pirana6 wrote:
no i'm asking because you say if people in texas don't want people smoking weed, it should be that way everywhere. but in the next line you say if people in california want abortion clinics it shouldn't force everyone to have them
That was a error, meant to type
shouldn't. Sorry.
Jay wrote:
Tyranny of the majority doesn't hold much weight with you? How Progressive.
The founding fathers you hold near and dear were terrified of it which is exactly why we are a Republic, not a Democracy. You, and most everyone else, love mob rule when you agree with it, and call it tyranny when you disagree. So which is it you want? Small government or a government that meddles in peoples private lives? Can't have both.
Not at all. To clarify why I don't believe Tyranny of the Majority to be an issue in America is the fact that the way the founding fathers got around this was
states rights.
EM wrote:
Another major issue I have with that argument is the fact that there is a LARGE difference between not getting what you want and tyranny. Again, if you are a homosexual man in Texas that wants to get married so bad you can't stand it, to the point of feeling that you are being oppressed by a tyrannical state, there is nothing, NOTHING, stopping that man from going to Maine to get married. There is NOTHING stopping that man from going some where of his own choosing that has values more in line with his own.
Tyranny would imply that the man has no course of action to improve upon his perceived oppression. Via states rights he clearly has options, thus eliminating said perceived oppression. The choice on whether or not to act upon his options is solely up to him, but he still has a
choice.
plural tyr·an·nies
Definition of TYRANNY
1: oppressive power <every form of tyranny over the mind of man — Thomas Jefferson>; especially : oppressive power exerted by government <the tyranny of a police state>
2a : a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler; especially : one characteristic of an ancient Greek city-state
b : the office, authority, and administration of a tyrant
3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force <living under the tyranny of the clock — Dixon Wecter>
4: an oppressive, harsh, or unjust act : a tyrannical act <workers who had suffered tyrannies>
Number 2 rings true when you substitute "Federal government" for "single ruler". When the Federal government imposes a law of moral and ethic nature upon the whole of the country it is bound to oppress someone in some manner. The logical counter to this problem is the let the states decide for themselves, based on the wishes of their own local people, how to proceed on a given issue. The Fed's part in that should be the regulation, protection and acknowledgements of those particular decisions. For example if a gay man is married in Maine and resides in Texas, the Fed should be the entity that rules how Texas should or should not acknowledge and recognize that marriage for things that tie into the state level (i.e. tax returns and that sort of thing, whereas most government benefits that spouses inherit from each other already come from the federal level.)