I have been bogged down doing a dairy entry using Scalia's dissent on gay marriage with technical problems. (I am having problems with the block quote and my 'live writing' style and having things in an orderly manner. In the meantime, this is a short dairy on what I call 'false premise' or inaccurate assumptions. let me explain.
As I hear all the talk about this last week of the SCOTUS decisions, both in the dissents as well as in just about all genres of opinions. What ever you call it, it is making a statement based upon the assumed definition of a term. I sometimes refer to this principle of false logic as a context change. I am referring to the use of a word that is incomplete or simply has more than one definition and one of the definitions is used or implied in an argument to prove that the application of the other definition is correct or incorrect.
In the past week I have heard numerous references to how the court decisions are unconstitutional or an affront to or an attack on democracy in America.
The term I am referring to here is "democracy". Contrary to common belief, we are NOT a democracy. Well, we are democratic in our concept. We vote on things and that is democratic, but the problem here is "what is the definition of democracy? If you use Boolean algebra, you could say that "democracy" is the big set of things that qualifies something to be democratic but that is a rather large set of conditions and since we have a Constitution, we are not just a simple democracy.
We are more accurately a "Constitutional Democracy" and that is something different. It ruffles my feathers to hear statements about how our democracy is threatened because the result does not coincide with the "will of the people" which would be true if we were a "pure democracy" but is NOT true when applied to a Constitutional Democracy.
If we were a pure democracy, we probably would not still be a nation as we know it. I don't know of any true pure democracies that are in existence currently in the world. If there is, their days are probably numbered. I believe that at one time Ancient Greece had a pure democracy and is by some considered the birthplace of our democracy. Well, its not the recent economic problems that led to thefall of Greece as the world leader in ancient times. Their earlier demise was because they had a pure democracy. That was an experiment and we don't have any pure democracies today because they do not work.
If it is not apparent by now, consider using Bloom's Taxonomy to increase your levels of critical thinking.
In a pure democracy, the majority rules. Do you see it yet? No? Well, consider what would happen if Congress, for example, would be controlled by a majority that did not have the best interest of the American People as their prime objective! With the majority, they could change the laws in such a manner that they would ALWAYS have a majority!
Yes. In a pure democracy, congress could just make laws willy nilly that were prejudiced against whoever they disagreed with. They could basically do what ever they want because they had the simple majority. And yes, they could, per example, pass laws to regulate who could and could not vote. They could perpetuate their majority and rule forever. How could you usurp them? You don't have the majority. You don't make the rules.
Do we know of any country that operates like that?
I also hear a lot of talk about what our "fore fathers" that wrote the Constitution really meant when they wrote the Constitution. Well, (lol) didn't they write the Constitution?
Does that give you a hint of what I am talking about?
The drafters of our Constitution seems to have had more understanding of what the problems of democracy can potentially lead to its downfall than the current crop of pseudo constitutional critics seem to understand.
Part of the constitution defines the rights of citizens. Part of it protects the minority from having their rights usurped by the majority and part of it creates checks and balances to keep everything in the Bill of Rights in balance for ALL Americans by giving us the House where the people elect in a simple majority based upon population. (pure democracy) They have the senate which gives business and the rich States Rights equality as each state no matter how large or small has equal votes by state. (not quite as pure). We have the Presidential electoral college which combines the equal votes of people by states to elect the president which combines the Senate and House representations in another not so pure democratic format. And then we have a set of Judges that are appointed by the President and ratified by the Senate.
In case you have not followed this, it all is part of why we are a CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY! The framers of the Constitution KNEW that a pure democracy would not work so they created through much debate and compromise the Constitution of the United States of America.
So when the Judges of SCOTUS makes an interpretation or ruling, it is the law of the land pure and simple. It is not Unconstitutional it IS the Constitution! I don't agree with all of their decisions. (take Citizens United for example) but it is the law of the land until Congress finds a Constitutional way to bypass it, or until the SCOTUS rules differently.
Without the Supreme Court, we have no Constitution. There would be no recourse if Congress passed a bill that, for example, took away our right to bare arms! If liberals took control in a Pure democracy, a simple majority would make that law. No GUNS.
Continue below the fold.
Now, if Congress used their power to pack the court with judges that are seated for life to insure partiality who would rule to vote their biases instead of following logic and the Constitution guidelines, then even though it is difficult, they should be replaced. This is probably even more difficult than the other option of amending the constitution which is difficult, but our Founding Fathers made both of these conditions difficult because they knew very well that changing the checks and balances would be opening the door to the same problems as having a pure democracy.
The point here is that if you think about it, our forefathers knew very well that a pure democracy is not good and would not last. Yes, we have a few problems with their "experiment" of the constitutional democracy, but it has served us for quite a long while and we have survived a civil war, two world wars and have amended our constitution as well as our interpretation ( that is the SCOTUS aspect again) of the constitutionality standard. Its not perfect, but it IS what we have.
If you look closely, you will see that the problems we actually have are related to the attempt to mess with the balance.
If, for example, there were enough money to buy politicians at the state level to create laws that violated the constitution in favor of a specific demographic, the SCOTUS would be overworked with cases and the process would be overworked and open to being swayed by public opinion.
If the Senate would be influenced by some to only confirm nominations to the court that would follow particular agendas, then we would be in trouble.
If the House was under the influence, then we would have federal laws that would only reflect the wishes of a minority of Americans and this would be not an attack on the mythical pure democracy but it would be an attack on our Constitutional Democracy and this is why I get upset.
Those that say sharing rights with ALL Americans is an attack on our democracy are using false logic to justify their belief that the Constitution of the United Stated are only for the ones in the current majority are the only ones that are indeed attacking our Constitutional Democracy. They only want the Constitutional rights to apply to THEM and if they don't see a group of people as being equal to them, then they want their PURE Democracy to rule and to say that the court's giving those 'other people' the benefits of the Constitution is an attack on democracy.
This is why we need to be educated to understand the tactics of the greedy people that want it all for themselves and forget about those that are in the minority. Their quest to take the Constitution out of our Democracy are the real threat to our democracy.
To the upcoming cases to clutter the courts claiming that, for example, the individual public servants issuing marriage certificates have the right not to do their job is unconstitutional. If you work for the government it is your duty to do your job and to enforce the law of the land as defined by the Supreme Court. When they say it, it is the law of the land. If you don't want to be the enforcer of the laws then don't take the job.
It also applies to those that claim they have the right to not do business with those that they disagree with while they are operating a business that uses the public roads, police, fire departments, military protection and all the other services that are part of America like social Security and medicare, health care (as minimal as that is) do not have to believe that their customers are equal to them in citizen status in their private lives are simply wrong. They have no right to take away someone else's rights because they don't like their lifestyle. No one is saying that they have to marry an LBGT. No one is saying that they have to have an abortion. No one is saying that anyone HAS to do anything and no one is saying that they can't hate gays or Blacks or Hispanics or anyone, they are only being told by the Constitutional opinions of the US of A that they have to afford the same rights to EVERYONE and they don't get to choose if they have a job that enforces or denies rights to the customers or users of services guaranteed to ALL Americans. If they want to live in America and use the services provided to Americans then they have to follow the law and they do NOT get a bye on following the Constitution. If they want to play, they have to play by the rules. If they can't follow the Constitution, they can go into another business or move to a country that allows discrimination.
Thank you for reading.
Lezi