Aren't most of these Tea Baggers retired? While they were battling against Gov't run Healthcare most of them are on MediCare anyways - shouldn't they be against MediCare too? I wonder how bad they would all howl if that was repealled?
which is why we have a judiciary designed to protect minorities from mob rule.
Actually, the judiciary was designed to protect the large majority -- the unprivileged, the poor, the lower classes -- from dictatorial rule by the small minority -- the wealthy, the privileged, the culturally and intellectually elite.
So if anything, the judiciary is designed to make sure that the minority fulfills the wishes of the majority.
you're thinking in terms of population. it's power vs. powerless, so those with power cannot remove rights from the powerless, no matter how unpopular they might be. numbers are irrelevant here.
Or is there a ceiling above which the voice of the voters shouldn't carry?
Actually, they're not. The revolutionary notion in American politics is that power resides where it should -- with the voters. With individual people who each carry a fundamental voice that deserves to be heard. And if enough of those people agree on a course of action...
Or is there a ceiling above which the voice of the voters shouldn't carry?
the rights outlined in the Constitution?
again, representative democracy isn't mob rule. enough white people could agree that every Thursday is Bash-A-Faggot Day, and even pass a law, and that still wouldn't make it remotely Constitutional.
which is why we have a judiciary designed to protect minorities from mob rule. the unpopular have ever right that the popular do. this isn't high school.
Originally posted by nathan1977
Actually, the judiciary was designed to protect the large majority -- the unprivileged, the poor, the lower classes -- from dictatorial rule by the small minority -- the wealthy, the privileged, the culturally and intellectually elite.
So if anything, the judiciary is designed to make sure that the minority fulfills the wishes of the majority.
I always thought justice was blind so as to rule without regard to power, money or influence.
Oh well.
again, representative democracy isn't mob rule. enough white people could agree that every Thursday is Bash-A-Faggot Day, and even pass a law, and that still wouldn't make it remotely Constitutional.
Aren't most of these Tea Baggers retired? While they were battling against Gov't run Healthcare most of them are on MediCare anyways - shouldn't they be against MediCare too? I wonder how bad they would all howl if that was repealled?
Absolutely. But anyone who confuses or equates the long, slow, laborious process of putting an issue on a ballot, campaigning around said issue, getting the vote out, and winning (or not) an election with mob rule is generally naive. Mobs give no credence to laws or the democratic or legislative process -- they function in spite of (or in angry response to) laws, not because of them.
Didn't the Klan reinforce racist laws which had been given democratic and legislative sanction?
and those long, slow, laborious processes are for naught if the law passed strips someone of rights that are already enumerated in the Constitution.
you're being far too literal about the term "mob rule."
Actually, the Klan had a relatively brief period of popularity in the 1860s -- formed in the South response to the Emancipation Proclamation and the aftermath of the Civil War -- but was virtually extinct by the 1870s, when the federal government began prosecuting them. The Klan didn't return to national prominence until after D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" in 1915, but by 1930 was once again defunct. The third wave of the Klan was created in response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, as well as the Civil Rights Act. They're a great example of what I'm talking about -- a mob that operates outside the law because it doesn't agree with said laws.
the right to vote, and the right to a government that responds to that vote.
The real question you arguing is over whether the current issue of gay marriage is civil rights issue or not.
most Americans get the right to vote on the laws that are before Congress -- we voted on everything from TARP to the invasion of Iraq.
the will of the people is never wrong, because that alone creates reality.
But maybe I have more faith in the voters than you do.
i agree. you appear to think that the will of the voters should trump the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the decisions of the judiciary.
But we're not talking about a situation that has yet been found to trump the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the decisions of the judiciary, are we?
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
“I just don’t see racism in the tea party movement,” said Brendan Steinhauser, director of campaigns for FreedomWorks, which organizes tea party groups. “Racism is something we’re absolutely opposed to.”
when i was in high school, we voted to make all the kids with red hair wear signs that said: KICK ME, I'M A GINGER.
it was awesome.
i mean, some of them cried, but whatever. we voted. and they were only 5% of the population.
You, my friend, went to a fucked up high school.
you should try spending a day in the shoes of a Ginger.