🚀 go-pugleaf

Kyler Laird <laird@pier.ecn.purdue.edu> wrote in article
<5h7ea3$csu@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>...
>  [snip]
> >> an4899@anon.nymserver.com wrote:
> >> > If our government where reduced to an essence we would find:
> >> > It's not within the power of the government to regulate the people
in a
> >> > way that they do not want to be regulated. It is also not within the
> >> > power of the government to resist the people in regulating it in any
> >      way they want to.
> 
> O.k., put my name on it if you need to do so just to
> consider the idea.  (Hopefully I wouldn't have
> misspelled "w(h)ere", though.)  I'd also throw out
> the "our" in "our government."
> 
> I'd qualify it, though.  It's certainly not true in
> the short term.  I think it should generally hold in
> the long term, though.
> 
> Maybe not.  It's still worth considering and
> discussing sensibly - not just ridiculing.
> 
> --kyler

Even in serious debate some ideas cry out
for ridicule.  The notion that government
has no "power" to regulate people in 
ways they don't like is one of them. The
issue is whether, in any given circumstance, 
the exercise of that power is lawful and just.  

The essence of government is regulation, 
and the reason for regulation is
that people can't be trusted to behave "properly,"
by society's current definition, on their own. 
Whenever you regulate someone, it's in a
way that they don't want.  If someone makes 
money polluting, he doesn't want to be told 
not to pollute, or to clean up his mess.  If one
wants to drive faster than 55 (or 65 or whatever),
she doesn't want the regulation that says she can't.
No, you can't just walk in a store and take that jacket
without paying, even though you might want to.  
No, you can't walk down the street smoking that joint.  
Yes, the government does have the "power" to regulate 
you in these or thousands of other ways, even to the point
of suspending 14 year old girls from school 
because they pop a Midol.  The alternative to
regulation, wanted or not, is chaos, where the
predators do as they like at the expense of the victims.
But how far do you go in imposing order on chaos?
Hitler thought he knew, and so did Stalin.

Except where prohibited by the Constitution, which
is designed in significant part to prevent the majority
(flavor of the day) from tyrannizing minorities,
the government has the "power" to impose
its regulations by criminal or civil penalties.
Powers of the "people" to regulate the 
government (and this term assumes erroneously 
that there is some unified body called the "people") 
are extremely limited.  They vote for their
representatives, who may or may not attempt
to ascertain some mandate from the competing 
interests making up their constituencies and
vote accordingly.  The "people" vote only indirectly
for the President.  They do not vote at all
for most other officials charged with enforcing
the law, with drafting many "regulations" that
comprise it, and with exercising the judicial
power to interpret the law.  Apart  from voting,
the "people" can resist regulation only through
judicial challenge (a long, expensive and often
unrewarding process) or civil disobedience, 
which will land them in jail.  So the government 
does have plenty of leeway to disregard or resist groups 
who object to the manner or lack of regulation.
Witness advocates and opponents of abortionist
rights, prayer in the schools, gay marriage etc.
The list goes on and on.

Of course there never has been a "people" that was
unified in its viewpoint on any given issue.  That's
the beauty of a democracy which attempts some
balance between competing views, and attempts,
often successfully, to prevent the competition from
being skewed by a dominant group which misuses its
power to squelch the voices of its opposition, or
to impose its mores, values and religion(s) on others
who believe differently.  There's always someone
claiming to have the "real truth," maybe God's 
truth, but history has consistently proven such
persons to be wrong.  Remember it was once
heresy, punishable by death,  to advocate a round 
planet or an earth that revolved around the sun.

Currently, science is starting to explain homosexuality
in physiological and genetic ways which contradict
notions that gays somehow, by merely existing and
following their feelings, become evil corrupters of
innocents who would otherwise grow into good clean
Ozzies and Harriets.  Still, supposedly Christian people
persist in their Crusades (funny how Jesus' teachings
of love and forgiveness have been perverted in
the name of so much killing) to stamp out this and 
any other evil that threatens their complacent belief 
in the one clear Truth.  If others who think differently 
are right, need these good family types be wrong? 
Of course not, but then how do they explain to their 
kids that the these issues are not so simple? They 
don't want that burden, so the result is what started 
this thread (from which we have strayed a long way):  
discrimination and oppression against those who are 
different, simply because they are different.  

To me that's not the American Way enshrined in the
Constitution, but it certainly is the American Way
enshrined in our history, which is replete with
harsh oppressions of various disfavored groups.
That's why we need the Constitution.  That's why,
on a personal and social, rather than legal plane,
we need to take comfort in the rightness our own 
choices, for us, without feeling threatened by different
choices made by others.  Because humans have a
frightening compulsion (and talent) for exterminating 
everything that makes them feel threatened, 
whether the threat is real or not.  Maybe he best
way to defeat that compulsion is to recognize 
it as the real threat, and then let our nature take its course.

Jim Neale