About that gay marriage thing?
Nov. 18th, 2003 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasFrom CNN.com
Connie Mackey of the conservative Family Research Council criticized the ruling, saying it was "a clear case of the courts overruling the majority opinion of the people."
From James Madison, in Federalist #51:
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
Alexis de Toqueville:
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority,
Oh, and does this, from the same chapter, remind you of anybody?
"I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy: despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the king often has great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that American courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty," a distinction without a difference. They are forever talking of the natural intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate the question which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues without having acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing are too superior to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of their temper for an instant. We should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter more dexterously."
One of the specific purposes for which courts were set up in the United States is to overrule the majority opinion of the people. Majority rule, or pure democracy, is also called "mobocracy."
Connie Mackey of the conservative Family Research Council criticized the ruling, saying it was "a clear case of the courts overruling the majority opinion of the people."
From James Madison, in Federalist #51:
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
Alexis de Toqueville:
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority,
Oh, and does this, from the same chapter, remind you of anybody?
"I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy: despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the king often has great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that American courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty," a distinction without a difference. They are forever talking of the natural intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate the question which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues without having acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing are too superior to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of their temper for an instant. We should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter more dexterously."
One of the specific purposes for which courts were set up in the United States is to overrule the majority opinion of the people. Majority rule, or pure democracy, is also called "mobocracy."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 10:32 am (UTC)John Adams is the person who set up the Massachusetts court system. He was perfectly aware of the opinion that Connie Mackey expresses -- and set up the Massachusetts courts to fight it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 10:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 11:12 am (UTC)yep. that may be true. and it was true when the miscengenation and segregation laws were repealed too.
n.
glad for the ruling!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 11:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-18 04:30 pm (UTC)random thoughts
Date: 2003-11-19 12:59 am (UTC)One reason many people objected to civil rights decisions and legislation (or at least, why they claimed to) was not because of racism as such, but because of states' rights. So yes, they say, the racism was wrong, but the federal government should not have taken control from the states in dealing with it. So they would reject the comparisons being made.
But, this is a state court that issued the ruling. States' rights are intact. And if it went to SCOTUS, and they reversed it, then you would have the federal government overruling the states. As you indeed have with the whole "defense of marriage" crap (what a friend of mine called the "defense of incumbency act").