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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> I honestly am a little confused by people who state they are 'anti-Fascist', but then excuse rioting over.. results of a democratic election? What's the alternative?

The US federal system of elections is not democratic, and even if it were, democracy is necessary for, but not sufficient to, a government which is in accord with the rights of the people. Popular tyranny remains tyranny, and its victims are no less justified in resisting.

Now, you can argue that the outcome these people fear would not actually be a tyranny, but that's a different argument than that your apparent argument that not submitting to a democratic output irrespective of its content is equivalent to fascism.

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A functional democracy requires that all parties agree to abide by the result of the election and peaceful transfer of power.

Endorsing violent resistance is the opposite of that.

Technically yes, but a functioning democracy requires that the election itself be democratic in the first place.

As a simple example, which has happened countless times in dictatorships: if Party X arrests all the candidates from opposition parties, then people who abide by the results of the election and the peaceful transfer of power from one member of Party X to another are in no way supporting a functional democracy. They are doing quite the opposite.

(And yes, as the other reply pointed out, almost all democracies in the world can point to their foundation in bloodshed. At some point you had to transfer power away from the undemocratic regime previously in power, and they usually were not willing to be peaceful about it. Meanwhile, a desire to preserve peace in the face of a growing unsympathetic-to-democracy party who's gaining power for now through democratic means is the backstory of many of the times democracy has been lost.)

> A functional democracy requires that all parties agree to abide by the result of the election and peaceful transfer of power.

(1) A functional democracy also requires a Democratic electoral system.

(2) A functionally-democratic tyranny is not better than the absence of functional democracy.

(3) But it's usually better than a functional elective anti-democratic tyranny, which is what you have when you have the feature you describe as necessary for functional democracy is present, but neither respect for the rights of the people beyond participation in elections nor elections on democratic lines are present.

So, yes, the condition you pay out is necessary (but not at all sufficient) for functioning democracy, but not in all cases (even where the other conditions for functional democracy are present) desirable.

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