Romney PLEASE! and NOT Santorum!

Quote:

---

See, when some elected official proposes something completely against our SHARED MORALITY, like invasive ultrasounds before abortions, then the MAJORITY rises up and says I Don't Think So, that official backs down, realizing the MAJORITY of their voting populous doesn't want that.

---

counting on the American majority to rise up seems very weak protection against anything though perhaps all we have (see at bottom I do think it IS all we have!). So yes, *ideally* that is what would happen ... but I don't know in reality I don't see it.

[I sometimes wonder whether this country has ANY shared morality beyond making money - yea that's a cynical quip even for a cynic :)]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by peggy

It's still majority rule. it has to be. When we vote on something, the only logical outcome is, what the majority votes for is what we have. Well, now that corporations are people (admittedly with a ton of money and power no individual has) it is becoming the golden rule. The one with the gold, rules! Which is kind of how strict constitutionalists seem to want it. They really don't want the unwashed masses to have a voice.
I guess I don't understand your argument/objection to majority rule. How exactly do you propose we make laws, decide policy, etc..? See, when some elected official proposes something completely against our SHARED MORALITY, like invasive ultrasounds before abortions, then the MAJORITY rises up and says I Don't Think So, that official backs down, realizing the MAJORITY of their voting populous doesn't want that. Do some think that procedure is just fine and dandy? Sure, Santorum for one, but the majority said no, so it won't happen. Just as the majority wouldn't allow the reversal of row v wade, or the first amendment, etc..

---

It's not an objection to majority rule so much as the instant yielding to transient political passions in the limits it puts on what the majority, through its elected representatives has the right to rule on (all that "Congress shall make no law" and "shall not be abridged" stuff). This is what progressives complain about as outmoded when they get thwarted. Sure, ultimately a large enough majority can eliminate a given freedom by amending the Constitution, as they did with Prohibition; but it takes time and trouble enough to slow the process down and allow a bit more rational thinking.

There's no such thing as shared morality. We aren't ants. There are many competing moral visions, spiritual, secular and ideological that need to be balanced against one another. The framers understood that, and provided a political operating system that both mitigated against foolish changes driven by some temporary zeitgeist, and in limiting the power of government to rule at all in certain areas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore

counting on the American majority to rise up seems very weak protection against anything though perhaps all we have (see at bottom I do think it IS all we have!). So yes, *ideally* that is what would happen ... but I don't know in reality I don't see it.

[I sometimes wonder whether this country has ANY shared morality beyond making money - yea that's a cynical quip even for a cynic :)]

---

That is kind of cynical! ;) But it does work, eventually. Sometimes it takes a while, like civil rights, women's rights, but it does work. It's what we have.
This is what I mean by our shared morality directing our actions. Morality isn't an external thing possessed by man from the beginning of time. It's only through the evolution of man have we developed morality, and each society chooses the level of their morality. Even the basic morality of 'don't kill your neighbor for his stuff', something all men the world over share, was once ok. Might makes right. But we, thankfully have evolved from that.
Maybe it's arrogant, I don't think so, but most of the world, certainly the civilized world, recognizes the Taliban morality as faulty morality, but it's their morality. And they believe just as strongly in stoning a woman that shows her knees in public, as Santorum believes in the immorality of birth control. But just as a Taliban leader couldn't lead here, Santorum can't lead here because we, Americans, decided/know that birth control isn't immoral, and in fact helps to curb the number of abortions, which no one is really for, but we do want it kept legal. So the majority does rule. And it will work, cause we won't let Santorum outlaw birth control or abortions. Congress really doesn't live in a bubble, and the only thing that tops their greed for donors (and pandering to them) is their fear that the majority will rise up and kick their butts out.
This is why those statesmen who proposed the invasive ultra sound have backed down, quickly. This is why gay marriage is coming on, state by state. This is why we have/are pulling out of Iraq. Public (the majority) pressure.

Don't be discouraged, it does work. Sometimes slow, but it does work. Of course for those who think that invasive ultra sound is a good idea, and that gays should stay locked in a closet, or women shouldn't use birth control, or vote even, it's not working. I'm sure to those people we have lost our morals. But those people are in the minority, and despite the wishes of some, we don't let the minority make policy, thank goodness. But also, for those people, we share the belief that people have free will. No one is going to make them use birth control, or have an abortion.

To tell you the truth, I get a little tired of people saying we have lost our morals/way. Especially when they use it as a political hook and are referring to universal health care or something like that. No one ever asks them to give an example of our lost morals, and if they do try to expand on it, they bring up something like taxes or something equally goofy. We are a very moral nation, as it turns out. We are kind and generous, and offer the best freedoms in the world. We won't make you use birth control if you don't want to, or limit the size of your family, we won't make you stand and pray to one god at public meetings, and you have the freedom to succeed wildly, (or fail spectacularly). And it's because we don't have a small ruling class that decides our fate against the wishes of the majority. Sometimes it seem that way, but the correction comes, eventually.