In dicatorships there is no opportunity to speak out.
I get why democracy has to be indirect when it comes to many complicated, interconnected issues but things like free speech laws, abortion laws, public decency laws, smoking bans etc. should all be decided in a direct vote (repeated every N years). As it is we often have a situation where significant majority have a different view but a small strong group is able to influence the law. It's not a democracy but a farce in my view.
I especially like Nevada's -- a majority in two successive general elections.
Sustainable democracy needs a jury nullification-like direct popular escape catch to solve legislatively-intractable issues (term limits, party primaries, redistricting, etc).
[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Initiated_constitutional_amendment
Wikileaks' Julian Assange is perhaps the archetypal recent example, but there are others.
Westminster has undergone a violent authoritarian shift in recent decades. Stating that clearly is a prerequisite to beginning a fight for "democracy", as you put it.
But Julian Assange is not a good example, for many reasons. He didn't just criticise the government. He broke laws. Maybe for good reason.
Are there any examples in the UK of people being jailed for simply criticising the government? Excluding hate speech and civil disobedience?
Why would you exclude civil disobedience, one of the primary means by which you protest government?
There is always opportunity to speak out.
In dictatorships, it usually costs more energy, money and sometimes lives. It tends to culminate in revolutions, and then the system changes.
In censored quasi-democracies like what we see in "the west", it tends to culminate in being ignored and the status quo being maintained or gradually worsened. Alternatively, you may become a pariah and either have to self-exile [0] or suffer years of isolation and torture [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Asylum_applicat...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Imprisonment_in...
First, I don't really consider what exists in "the west" as actual democracies. They are oligarchies or autocracies disguised as democracies instead. They've always been that, only now it's becoming more obvious.
> the dictatorship is then better
No, not at all. But it does have a clear path toward something better. This doesn't make it better, but it is a silver lining.
> Why couldn't then a democracy have a revolution as well
It could, but more frequently what happens are coups - and they descent into authoritarianism. Or the authoritarians get elected.
> And how's all this black and white thinking, like because democracy is not perfect, dictatorship becomes suddenly acceptable???
I definitely didn't say or think that.
The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
But they were not prosecuted for voicing their opinions.
There is no switch front democracy to dictatorship, there is a transition.
> Democracy requires that we fight for it. Otherwise it will disappear.
You are commenting on an article which critiques these laws. It's not the first either. So what you're saying is demonstrably nonsense.
I do! I wish more people would.