Nebraska Gov. calls for vote on 'fairness' measures

I disagree with the social contract, but that is a bit of a red herring because I was referring to the signing of the constitution and the bill of rights.

 

I was bringing it up by way of analogy. It seems that you are questioning how representative the democracy is. I am saying we might want to be careful about how directly representative we really want it to be.

I for one am worried because I simply don't think that supermajority (or even slight majority) of Americans share the same conception of what moral boundaries we have to observe with respect to each other.

 

(Not sure if you were responding to me Pret, but in the off chance that you were...)

I get that, and I largely agree with Mogget on that point as I made clear. You can run up to me and declare: "I am a free man! I have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" I can simply respond, "Really? That's nice." Then pull out a gun, shoot you dead, and thus it proves that there was no magical barrier of "rights" protecting your life, liberty, or your pursuit of happiness.

I was really trying to make two points.

First, I was pointing out that this is not how the United States functions. It has never functioned this way (and thank goodness for that!). The Founders, in drafting the Constitution, specifically were doing so to protect the rights of minorities. If you look at the Constitution you'll find that - especially in the Bill of Rights - it's about limiting what the government can do. It's about restricting power.

As Mogget points out, in a democracy the power of the government rests in the hands of the majority. So in restricting the power of the government the Constitution is in effect restricting the power of the majority of people.

Just looking at the First Amendment alone makes it pretty clear. Freedom of Speech exists not to protect popular speech, by virtue of the speech being popular in a democracy it is not under threat. It exists to protect unpopular speech; the type of stuff that the majority of people would want to silence.

The same with Freedom of Religion. It exists to protect those who practice unpopular faiths, not those who practice popular faiths. By virtue of being popular in a democracy they are not under threat. And let us assume that they were under threat. That's the beauty of the system - they're protected too.

All of this is what allows us to live in a free and open society with the amount of diversity we have.

Second, was the final point I made at the end. Mogget is expressing the opinion that the power is in the hands of the majority. My point was that this is only superficially true. The real power in a democracy rests in the hands of those who can shape the opinions and thoughts of others. It is sadly very easy to convince the majority of people to vote against even their own interests.

Further, I also pointed out that in addition to those who shape public opinion, power also rests in the hands of those who control or manipulate elected officials. Since we're not a direct democracy we have representatives who carry out the wishes of the public. Since the public doesn't do it directly, the representatives can easily go against their wishes, and certainly as we all know - they often do just that.

Finally, the power to overthrow a government and rule through force always exists. This is not really a danger in the United States, but it certainly exists elsewhere in the world. It is also the entire basis upon which dictatorships are formed. Those who don't like the way things are run and speak up often end up dead, imprisoned, or worse.

 

I agree with you there. I do not think we should delegate more authority to democracy to decide issues. I don't think the government should be involved at all. Delegate the authority to individuals. If everyone in society thinks that gays should not be allowed to be married except two single individuals and makes it illegal through democratic means, that is just as bad as 51% of society making it illegal.

I guess what I am trying to say is that various conceptions of moral boundaries should be allowed to coexist. You shouldn't use democracy to impose the majority opinion on anyone, even if it is just 2 people out of hundreds of millions.