Majority rule is a sound principle but our American political tradition does include some departure, some mitigation, of the possibly unjust consequences of the application of this principle. A very good example is to be found in the 2016 election. The Electoral College was established in part to empower those sometimes vast areas lacking intense population to resist the inevitable tyranny of extensively settled areas. It did its work in preventing Hillary Clinton from riding the assured support of the teeming NY and California lala lands to dominance over the benighted real America.
Now a Manhattan based NY State Legislator introduces a bill to outlaw all firearms competition and training in NY state schools. It contributes to the "gun culture " she sniffs with the assumption that that verity condemns it out of hand. My guess is that if she came to a meeting of a rod and gun club in my common sense area of her state that she would freak. There is only one way to deal with that breed of disdainful bigot; you must overpower them; they are beyond persuasion. "I don't know from Buffalo and I don't cayah!" We may still retain the power in the NYS Senate to do so sometimes, barely, but we may not have it much longer. One maverick Democrat Party senator is our only present hope. As my Senator puts it, "those NYC area lawmakers (executive, legislative and often judicial) can usually stop anything we want and we often cannot stop anything they want - they have the numbers". In effect, after elections, those of us in the Southern Tier , the vast North Country and most of the rural counties of NY State are dictated to by downstate, which has a culture very much different from ours. Is that democracy?
We are far more like Pennsylvania or the midwest and even the serious consideration of such a bill is a spectacle virtually impossible in that real America. When an area with an identifiable culture is dominated by another, only because it cannot outvote it, especially one with values inimical to its own, what redress does it have? Separation of the generally conservative upstate into its own state has been proposed in our legislature and has gone nowhere. Apparently downstate wants to keep us in thrall. Three thoughts occur to me:
The legal history of the past division of states (eg. West Virginia) would be worth reexamining . Perhaps it provides or exemplifies a procedure applicable to our dilemna. Maybe a Constitutional challenge (Equal Protection?) would "go good". Also considerable would be negotiations on a partially autonomous status for upstate New York. If we can determine what factor motivates downstate to swallow its gorge and continue to be seen in public with us, we may be able to trade it for a policy of "benevolent" detachment on social issues. Think I'm being too hard on them? Consider the withering contempt displayed by that quintessential "New Yawka" Andrew Cuomo for the values which inform the geographic majority of our state. To our resistance to his wrongheaded gun laws, which burden law abiding gun owners with the assumption of criminality on their part, he sniffs"they are just a vocal minority" and "they don't belong in our state". With a fanatic like him, determined to impose extreme leftist fantasies (eg. "why marriage is whatever we say it is!") on as great a number of the unwashed as he can manage, compromise is unlikely. He'll have to be off with Jerry Brown, pursuing Aquarius and persuading him to double back to Earth, for us to have any chance at having our views honored in NY. It has to happen sometime.
If you are blessedly outside our borders you may think this of little relevance to you and yours. But beware; Andrew may run for President. If he does, expect from him a patronizing and completely insincere bow to the real America which he truly despises. And he may have devotees in your state. Jack
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You've put your finger on a serious problem here, Jack -- and one which even leftists would recognize. The outcome of "democracy" depends largely on what questions you ask, to whom, based on what constituency boundaries, and at what time. To put it another way, even unalloyed democracy doesn't guarantee wisdom, but alloyed democracy (the only kind on offer) is even less promising. Solutions? Besides abandoning democracy -- which history suggests is inevitable at some point, even if it's generations from now -- we could certainly redraw state boundaries, but the can of worms that would open up would be gargantuan in size. The best solution may be the simplest: if you don't like the political complexion of the state you live in, then move. That's an inelegant and in many ways sad conclusion, but millions of Americans have already voted with their feet... More will do so.
Dr. Waddy: Good point. When considerable numbers vote with their feet it isn't just moving. Its a statement which may impact both the place they leave and that to which they go. In a free country like ours, where you can move and retain American citizenship no matter what state you are in, its a solution so practical and prudent that it probably is the best answer for most people. For personal reasons I can't leave NY and its a great place to live except for the politics, I think. Yeah, maybe the best thing is simply to join the real America (but not to try to change it with NY ways).Its fascinating isn't it? 2500 years after the advent of democracy it is still evolving. But that the future may bring its demise? I've never considered that. I must read more on that. An intriguing aspect of entry upon old age is the realization that I will not see developments, possibly like that, which already are credibly predictable. As with everything we Boomers experience as the years go by apace, our inevitable aging ( for which for the preceding generation so many of us had such presumptuous contempt) lends an increasingly comic aspect to that youth in which we put so much stock, when we bustled, for a time.
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