Last-Minute Musings On California’s Prop 8

Quoting John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty:

“Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. ……Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.”

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

Robert

It is completely fascinating to me how interesting your points are and yet we are so far apart on the issues; however, I will like to make an observation:

Mill also wrote:

“A rude people may be unable to practice the forbearance’s which it demands: their passions may be too violent, or their personal pride too exacting, to forego private conflict. In such a case, a civilized government, to be really advantageous to them, will require to be in a considerable degree despotic, imposing a great amount of forcible restraint upon their actions.”

To be fair Mill wrote this about the East; not the West … this discussion was meant to prevent England and the West from degenerating and becoming like the East … as Mill writes, “We have a warning example in China”.

See you at the polls …

Nov 03, 2008 @ 5:44 pm

admin

That’s what I love about rhetoric and argument – there are a jillion ways to approach thinking about something. Thanks as always for the comment! I’ll be glad when this whole election business is through for a while, that’s for sure!

Nov 03, 2008 @ 6:08 pm