Before I respond to Mark’s comment, I want to make a few things clear. First, I was talking about the dangers of the simple majority. Obviously, if 90% of Americans think that something should be so there is little, if anything, someone could do to stop them. Also, what I do in public, versus what I do in private are two very different things. I should be given wide latitude to do whatever I wish in the confines of my own home and, especially, in my own head.
Liberties I’ve lost in the last few years:
- It’s now legal for authorities to search my home via a secret, sealed warrant, without my knowledge (violating my right to due process, privacy and a slew of other rights).
- It’s now legal to hold me indefinitely without charges on the sole basis of being a suspected terrorist (violating my right to due process).
- If I were a cheerleader in Texas I couldn’t shake my booty quite as much as I could in other states (violating my right to free speech, or, in this case, my right to shake my booty).
- I can no longer check a book out from the library without the government having access to my reading list (chilling effect on freedom of speech).
- Banks must no report any “suspicious” activity in my bank accounts directly to the government (illegal search and seizure).
- In three years, when the Real ID Act goes into effect, I’ll have to carry around a form of ID that, literally, broadcasts my vital personal information (age, sex, location, photo, signature, etc.) (illegal search and seizure).
If you want to tell the world that Jefferson really hates majoritys, maybe you should question why our political system is based on the representation of the majority. It certainly isn’t the fault of any one party.
Actually, thanks to the Bill of Rights, our system isn’t set up solely on the basis of majority representation. In fact, there is something called “checks and balances”, that was built into the system to prevent this very thing. Just because 51% of Americans think we should make it a crime to speak your mind, doesn’t give the simple majority the right to strike down the First Amendment.
We don’t live within a spread landscape of hundreds of miles between towns spanning state-to-state. We must deal with what we, the people, have decided based on our majority.
This is true. For the most part this is how it works, but if 51% of Americans think that two men holding hands or two girls kissing in public should be outlawed should we make it so? Hopefully, such a law would be struck down as it violates the First Amendment. What if 51% of Americans think it should be illegal to carry a concealed weapon? Again, this violates your Second Amendment rights.
Well how isn’t a no-smoking section a tyrannical-majority? Are all non-smokers now officially biggots because they want to be segregated from those evil smoke-inhaling fiends of Satan?
No, this is a good example of a law that was enacted because smoking does affect the people around you when you are in a public place. I would link to the plethora of studies that support the fact that second-hand smoke is deadly and causes cancer, but I trust we can all use Google here. Also, it should be noted that smoking has been banned within the confines of small places (resturants, bars, etc.) and not in wide open public places (parks, sidewalks, etc.). I would fight any ban on smoking in wide open public places, but I think bans on smoking in, say, airplanes and resturants makes perfect sense.
If your party and ideals were happening, you know you wouldn’t be saying all of this…
Can’t argue here. If a Libertarian was in office I’d be doing a naked jig in the streets of Seattle. We’d have strictly enforced personal rights, a small federal government and we sure as hell wouldn’t be in Iraq. I, however, wouldn’t be any happier if a Democrat was in office.
Yes dramatic effect is fun… but more importantly… we can sensationalize anything you want to pretend is a right given by our fore-fathers. They wanted us to marry brother and brother, smoke weed, drink at 9, hug a tree, and make sure a God-loving man was never President for fear of morality!
Actually, George Washington owned slaves, Thomas Jefferson even banged a few of his slaves and Benjamin Franklin was a natorious womanizer and drunk. In fact, Franklin once said “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.” So I doubt he’d be too happy about our current drinking laws. I should also note that weed was legal until the early 1900’s, but had been in America long before that, so I doubt the Founding Fathers found many problems with weed. Washington was so distraught as a young boy over having killed a cherry tree he confessed to his sins. I’m not sure how they’d feel about gays, but I’m fairly sure they’d recognize that what people do in their own homes is up to them. This is a good place to mention that the reason marriage licenses even exist today was because they were once used to restrict interracial couples from marrying. An absurd though by today’s standards.
I have no problem with a religious man being President as long as he realizes and understands, as Jefferson implied with his use of the word “Creator”, that his God is not the only god and that his morals aren’t the only morals in the country. Our country is a country filled with Muslims, Roman Catholics, Jews and even a few atheists.
My point is if you are unhappy with the government then do something more proactive to change it rather than complain retroactively about the election. The election has come and gone. 3 1/2 more years of this evil tyranny. Creator [not God] save us all from these Tyrannical Christians; who knows, they may keep trying to save babies and prevent planes from flying at our buildings. The horror of it all.
I’m doing what I can. I email/write/call my representatives and I vote. Other than running for office or organizing protests I’m not sure what else I can do. Also, please go and read my post again. Not once did I mention the election nor did I complain about it.
Also, I’m all for saving babies! Babies, despite being annoying and dirty little creatures, they are kind of cute and have their moments of being funny. However, an egg is not a baby in the same way that an egg at the super market is not a chicken. I recognize that we need to define when a fetus is “alive” and use that as a benchmark for abortions. I think a good measure would be the age at which the average featus could survive outside of the womb, although I am not a doctor so I can’t say for sure.
And, as numerous reports and studies are showing, the measures put into place and the billions spent on airport security have not made us significantly more safe in any real way from terrorist attacks such as the ones carried out on 9/11. Making a woman drink her own breast milk does not make us safer.
The mindset that 51% of a population can dictate what the other 49% of the population does is completely insane, which is why we have the Bill of Rights. It’s also why it takes a vote of 3/4 of the states to change The Constitution. I think the current sense of entitlement or that the current administration has a “mandate” is absurd. In my previous post I was merely stating that I find this idea that a minority majority (I won’t say “majority” since less than half the population votes) can rule the rest of the country with total disregard to the Bill of Rights, The Constitution and the thought that the rest of the country doesn’t matter is disgusting. It, also, “doesn’t scale well”.
