Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Democracy is the selection method most suited to liberty because you make your own decisions and your vote is worth the same as anyone else's. This seems obvious but what's controversial is that democracy shouldn't require citizenship; everyone who's affected by a decision must be in on it to get a quorum. For example, a bunch of people in an auditorium deciding on whether to turn the heat up or down doesn't depend on the citizenship of the people in the auditorium, just that they are the ones affected by it. Everyone in that auditorium needs to have their voices heard if peace is to be maintained; no ID card or special requirements takes precedence over pent up physical violence.

Even with complete enfranchisement, if 51% thought it was too cold in the auditorium, the other 49% would still be unhappy, but placated, unless one of the major weakness of voting is employed: bribery. Everyone has a price; sweltering heat would be unanimous at the right price, but only 51% actually need to be bribed. If you're not one of the people who were bribed, you must suffer the heat with no recompense. This failure of democracy is further exacerbated when only a subset of the people can vote; then the 51% could literally be 1 person, the only citizen. Which is the peaceful scenario: a non-citizen voting with the awareness of everyone around them, or the worm who doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as they get theirs? And what about the situation where people outside the auditorium are voting? The only way voting works to solve the violence problem is once someone is inside the auditorium, they're just as important as anyone else.