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Originally Posted by miami_fan
from the outside looking in, it seems like some of those under that umbrella have chosen to make their voices heard in the public square and some have not. Those that choose not to are at the very least apathetic to what umbrella they are placed under, no?
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You lost me with the first part of this paragraph a bit, I may be losing the thread of what you were trying to say to a degree. On this though, to my mind the issue isn't whether or not these groups are apathetic. It's not on them to combat unjustified supposition. It's on people from the outside to not make such suppositions. To use an extreme example, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that any church or religious group that hasn't specifically condemned the rhetoric of Westboro Baptist Church agrees with what they say. Each organization should be given the basic respect of being evaluated on their own merits. Religious groups in America are very diverse and defy easy categorization, there are trends and clumps one can evaluate and so on, but it's far from homogenous. Much like how I have no reasonable place to assume a specific poster on this board disagrees or agrees with something they haven't chosen to comment on.
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Originally Posted by miami_fan
I think we can all acknowledge that one particular set of religious beliefs have been given more priority than all others in the past. It seems like that is the case once again. I am not sure how democratic it is for that to continue. I mean that mosque still has not been built near Ground Zero.
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Originally Posted by miami_fan
why are we putting laws on the books that place that restrictions on everyone's ability to choose in order to satisfy the beliefs of a few. Not everyone who wants the ability to choose will choose to have an abortion.
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With these statements we are moving from process to results. It appears we are in agreement on the matter of religion vis a vis representation, and I will celebrate that common ground without qualification. I also want to note that as regards voter suppression - nobody here is arguing in favor of that. Certainly I'm not. I'm not ignoring that part of the issue, but afaik we're all on the same side there. It's wrong, it's not democratic, I want it to stop, the board as a whole does, etc.
The first thing I would say is that democracy is about the process, not the results. I.e. who has a voice, and to what degree, not what was the outcome of those voices. In terms of laws being passed, our representative democracy is less democratic than a direct democracy would be, which leads on some occasions to laws being passed that only a minority favors. We're voting one for our legislators on a wide range of issues batched together in one election, instead of voting for them each individually ourselves. We surrender some democracy in the process but gain practicality. As Rainmaker is fond of pointing out, and often accurately, there are many issues that a majority of Americans favor, but they're not willing to change who they vote for to make it happen. In other words, they don't care enough about them to sacrifice issues they consider as higher priorities.
There is of course a lot more in our system that isn't democratic. If we wanted a government was a representative democracy and *only* that, we would abolish the Constitution in it's entirety, eliminate the Supreme Court, greatly limit the power of the executive so that the President is little more than a figurehead, and eliminate the Senate. We'd probably also want to reform the House of Representatives while we are it, making either sweeping changes to districting or just flat-out eliminating it entirely and going with random lottery selection system in terms of which citizens vote for which position in the House. This would leave a lot less protection for minorities of course than we presently have, but it would be a more democratic way of doing things.
In terms of restricting choice, I think aside from the question of how many people care about that compared to how much they care about other issues - the next couple of elections will as other posters have noted tell us a lot about where they are on that - there is the fact that the % of people in favor or against varies with time and also varies based on what state you're talking about. All of those things will settle out and we'll see where people really are.
It's also not at all the way that some people view the abortion question. I'm personally on the side that cannot express within the bounds of my English vocabulary the utter disgust that hearing the issue framed in those terms produces in my mind. In general I don't debate it because I don't think there is much point, but I'll quote someone on this board on the other, majority side of the issue:
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Originally Posted by larrymcg421
under the theory that life begins at conception, why wouldn't that be the result? I don't feel that way, but if someone truly believes that, then how could you argue that a woman seeking to end a life shouldn't be charged for it? How can you say it is life, but it isn't murder?
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If you believe as I do that life does begin at conception, and that personhood theory is simply a toothless rationalization, there's only one place you can come down. The too often-ignored party in this issue is not given a choice. I know a majority of Americans don't see it that way, which means all other things being equal the democratic outcome would be legal abortion. And if the people of the Republic care enough about it, that's what will happen.
FWIW, I'm witholding judgement till the final opinion comes out but based on what I know of the Alito draft I would term it a bad ruling, for similar reasons to why Roe v. Wade was bad initially. But it is also one that can be overcome. Congress can, and if enough people care they will, pass a law authorizing abortion rights throughout the land.