Eva, In the next election, Americans openly vote to adapt a French model, in which taxes are raised back to pre-1976 levels, or what they presently are in Europe. Basically, that's double at the upper end with a rather steep slope getting there.
That means universal health care, education, etc, as well a written proviso the the government has a right to seize large economic properties if deemed necessary.
The motto, as in France, is that the economoy belong s to the people, the state is the ultimate overseer, and property titles are given if and only if they contribute to the general welfare.
First, it is always important to parse out the legal from the moral. A majority vote will make something legal - if it isn't a violation of the constitution - but it may or may not be moral. In your example, there are many things that the federal government has no constitutional authority to do. And those things violate individual rights as well (confiscation of property, etc.) Fred has already pointed out one way of viewing a logical flaw is where people say 'the people' and 'the general welfare.' Another flaw is that for anyone, or the state, to be an all ecompassing overseer they must first make the overseen into slaves. The argument they are making is that people don't have the right to make their own decisions. Just to be a devil's advocate I could imagine that the vote the people took was to amend the constition into a French model. That means that all the changes become 'legal.' I've put legal in single-quotes because it is an example of a gross abuse of proper law. Like the laws that allowed slavery - slavery was 'legal.' What I'm saying with all of this is that the moral principles are more fundamental in this issue. Law derives its propriety from the constitition, the constitution has to derive its propriety from moral principle. The moral principles that hold sway in politics are the principles of individual rights. "A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context."
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness. If you reduce an argument to moral principles then it becomes easier to separate those who are willing, or even eager to violate the rights of individuals to achieve their ends, from those who no matter how much they dislike what other may or may not do, they recognize their right to make their own choices. (As in Fred's argument that people can form an almost unlimited number of voluntary associations to practice socialism of this or that kind, but what they can't do, without denying others a choice, is to force their practices on everyone.) Those who can't put forth a sound argument for universal moral rights derived from human nature are condemned to envisioning and creating governments that are arbitrary and only related to moral ends in subjective, accidental, and unrelated ways. Or, they will create governments as tools to force their views on others - purposefully done as a means of eliminating any aspect of liberty that might impede their desire to be in control of others. -------------- Immediately, the opposition mounts a campaign to re-introduce propery ownership (per Michael's post) as the pre-requisite to voting. Their reasoning is simple, open, and and direct: without a property-less majority, the bills would not have gotten through. Who would you support?
I support principles, not groups. When I support a group, it is only to the degree that they are on the side of my principles - those principles that are most important in the context in question. In your example, the opposition are attempting to alter the structure of government to ensure that those who vote are less likely to vote that property rights be violated - that a redistributionist government not be the standard. I sympathize with their desire to protect property rights, but I would not join them because I don't see that as the way to solve the problem, or to re-establish liberty. They are attempting to make a legal change to how people vote and it will be cumbersome, and unlikely to be fair, and it carries with it the implicit principle that if you don't own property, you have no right to participate in steering government. The only proper purpose for instituting a government is the protection of individual rights. All attempts to modify a government or to point it this way or that, or do this or do that, must be judged by that overriding purpose. I certainly don't support that first group who are voting to violate individual rights to establish a socialist government. ---------------- Next question: because the campaign is a failure, the opposition turns to the military to explore the possibilities of a coup d'etat. The solution, according to the opposition, is that no one will vote. Who would you support?
Okay, the scenario is that the group who wanted to change the rules so only the property owners could vote lost their campaign. Now they want to have military coup d'etat. My approach is the same. Do I agree with their principles. If they were going to use the military, after the majority had voted in socialism, to restore a constitutional republic based upon individual rights - Yes, if that was the case, I would support them. (Because they have the right ends in mind, and the degree to which rights are now being violated makes extreme actions reasonable.) But if they are just wanting to institute a state where only the property owners get to vote and they don't have a solid grasp of individual rights, No, I'm not going anywhere near them. -------------- Now, let me ask you a few questions based upon what you chose to contrast here. Do you believe that a majority vote would make a French model of government morally right? You wrote, "That means universal health care, education, etc, as well a written proviso the the government has a right to seize large economic properties if deemed necessary." Do you believe that government should provide universal healthcare? Do you believe it should provide universal health care? Do you believe that a government could ever have a moral right to seize large economic properties?
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