(...)
>since political
>freedom is inseparable from economic freedom. It was always someone
>else's poverty that made it possible, though. "Freedom is
>indivisible," we liked to say in the Yale common rooms.
And yet, what kind of political freedom is it exactly that necessitates a secret ballot? Why do politically free citizens need to skulk into a private room to express their political preference? No, obviously there is no political freedom and yes, for the very reason that political freedom is inseparable from economic freedom. Which only the capitalist class enjoy. Political democracy is not political freedom.
Of course I didn't really make such fine distinctions in my teens either. Though i have always been instinctively repulsed by the notion of a secret ballot. Took me a long time to work out why, that it was the badge of the slave.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas