i actually agree! look at prop 8 in california. it's a mess that only the voting public can make.

your premise is flawed. we leave everything to the agreement of half of the elected representatives and/or voters.

hahaha... good post.. makes me smile... :lol:

Especially in leather and a nice little evening make-up...

Leather and make up are usually for formal events. A romp in the barn is usually the best.

not how it works
 

I'll resist the great temptation to discuss whether America is actually a democracy (it all depends on how you define the word). Instead, I want to explain the "tyranny of the majority." This phrase was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville, who in 1835 published a book titled Democracy in America that is one of the finest works of sociology and political science ever. Tocqueville, a Frenchman, traveled throughout what then comprised the United States to study the unique republic in which the French were so interested.

The concept of the "tyranny of the majority" comes from ancient Greece. It is why we have the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In essence, this concept recognizes that the rights citizens enjoy in the republic should not be subject to the approval of the majority. It is a fundamental tool in protecting the rights of minorities. And it is enforced by not allowing votes on questions of rights.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes subverted. Any time voters are given an opportunity to decide, by majority rule, on whether a given group should have fundamental rights taken away, it raises the specter of the "tyranny of the majority."

Keep in mind that the 14th Amendment was enacted just a few short years after the U.S. Civil War ended, and it was targeted specifically at the "tyranny of the majority" -- white people -- in the South. Many of the ex-Confederate states adopted so-called "Black Codes" after the war with the express purpose of denying rights to former slaves.

In America, we are not supposed to vote on rights. They are guaranteed.

mr. macaque writes that "if more than half of the electorate defines marriage" in a certain way, "then that's that". I wonder whether he would be so enamored of "American democracy" if there was a vote on whether he had the free speech right to post on a website called Trans Ladyboy Forum.

i wish that were true, but in reality, it is not. forty states have either a constitutional ban on gay marriage or legislated laws against gay marriage. if the ep clause of 14th amendment applied to all kinds of marriages, then all forty states' laws would have been stuck down via the supremacy clause. so far, they haven't been. i think in our lifetimes laws restricting same sex marriage will viewed as unconstitutional by the courts, just not thus far.

it's my personal opinion that courts follow public opinion closely, even lag behind it. hence, what really matters is what you call the tyranny of the majority, because even though the constitution is broad in the rights that it gives, it's applied very unevenly.

clarification
 

I did not mean to imply that we have guaranteed rights everywhere, or that we have all the rights we should have. Rather, I was only describing what is supposed to be the modelfor the provision of rights: that they be guaranteed when granted, and not subject to the whims of the (prejudiced) electorate.