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Edited on Wed Sep-13-06 02:08 PM by originalpckelly
1: Freedoms, liberties, and majority rule are not used to solve problems, but to inflame difference. The last grasps of such a society/government involve tyranny of the majority, with no respect for minority rights, widespread politically/culturally motivated violence, and eventually full-blown civil war.
2: Freedoms, liberties, and majority rule are used to deescalate tensions and close the differences between factions in a nation. The factions involved in this style of democracy realize compromise is a wiser approach to tyranny of the majority. They compromise because while they The faction that makes up the majority realizes they can become a minority with one election and therefore is motivated to compromise. The minority realizes that the present majority can simply ignore their opinions if they do not wish to compromise. The same forces that force them to compromise also force them to make reasonable requests. These are stable democracies.
In the past few years our country has gone from being a cooperative-compromise-results oriented democracy, to one where the majority rules without any regard to the minority. I write because of comments I saw in response to a question: “Should if the Democrats win in 2006 the House/Senate, PULL ABC license?” I am worried that the trend of the past few years, which has occurred under a Republican majority, may continue even when/if Democrats take back the House/Senate. That would doom our nation to that fate I talked about earlier. That fate is the one Iraq will have if the fundamental structure of that nation is not changed. I don't want to have these sorts of things happen in America.
Now admittedly these sorts of things won't happen overnight, but I can guarantee that without significant change in our direction towards a tyranny of the majority that they will happen.
We need to be responsible. Getting even may feel good in the short run, but it will doom our nation in the long run.
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