Learn Liberty: Aeon Skoble- 'Democracy, Tyranny, and Liberty'

Source:Learn Liberty- Aeon Skoble, from Learn Liberty.

"Do democracies promote freedom? According to Prof. Aeon Skoble, it is definitely possible for democracies to promote freedom, but it is not a guarantee. This is due to a few flaws inherent in democratic systems: 

1) Majority belief in something does not necessarily mean that it's true. 

2) Majorities are capable of being just as tyrannical as kings

3) Historically, democracies have elected tyrannical leaders.

If freedom is the primary value of a society, democracy might still be of use so long as there are boundary conditions on the democratic process that protect the rights of the individual. 

Libertarianism Explained: Democracy, Tyranny, and Liberty presented by Learn Liberty. Learn More:Learn Liberty." 

From Learn Liberty

When deciding what type of country you want to have, you need to know what type of government you are going to have. And what's the relationship going to be between lets say the Federal Government and the state or provincial and local government's and you need a national constitution for that. 

Once you figure out what type of government you're going to have, then need to decide what type of country you are going to have as far as how government relates with its people. What's legal and illegal basically how the people can live their lives and how they can interact with other people. Basically what the rights if any do the people have in the country. 

If you want a form of government and country where there's a large amount of individual freedom, then as a Liberal and someone who believes in individual freedom, I would suggest a liberal democracy. But it can't stop with democracy because there are several forms of democracy. So you need to know what type of democracy you want to have. 

And again I would suggest a democracy that guarantees the most amount of individual freedom to figure out what type of country you are going to have. And how government relates to the people and how much ability if any people have to live their own lives. And what's the responsibility if any, that government has in relating with its people. 

There's what's called a social democracy, where people have a lot of individual freedom as far as how they live their lives socially, but where economic freedom is somewhat limited, because the state plays a large role in the economy and I would use Sweden as a perfect example of this. 

Then there's authoritarian  democracy (no, that's not an Oxymoron) where people are essentially free to live their lives but where they only have a limited amount of freedom. (Not limited amount of government) And I would use Turkey as an example of this. And then there's majoritarian democracy where essentially the majority rules over the minority and can essentially make people do what they want. Where minority rights aren't well-respected. And I would use America pre-civil rights Laws of the 1960s as an example of that. 

And then there's my favorite form of democracy what's called liberal democracy, where the people have the individual liberty to live their own lives essentially as they see fit, as long as they are not hurting anyone with their freedom. And America now would be my example of that, even though I believe we should have more individual liberty, but thats a different post.

A lot of people believe especially Conservatives and Libertarians, that a republic is the best way to guarantee individual liberty and to protect minority rights. But there are plenty examples of republics that aren't democracy's but authoritarian republics. And even have dictators running their government. Syria is a perfect example of this, so would China and North Korea or Cuba. So republics aren't the way to guarantee individual liberty. But a constitutional republic in the form of a liberal democracy is they way to do that.