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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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If you don't vote, and you have a free and open ballot, you're saying you're fine with any option that wins.

The UK does not have a free and open ballot if what you want to vote for runs into restrictions on speech. It makes it very difficult for candidates to legally advertise their political position, or for you to campaign for it. In the past, it was possible to get elected from prison, but the Representation of the People Act 1981 put a stop to that. Liberal Democracy depends on a tightly interlocking system of rights to enable free elections. You don't get to pick and choose what parts you have. Removing one element can break a whole lot more.

Spoiling your secret ballot is an option. That's what I did back when de facto suppression of anti-lockdown dissidents meant I had no anti-lockdown candidates to vote for. But those weren't free and open elections, since public assembly by those expressing my favoured political views was criminalized.