BlueCarp: Redpath on the German election and election reform

Monday, September 28, 2009

Redpath on the German election and election reform

William Redpath, National Chairman of the Libertarian Party, wrote:

As many of you know, electoral reform is a topic on which I have been working for the last fifteen years.

There was an election in Germany yesterday for the German national legislature, The Bundestag. In Germany, a Mixed Member Proportional system is used to seat the legislature. In a mixed member proportional system, each voter casts two ballots, one for a single winner district (a/k/a “Constituency”) election like we have in the United States, and on the other ballot, they cast a vote for their favorite political party. The results from both elections are used to fill the legislature’s seats.

Among the parties that ran for seats in The Bundestag yesterday was the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which is the most libertarian of Germany’s political parties. The results of the election are in the link to the German Federal Election 2009 below. In the single winner district elections, the FDP received 9.4% of the total vote cast but won zero single winner district elections. Sound familiar?

In the Party List vote, the FDP was selected by 14.6% of voters as their favorite political party. As a result, the FDP will have 93 seats in the next legislative session, which is 15.0% of seats in The Bundestag. This is an increase from 61 seats in the last session. The seat percentage is higher than the vote percentage because, in Germany, parties that receive less than 2% of the Party List vote receive no seats in the legislature. The actual individuals to fill the FDP’s seats will be appointed by the FDP.

Instead of having zero seats in the legislature, which is what the FDP would have received using the voting system we use in the United States, the FDP will be the third most powerful party in The Bundestag, among the six parties that will have seats.

Bill Redpath

LNC Chair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation

http://www.fairvote.org/?page=2046

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BlueCarp: Without Apology

I believe in freedom. Without apology.

Taxes encroach on freedom.

State power encroaches on freedom.

I am not an absolutist. I am not an ideologue. I am not an anarchist.

I believe that taxes and the state are necessary.

Yet so is water. Too much of it, and you drown. You die.

Taxation and state power have grown far beyond any legitimate usefulness they might have. Our society is drowning in both. We have given ourselves a fire hose when all we need is a Dixie Cup.

The United States government is the single largest employer in the country. This is obscene.

The government produces nothing of value. Nothing. Why are so many people necessary to produce nothing of value? They are not.

They are wasteful. Would that it were that was all. But they are worse than wasteful. They prevent actual production of value. The government makes it harder for people that wish to produce to do so.

Unreasonable licenses, fees, regulation, red tape and bureaucracy make it so.

Without the production of value, there are no jobs. There is no food. There is no shelter. People produce these things. Government does not.

Indeed, oftentimes people form corporations to produce things. Yet corporations are nothing. They are legal fiction. Corporations are nothing but the individuals that comprise them.

True, government is nothing but people that comprise it. The difference is that people are free to purchase things from the people in a corporation or not, yet people are forcibly coerced into giving money to the government.

To some, this government coercion is fine. To me, it is not.

I make no apology for being anti-government.

I am tired of being criticized for lacking compassion because I am against the government and against the forcible confiscation of people’s money. It is not the government’s job to provide compassion.

It is mine. It is yours.

By sloughing off the responsibility of “compassion” over to the government, some are relieved of the moral burden of being compassionate themselves.

If they vote in favor of government force to take other people’s money to help the needy, they are compassionate. They care. At least that is the fiction under which these misguided people operate. It is so much easier to believe in fiction than reality.

It is not compassionate to take someone else’s money for a cause, no matter how worthy. It is compassionate to voluntarily give money to a cause in which one believes.

Some say charity will never be sufficient to provide for all the worthy causes. That government taxation is necessary to provide for all of these worthy causes. I say these people’s definition of “worthy cause” is overly broad.

If people do not wish to give money to a cause, the cause is not worthy to that person. It is immoral to force that person to give anyway, because government deems it necessary.

It is so much easier to force others to donate than to ask nicely. If one has to ask, then the answer might be “no.”

The faux-compassionate, pro-government faction can not stand for that. They deem themselves too compassionate to give others that freedom.

I am anti-government. I am anti-tax. I am pro-freedom. I am pro-liberty.

And I make no apologies.

BlueCarp

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Redpath on the German election and election reform

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