Subject:
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Re: National vote on handguns?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 23 Jul 2001 14:03:41 GMT
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Viewed:
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703 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> I asked about this before: http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=11852
> but I wanted to clarify your answer. Specifically, would you support
> "starting over" with new laws even if those laws ultimately conflicted
> (perhaps diametrically) with your own views?
I support the process, but reserve the right to bolt if I don't like the
outcome...
> And, in addressing the 75% majority vote, what about an ethnic or
> demographic or cultural or religious minority comprising less than 25% of
> the voting populace? How, in a straight vote-from-scratch-on-everything
> system, do we prevent the 75% majority from making, for instance, Wicca a
> capital offense?
This is my problem with this proposal as well. I think you have to have
basic rights that are much harder to revoke than just majority rule. I've
said it before, unfetterered majority rule scares me.
>
> > > > Me, I'd love to see a constitutional convention. We've never had one of
> > > > those. It would give a chance for wholesale change to the constitution
> > > > rather than one amendment at a time change.
>
> Sponsored, no doubt, by Texaco and Philip Morris. While a constitutional
> convention might be nice for an end-run around the mechanisms for a balance
> of power, it's also a fantastic way to sequester the decision-making process
> from any sort of public review, accountability, or influence. We could
> easily, in theory, wind up with a unilateral ban on civilian use of
> gunpowder weapons, a 95% income tax, and a small body of rulers-for-life.
> If you (the general "you") worry about government corruption and the sapping
> of civil liberties under the current system, I can't imagine why you (again,
> the general "you") would want to give even greater power with even less
> accountability to the same guvmint you seem to fear.
Not sure that you get this outcome without an intermediate ratification
process or that the deliberations would be held in secret, either. But ya,
I'm tossing out ideas without any strong anchor in how to get them to happen.
++Lar
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: National vote on handguns?
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| (...) "Bolt" in what sense? "Support(ing) the process" entails living with the outcome (though I can understand moving to a different country). (...) Ancient Greece. Good example of the tyrany of the majority. I'm with you on this one. (...) And (...) (23 years ago, 23-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: National vote on handguns?
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| (...) I asked about this before: (URL) I wanted to clarify your answer. Specifically, would you support "starting over" with new laws even if those laws ultimately conflicted (perhaps diametrically) with your own views? And, in addressing the 75% (...) (23 years ago, 23-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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