From: Laws, David (lawsd@magic.dcrt.nih.gov)
Date: Tue Apr 15 1997 - 19:40:58 MDT
This is the dilemma . When does 'protection of the minority' infringe
upon the 'rights of the majority'? In the US the minority often imposes
laws over the majority. When does ANY belief system ('religion' or
government) start taking on aspects of dictatorship? How do we prevent
it?
My opinion is that it happens when laws are passed based on emotion
rather than NOT being passed because logicially it doesn't make sense.
When emotion becomes the main issue then common sense has been
abandoned. This is because one side cannot convince enough of the
population in a logical manner that the one side is right, so emotion is
appealed to. Many completely idiotic things can be made law based on
emotion. Logically they make no sense.
When ANY group appeals to emotion enough to start making the majority
start agreeing with it based on emotion then emotion becomes the driving
force. 'Don't THINK, FEEL!'. You can get widely seperate groups
agreeing based on a narrow emotion where if individually you thought out
the consequences of such action you'd totally reject it.
There are several laws in the US that remind me of this:
(The dumbest I can think of is the current possibility of it becoming
illegal to burn the US flag. A totally emotional thing. I care about
how the banks are screwing me, I don't give a rat's ass about Joe Blow
burning the US flag. Does congress really think flag burning is a wide
spread activity? How many people will it involve? Certainly nowhere
near the folk being screwed by their 'friendly local bank'!)
Abortion is kinda legal. However, if the mother wants an abortion the
fetus is considered tissue and can be aborted. If the mother does NOT
want an abortion the fetus is considered a human.Law: In the US if
you're involved in an accident that causes the spontaneous abortion and
death of an unborn infant you can be sent to jail for involuntary
manslaughter, even though BY LAW, the unborn infant can be considered
'tissue'. Emotions are involved. (Amazingly, this 'manslaughter' law
was NOT passed until abortion became legal!)
'Drunk driving is illegal'. This is based purely on blood alcohol
content (BAC).
In the US 50% of all traffic deaths involves at least one driver having
an 'illegal' BAC. This is appealed to in the courts and legislatures.
This TOTALLY assumes you can't add and deduce you're as likely to be
killed by a sober driver as one who has been drinking! (I'm sure there
IS a percentage of traffic deaths due solely to drinking, but it is
nowhere near 50%.) In other words, according to the statistics it's
'How you drive more than what you imbibe' because if you drive like an
idiot sober you'll drive like an idiot after drinking. However,
EVERYONE who drinks and drives is considered a criminal, even though YOU
might be safer on the road with a BAC of .1 over some fool who
disreguards all common sense and drives aggressively (and WILL
eventually kill someone) and has a BAC of .00. Some fanatics will argue
'but the none drunks had mechanical failures or driving conditions were
bad or ...... The idiocy about this is that when ANY driver that has
been drinking (BAC over .00) is involved in an accident the mechanical
or driving conditions are disreguarded. In fact, even if the drinking
driver IS NOT AT FAULT he/she IS CONSIDERED AT FAULT just because he/she
has been drinking! How logical is that? It's the emotion of the 'evil
drunk driver' that encourages such law. Remember, logic has no bearing.
We have been appealed to emotionally that drinking causes death when
the statistics themselves prove it's driving habits (US anyway). I
guess US citizens will only understand this when it's illegal (AGAIN) to
consume alcohol and 100% of all traffic deaths are due to sober drivers
who drive like idiots, or we realise the reduction of traffic deaths is
due more to the fact that automobiles themselves are safer and are the
major cause of reduced deaths rather than a criminalization of drinking.
US:
The Constitution guarantees 'freedom of speech'...included to allow any
citizen to speak out against the government.
In the 19-teens or 1920's the 'Un-American Law' was passed (by those in
power which BTW had also passed laws requiring a certain percentage of
the population wanting you to before you could even be considered
elligible for election...in other words, 'everyone was elligible' was
taken away, you had to belong to an accepted 'political party' (group of
"TRUE BELIEVERS") instead of what you believed in) of which allowed the
state to arrest anyone speaking out against the government. Many of the
Americans who loved democracy AND America were arrested in the 1960's
using this law (and by the way, still are).
What scares me most is most people have given into the emotional thing
(when the HELL were we brainwashed?) and allow such things.
Oh, don't forget, there are VERY FEW (if any) democracies in the world,
most (including the US) are republics (YOUR vote means squat, the person
you voted for vote means EVERYTHING and he/she generally cares about
him/her-self in his/her political power game).
I won't even go into the educational system.
-drl
>-----Original Message-----
>Of course, this allows a relatively simple solution. Destroy the power of
>the majority to impose their will on the minority by destroying government.
> Unfortunately, that will not happen until some libertarians, hopefully of
>the anarcho-capatalist breed, gain control of the schools through massive
>amounts of money. I suspect that, given that society continues on its
>present course this could take quite a long time (my children would be
>dead).
>
>Dan Hook
>guldann@ix.netcom.com
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:22 MST