mheslep said:
turbo's completely in keeping with the PF way of doing things to ask for a source, and even to keep going and to ask for original source material when there's suspicion that the source is misleading or misrepresented by the poster (accidentally or otherwise). IMO we should be doing more backtracking of sources, not less.
You are correct. As much as I tend to throw pretty darn good information out there without backing it up, my knowledge and experience in a few key areas matters little, except that it can help me find objective, peer-reviewed third-party sources rather quickly.
These days, "everyone's an expert," and while the ability to write well tends to lend credibility, it does not replace the need for verifiable information, even if the information being put forth is spot on.
DaveC426913 said:
Majority rule does not trump law, and it does not trump human rights.
And it is not up for vote.
Actually, it is. Currently international on human rights were voted on by various leagues of nations, usually in the wake of World Wars or other major conflicts, and most nations party to those agreements similarly voted the measures into their own law. The line between what's considered "acceptible" today has changed from what it was just 30 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, and will continue to change over time. Thus, law isn't set in concrete. It's more like "stiff mud," according to my law professor in a couple of classes I took in college. She used to say, "first you have to thorough saturate the ground with new ideas before you can scrap the old away and replace it with the new." Throughout history, that's precisely what we humans have been doing.
When our country is twice as old as it is today, we're likely to look back on these times with as much horror as we look back on the force-on-force warfare as it has largely existed throughout the ages.
mheslep said:
Exactly. In this constitutional republic there are some protections against which the majority may not infringe.
The Constitution isn't set in stone, either, and it, too, is subject to majority rule. Getting it changed is difficult, as it was designed to be, but it can be done, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution" . Most cases these changes were relatively minor, but required for clarification, usually to combat injustice.
But this is just the relative black and white of Constitutional law. When you get into federal, state, and local laws, things are far more cloudy, and are widely subject to a judge's interpretation.
Then there's the difference between statutory law and case law. In our country, there's actually not much of the former, which tends to be reasonably straightforward, but there are many, many times the volume of the latter, and it's a huge quagmire, with conflicting opinions depending upon which judge presided over the issue, when, and by what rule of statutory, or most likely, precedent was presented to them upon which they can rule.
If a lawyer can convince the judge, and the judge sees more legal benefit towards ruling x instead of y, without any major legal hurdles, they'll often rule contrary to previous case law. What they're mostly concerned about is what will hold up in successive rulings over time, particularly for any appeals processes.
So you see, we have a vote on our representatives, sometimes judges, and executive leadership. They have their own votes at all their levels. And when matters go to court, both the lawyers as well as the judges have a vote.
Matters such as these are
always up for a vote. Just not "let's take a vote today and come up with a majority rule" sort of vote. Fortunately, the winds of change are rather firmly anchored in a system of law which takes years to change.
Next time someone asks me how I can possibly believe there's no god, I can just light 'em on fire and scream, "HERETIC!"
