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WOAH SLOW UP!!slavery was outlawed by a constitutional ammendment... meaning that 75% of the people in this country voted to ban slaver...women's voting rights was a constitutional ammendment... meaning that 75% of the people in this country voted to ban slaver...that hsa what to do with the majority not ruling? Seriously... do you pay attention to history?
even in a constitutional republic.. generally the majority rules...if not, the people who overruled the majority are voted out of office and those who agree are put in...so, generally, the majority will/should rule...and yes, Gore kinda won the majority... here's the thing, though:If the vote were to be extended to 100% turnout BY STATE, Bush would have won... that is why the electoral college is in place... }=O)
Wow, the score is now:Smoo: 983,084,716,048,701,283,640,098,740Larry boy: 1I'm feeling the tide has turned.
Wrong. 75% of the people in CONGRESS voted for these ammendments, we have no idea what the popular vote would have been. You have completely missed the point once again. Are you saying that prior to these two ammendments passing that we were justified as a country to have slavery and no equal rights for women since the majority hadn't ruled against them? Sometimes the majority is wrong and there needs to be a strong push to come out of the dark ages and right that wrong.
in other words, if you extend the popular vote out to 100% voter turnout, Gore owuld win, but that wouldn't be accurate because each state had a different level of voter turnout...If you extend voeter turnout state-by-state, then you get the accurate reflection of the votes, according to the electoral college...that is why Bush won, because the states he won had lower turnout than Gore's and it was close (very little less turnout, though...)...
yeah, they do...well, it depends...there are 2 ways to get a constitution passed...1 the people vote on it, 1 they don't...So, yeah, they could have voted on it...and if the majority of the people didn't want this to happen, they wouldn't have voted people into office who wanted it to happen... seriously... that is how it works...If you don't like what they do, don't vote for them... until like 30 years ago (approximately) that's what people did, they didn't vote for parties alone, because there weren't even running mates until like 100 years ago or so... second place was vice president and each party had 2 candidates run (sometimes)...But, hey, you know how other country's politics work WAY better than citizens of that country do, right?
sometimes the majority is wrong, but its better to work at changing to opinion of the majority and then pass something (which is what happened in both of said instances) than it is to force it on the majority (which will NEVER happen)...It takes more than congress just voting on something for an ammendment to be passed... if the people don't want an ammendment to pass, it won't... and we all know it... quit trying to act like congress can pass somehting people hate and nothing will be done about it...
Legislators reflect the will of the people. I think larry boy's point did a good job of countering your allegation that, if left to the will of the people, we'd still have slavery and women wouldn't have suffrage. That's why I gave him the point.If you question my grading any further, I may have to keep you after class.
I'll acknowledge that legislators sometimes act at odds with what the majority of the people want. But I think this happens far less frequently than legislators following the will of the people. Your original claim was that "If the majority ruled, there would still be slavery and women wouldn't be people." Unless you provide more information, I'm not sure how you can conclude that the constitutional amendments you cite were not supported by a majority of the people.Also, larry boy didn't point this out, but presumably the will of the people includes the will of the oppressed people. If slaves were allowed to vote themselves freedom, or women were allowed to vote themselves suffrage, these outcomes would have been overwhelming.
That's not a very good presumption. Put yourself in that time. Blacks and women weren't considered 'people'. That would be like saying today, 'what about the wills of 16-year olds or illegal aliens?' They're not allowed to vote, is their will reflected? Can you truly say it will be that way forever?
I would include the will of 16-year-olds as part of the "will of the people." The fact that they aren't represented in our system merely means that we've chosen other interests (such as weeding out incompetent voters) over democratic interests. As an aside, I don't know where you're getting the idea that women weren't considered people. The fact that they weren't allowed to vote doesn't mean they weren't considered people. Same with black people, although I think your position is slightly stronger in that situation.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. They were considered people that you could own.
But 'people' in this context is generlaly understood to be 'citizens with voting rights'. It is this kind of rule which makes, say, my will irrelevant to US legislators, because I'm not a US citizen. But I'm still 'people'. I'm just not the right 'people'.Women and blacks were not considered free citizens and therefore were not 'people' in this context.
I don't agree. You made a point of saying that blacks and women weren't considered "people." You didn't say "blacks and women couldn't vote." I've never understood the term "people" to refer only to people with voting rights.
When you're talking about 'the will of the people', it does. Does that refer to 'the will of the Brazilian people'? Does it refer to 'the will of the 4-year old people'? 'The will of the dead people'?Of course not. 'The will of the people' is synonymous with 'the will of the voters'.
If we only allow property owners to vote, it will thwart the will of the people.Do you think the sentence above makes logical sense? Because the way you're defining "will of the people," it doesn't.
Some. There are these two Mormon girls that come to our house and try to tell us the evils of getting blood transfusions. They are hot.So, so hot. I let them talk just so they can decorate the room with their presence. Everyonce in a while I pull out the stops and disagree but who am I to make them feel as though they are not welcome?
You should've married both of them.
Now there's a sales pitch. They would get alot more converts that way, I'm sure...Too late for me, though!
He was kilt in a tragic banana straightening accident.But at least his banana is straight, or as straight as he can be.
Is this the shtick roll-out?
Few days anyhow. They don't show the coming attractions for a movie right before it starts.
I just went back to read the last page of the gem of a thread to get a reminder of what was being talked about. This little nugget was gold, though. When was Congressional action ever tempered by an understanding of consequence?
Women are people?
