13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 100 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com LIBERTARIAN VIEWS OF DEMOCRACY PREVENT ARE INCOHERENT BECAUSE THEY DENY THE ABILITY TO ENGAGE IN ACTUAL DECISION-MAKING. Bart
Engelen – 2007. Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research –
Flanders Belgium, Centre for Economics and Ethics. Why Compulsory Voting Can Enhance
Democracy Acta Politica, 2007, 42, (23–39). However, the idea that every citizen has an absolute freedom of choice amounts to
a strange notion of democracy, because it assumes that only unanimous decisions can be democratic.
In contrast, it is widely held to bean advantage of democratic decision- making procedures that they can settle matters despite disagreement. Hence, it is hard to see how any political decision- making method can respect everyone’s liberty (Christiano, 2001, 3415).
Such libertarian views on man, society and
state are highly problematic, because they tend to consider almost every government intervention as an illegitimate demand on its citizens. Allowing citizens to freely choose
to exercise their rights,
no strings attached, makes political decision-making practically impossible.
