What a sad way to spend your time.

I hope things get better in your life.

So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above

I suppose so…?

Okay, then this:

What is in contention is whether PR is democratically superior to FPTP.

Doesn’t really make sense. You can’t just say “when we’re talking about PR vs FPTP, what matters is whether PR is more democratic” but then when Direct Democracy vs PR is the question, all of a sudden it doesn’t matter which is more democratic.

So again, what are the principles by which you are judging PR to be a good or bad choice? If it is purely, which is the most democratic system, then direct democracy blows PR out of the water…

If you want an answer to the question “which is better, PR or FPTP” you have to have criteria to use as judgement. And again, if that criteria is only “which is more democratic” then why aren’t you advocating direct democracy?

So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above? I’m just pointing out here that you seem to move the goal posts to whatever is convenient. When you are defending PR, all that matters is how democratic something is. When I bring up direct democracy, all of a sudden, the costs and practical consequences matter.

You cannot have it both ways.

And are you confusing me with someone else? My very original point was

Please, anything but full PR. Please. In a polarized landscape PR is leading to increasingly bad outcomes (Israel, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland etc.) In a PR system, the Far Right would be running France.

I’m just seeing how your logic plays out. You can’t have it wherein “if I’m talking about PR, then all that matters is how democratic a system is” AND “if I’m talking about any other system, then the practicalities and consequences matter.”

You’ve been arguing that PR is the best system because it is the most democratic. I’m pointing out that there are more democratic systems.

As you stated above, your principles:

1. In a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government.

2. I am not trying to argue whether democracy (and by proxy PR) itself is successful (or unsuccesful), because that is an entirely different discussion.

So, according to the two principles you’ve laid out, direct democracy seems superior to PR.

Edited to include your quotes about the context/reminding you of the goal posts which you chose.

I strongly recommend reading about modern German politics. Actual AfD manifesto “Islam does not belong to Germany. Its expansion and the ever-increasing number of Muslims in the country are viewed by the AfD as a danger to our state, our society, and our values.” As much as we hate them, imagine the Republicans writing something like that in their manifesto.

Yes, the Republican party is doing terrible things. But none of that would be stopped by a PR system. (Especially when the republicans won more than half the votes…)

What you’re seeing as a broad ineffective coalition happens in Canada within the parties themselves, prior to the election

Sort of? That coalition still comes forward with a set of proposals that they generally have a chance to enact (or, they choose not to and bear the electoral consequences for it.) This is different than going forward with a set of proposals, then in a murky set of compromises behind close doors with multiple parties, some other result happens. How to assign blame or credit?

Has happened to our PC party which got split in two, then reunited again under the extreme part’s leadership.

Come on. I don’t think a serious or well informed adult can honestly look at the PC party and say that it is seriously comparable to the Hard Right like the AfD. While some of those folks are swept up into a faction, their outcomes get moderated by the PC party because of the FPTP incentives to appeal to a broad swathe of the electorate.

They just delay the knowledge of those problems and therefore any serious solution.

I mean, you’ve seen this learning happen pretty quickly to the Liberal party. People got fed up about inflation and housing, started abandoning the party. There’s a reason the guy who crushed the Liberal party election was the only one who could credibly say he’d had nothing to do with those bad decisions.

Like, political parties aren’t only informed about public opinion during elections. (Otherwise, their campaign promises and platforms would just be wild guesses.) There’s all sorts of public opinion polling etc. And thanfully, we have a strong system that can address these issues instead of just muddle through with a coalition that’s too broad to actually address those issues.

Look at Germany. Does it seem likely that the coalition government will be able to do anything about the AfD or will they just muddle through while the problems fester and the AfD gets more popular? I’d put heavy money on the latter. Whereas Canada, has already started broad plans to create housing etc (these are the sorts of plans that take a long time to materialize, a sad irony about the upcoming election is that whatever party wins will likely be credited for dealing with housing developments spurred by the current Liberal government.)

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…

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.

I didn’t realize what community I was in, I thought this was a more general one. Seems rude to come in and argue the merits of PR in a community devoted to it, apologies, I’m happy to let it be.

blame the culture, not the electoral system.

If you read about what’s happening in those countries, you’ll realize it’s not about the culture, it’s that PR incentivizes really bad outcomes. Take Germany for example. Just like here, a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties that are toxic and should be avoided. However, avoiding them has made the other parties form really broad and thus ineffective coalitions, which are unable to push forward significant legislation. The increasing inability to pass significant legislation has led to Germany’s stalling development, which then further fuels extremist parties.

Similarly, you’ll see in Israel where mainstream parties are held hostage by relatively small extremist parties leading to horrific outcomes that are generally not supported by the public.

I basically agree with the statement:

The responsibility of the electoral system is to ensure **effective **representation in government

but I think you are missing the effective part. Consider, an absolute pure democracy where every bill, item etc was voted on by everyone. That would certainly be the ultimate in democracy, but it would be a terrible way to run a country and likely lead to some insane policy choices. Similarly, an autocracy can pass perfect and brilliant legislation but is completely un democratic. So, we can see that there is give and take between full representation and effective government. My entire point is that PR, while really groovy on paper, tends to produce really bad outcomes and thus sacrifices a lot of the efficiency of government (and of voting frankly) for some (arguably temporary) democratic gain. I know too much about the to be anything but stridently opposed to PR.

Please, anything but full PR. Please. In a polarized landscape PR is leading to increasingly bad outcomes (Israel, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland etc.) In a PR system, the Far Right would be running France.

This is not happening because the citizens of those countries are less good than Canadians.

If a Conservative President, Congress and Senate can’t pass a bill and the government shuts down, I wonder whom the people will blame.

I think you might be missing a few things.

First, sure there’s probably some minor feedback but really, outside of luxury goods (which neither Apple or Google are at this point) more customers is seen as better by investors/the market.

Yes, the market is all theatre but amazingly, it’s theatrics to which a great deal of attention is paid. The more share prices of magnificent 7 stocks drop, the more that affects those who have actual power and influence.

Heck, forget abandoning smartphones, living in a cave would be the ultimate way to not contribute to America. But most folks want to balance their morals with a functional life, which for many includes a smartphone.

If you want to slap back, instead of trying desperately to convince maybe a handful of folks to switch to dumb phones over tarrifs, much better to help a lot of people make incremental but helpful changes.

It’s wild how many of trump’s decisions are exactly what Putin wants.