Who fact checks the fact checkers?
If the citizens or elected representatives in a democracy voted to start censoring speech, but continued to empower citizens to vote, it would still be a democratic state in spite of the censorship. An illiberal one, but still democratic.
Only through the first election cycle [1].
Your idea is valid in a static, nothing-ever-changes world, with no significant political dynamics to speak of. However, out in the world as we know it, political processes run all the time, the proverbial pendulum swings, and consensus is formed via vocal advocacy and protests.
Right now we have four basic things defined as "political speech": person-to-person conversations; mass communication (press, TV, radio, online videos); peaceful physical actions like assembly and manifestations; and finally donations to candidates, parties and PACs. We protect each and every recognized form of "political speech" exactly because without it the important changes could not happen.
In a world with limited communication, you'd have on one side a small ruling clique, semi detached from daily concerns, a large mass of disenfranchised and zoned out people coasting along in the middle, and on the other side you'd have a small fraction of disenfranchised and either abused or outright persecuted people that can't even raise the wider society's awareness. This is an unstable state, leading to societal collapse in one way or another.
Let people speak effectively, lest they could not protest problems or oppression. Let people speak effectively, lest the wider society couldn't even learn of the problems faced by sub-groups. Being heard is the first, necessary step to having wants and grievances addressed.
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[1] tiptoeing around Godwin's law
> Only through the first election cycle.
I'd like to point out that the incumbent party of the Singapore government has been in power since 1959.
It has 93% of the seats in our legislature, while only having 69% of the popular vote (it was 60% in 2011, but Lee Kuan Yew's death and Singapore's 50th anniversary probably helped boost it a bit).
They have no incentive to improve on the voting system, nor do many people in the electorate care. The government gives out annual cash bonuses of approximately $300 [1] to the majority of the population, which seems to appease them a bit.
Edit: I initially said 1965, but it was actually 1959. [2]
But you're being reductive. Countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees without collapsing or becoming autocracies in a single election cycle. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even still widely considered liberal democracies (praising Nazism is illegal in Germany; UK defamation laws impose some of the highest burden of proof on the defendant in the Western world).
The Yellow Vests in France may disagree - for several weeks they were protesting in large numbers, every weekend, and yet their wants and needs haven't really registered in popular awareness. Why is that?
My point hinges on ability to raise awareness of issues, to break into public consciousness with grievances. That's different from espousing a particular political ideology. That doesn't even technically require a liberal democracy, but specifically requires having proper channels for being heard out, and conduct society-wide negotiations. The political facet of freedom of speech.
We here in Europe aren't in need of propagating authoritarian ideologies; that would not help in the least. However there's a growing need to be able to discuss and form consensus on issues of immigration, taxation, and growing worries over the retirement pension systems in the face of shrinking populations. The subjects effectively became tabu in recent years, up to the point of having developed a wide array of euphemisms. There's growing frustration over them.
Right now the subject of immigration is mostly discussed by far right and far left parties and movements. This causes people interested in the subject to drift towards extremes. It should instead be up for discussion - and negotiations - on the political mainstream. The subject by and of itself is orthogonal to political ideology. Suffices to point out that the major political factions, both in USA and in Europe, have repeatedly shifted back and forth on the subject over the recent decades.
• it was inaccurate of me to characterize the UK, Germany, and France as being liberal democracies according to the consensus definition of the term?
• the consensus definition of the term is wrong or bad, and the term should have a different definition that France, or Germany, or the UK wouldn't satisfy?
• something else entirely?
P.S. I also am not sure what it means for the Yellow Vests' wants and needs to have not "really registered". Didn't Macron rapidly rescind the gas tax that initially sparked their anger, and then make a bunch more policy concessions besides?
But you're being reductive. Of course the act of voting itself is meaningless if state doesn't vest power in it, but countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees yet are stable, not in any immediate danger of turning into North Korea, and vest enough legitimacy in their elections as to be widely considered democracies, if illiberal ones. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even still widely considered liberal democracies (praising Nazism is illegal in Germany; UK defamation laws impose some of the highest burden of proof on the defendant in the Western world).
So you can't really judge these different nations based on whether government officials lie to you. They all will, let's just put that on the table and accept it. So you need to judge them based on other things. What other freedoms do you enjoy? How many other freedoms? What is the economic upside? (Lots of freedom with no economic opportunity gets old very fast, just ask the average Kenyan.) etc etc etc.
But, yeah, access to 100% of the facts and truth is not something that most of the world's residents will ever have access to unfortunately.