Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Lawrence vs. Texas on Personal Animus as Basis for Legislation: Is this a Critique of Expressionism?

Lawerence v. Texas found that personal animus is not a sufficient reason to justify regulation of an activity; a personal (preferential?) or moral judgment of an activity does not render it subject to government legislation.  

This finding seems to recall, and may be equivalent to, the idea of mine that the expressive function of the law ought to be of a lower priority than other legal functions, especially policy outcome.  In general, this principle on which this case was decided seems to me to be similar to the derision for the expressive function of political action that I have often articulated.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Equality and Democracy and Myth of the Medals

Oberlin radicals' and other student activists' proposing to eliminate grades below Cs, for instance, are perfect examples for Platonists to point to in order to show how some political proposals to promote equality and democracy (which are the same thing, since the political equality of each person would preclude any from having more power than another, a condition with which only equal votes for all--democracy--can be consistent) could hurt/injure the polity:

Allowing the silver and bronze to rise above their stations, including into the ruling gold and thereby undermining the quality of governance, as well as wasting some potential ability in roles it isn't needed.

It's overall a great illustration of what the Ancients and the Founders feared with regard to rule of the mob.  

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

An Argument for Transparency

The people need to know what its government is doing in its name so that they have an accurate picture of the history of the conflict between their country and another when taking positions on foreign policy alternatives.  Otherwise, with a rose-tinted view of their side's own past conduct and an un-white-washed view of the other side's conduct, there is a tendency against the mutual understanding that leads to trust and coordinated solutions to the collective action problem of security.