• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      Then we’re back to:

      A liberal democracy will never provide choices that undermine its own ideological supremacy.

      Which is contradicted by one of the essential points of liberal democracy being the tolerance of and responsiveness to democratic action outside of electoral politics - ie protests and civil disobedience.

      • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        A couple things:

        • Even if you include things like civil disobedience within your concept of liberal democracy, there will still always be limits to what a liberal democracy will tolerate, even given popular support

        • the system of power isn’t limited to the immediate outline of the government. In a liberal democracy in-particular, outsized power is granted to private entities through ownership and is protected through the state. An organized protest can just as easily be put down via disenfranchisement and employer boycotts as with water cannons and pepper spray, and often they are put down with both simultaneously. Especially when essential arms of liberal democracy are privately owned (I assume you consider mass media and journalism to be essential arms of democracy), it can more than protect itself from effective protest when that protest represent serious threats to its functioning.

        All that to say: it’s a bit disingenuous to claim a lack of support for any particular systemic change when that system actively defends itself against those changes by - among other things - manufacturing consent against them and lashing out against those who push for it.