'd argue that militant democracy is necessary for the survival of democracy and the survival of democracy is far more important than the right of some fascists to brutalise minorities using state violence. I would advise that militant democracy ought to be about the survival of democratic processes generally, rather than specifically liberal democracy. I do worry that some would prefer for the preservation of liberal democracy over an even more democratic system, though I think that even in Germany's case, the concept of militant democracy has been used to combat only Nazism.

Is it not possible, however, that an autocratic leader could be elected without the use of semi-legal means? And if so, would it be democratic to prevent him from taking power if that is truly what the majority of the people want?

I don't really know of any instance of that actually happening, due to the nature of how democracy has developed through the past few centuries. However, even if that did happen, it is undemocratic for the majority of people to prohibit the choice of later generations to change from an autocracy. Allowing that to happen is lessening democracy for later generations and consequently would be undemocratic.

It's also perfectly possible that I'm not articulating this very well

[Elwher]

Literacy tests to prove the ability to vote reasonably were all the vogue in the South before 1965.

1. If a state is deeply racist and the registrars are given a lot of discretion in terms of how to handle the test, it's going to lead to racist outcomes. We don't have the same structural problems now as then, and we don't have to leave up to (potentially racist) registrars things like how hard the material you're being tested on is, how you did, etc.
2. I would ideally not be testing literacy at all. Plenty of middle-class Republicans without much political knowledge can read a passage, but they might not know the content of a bill.

I understand the difference in what you are proposing, but the disparate impact of the testing, even if it were fairly administered, would result in a similar outcome. People who are less educated are much less likely to know the contents of bills up for debate or to be able to articulate that knowledge even if they have it. This means that the poor, who are mostly people of color, are going to be more often eliminated from voting than those of the upper class, who have the time to study such things and are mostly not people of color. Proceed with caution, unless you are satisfied with disenfranchising the uneducated and leaving the idle rich to control the electi0ons even more than they do today.