Jesse Ventura - A vote by the people would lead to slavery

[applecorped]

Jesse Ventura was on Larry King and he remarked (in reference to Maine's voting no to legalize same sex marraige) that:

"If you put it up to a vote by the people, we'd have slavery again".

 

[WildCat]

Why isn't Jesse helping fund a new investigation into 9/11?

 

[Darth Rotor]

"If you put it up to a vote by the people, we'd have slavery again".

Jesse Ventura: the opposite of eloquence.

 

[Darat]

Jesse Ventura was on Larry King and he remarked (in reference to Maine's voting no to legalize same sex marraige) that:

"If you put it up to a vote by the people, we'd have slavery again".

Whilst I doubt you'd have slavery I thought part of the rationale behind the system of USA government was indeed to prevent the "tyranny of the masses"?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

There is a valid point hidden in the wrestler's distorted thinking, though. That point is, we shouldn't allow the majority to take away the Lockian "natural rights" of any minority.

We just passed a ban on smoking in restaurants and many other businesses, and some smokers are making this same argument. Of course, in this situation the question is about whose rights are being taken away. You're free to smoke, but you are not free to require me to smoke.

Your religion is free to define marriage however it wants, but it is not free to force others to accept that definition (especially if in doing so, they want to take away the rights of a minority).

ETA: I see Darat said the same thing with a lot fewer words.

 

[ponderingturtle]

There is a valid point hidden in the wrestler's distorted thinking, though. That point is, we shouldn't allow the majority to take away the Lockian "natural rights" of any minority.

Sure he is attempting to address the Tyranny of the Majority. He just is doing it in a remarkably ineloquent fashion.

 

[applecorped]

Whilst I doubt you'd have slavery I thought part of the rationale behind the system of USA government was indeed to prevent the "tyranny of the masses"?

Those damn, tyrannical Maine-iacs.

 

[Eyeron]

So marriage is slavery. Who'd a thunk it.

 

[applecorped]

So marriage is slavery. Who'd a thunk it.

ever been married?

 

[Eyeron]

Has nothing to do with the statement. It was a paraphrasing of Ventura's words.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sure he is attempting to address the Tyranny of the Majority. He just is doing it in a remarkably ineloquent fashion.

Maybe so. It wouldn't take much to clean it up. If we'd allowed the states to vote on slavery in the 1950s (and later) it's very likely several states would legalize slavery.

I don't find his version of it so remarkably ineloquent. Especially not if we consider what the people opposed to gay marriage say. (It's "unnatural"; the Bible condemns it, etc.--you know, all the stuff the pro-slavery people said about abolition.)
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So marriage is slavery. Who'd a thunk it.

I think rather the point is that refusing to allow certain groups of people to get married is a restriction of the natural rights of a minority by a majority just as slavery would be (at least at certain times in history) if we left it up to the states to let a majority vote decide that issue.

 

[GStan]

So marriage is slavery. Who'd a thunk it.

Reply deleted; I think my wife might read JREF sometimes.

 

[Cicero]

Lary King is defintely a fan of vapid and venal wrestlers. He was equally deferential to Hulk Hogan's rantings last week as he is to Ventura's this week.

 

[Cain]

There is a valid point hidden in the wrestler's distorted thinking, though. That point is, we shouldn't allow the majority to take away the Lockian "natural rights" of any minority.

Locke wrote the state charter for North Carolina, which allowed for slavery. People tend to underestimate the power of the status quo bias. If we had a system of medicare for all in place, then it would take Republicans generations to destroy. People are inherently conservative in that we're resistant to change, unless things are manifestly bad. What I'm saying is... people probably wouldn't vote slavery back in.

 

[Eyeron]

Reply deleted; I think my wife might read JREF sometimes.

You realize there is some irony in that statement, don't you?

 

[ZirconBlue]

Has nothing to do with the statement. It was a paraphrasing of Ventura's words.

Then you're doing a very poor job of it. He wasn't in any way comparing marriage to slavery. Even if he was, it would be comparing a vote against marriage with a vote for slavery.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Locke wrote the state charter for North Carolina, which allowed for slavery. People tend to underestimate the power of the status quo bias. If we had a system of medicare for all in place, then it would take Republicans generations to destroy. People are inherently conservative in that we're resistant to change, unless things are manifestly bad. What I'm saying is... people probably wouldn't vote slavery back in.

Hell I heard the rather strange thing of republicans objecting to cuts in medicare spending. What happend to personal responcibility? Shows how the status quo trumps ideology with out them even realizing that it is doing it.

 

[dudalb]

Robert Heinlein made the same point about Tyranny Of the Majority, but made it much better then Ventura did.

 

[Thunder]

slavery? no.

segregation? yep.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Whilst I doubt you'd have slavery I thought part of the rationale behind the system of USA government was indeed to prevent the "tyranny of the masses"?

Yep, and any time this gets changed, like in our ever so popular lately ballot measures in certain, more populist areas they lead to reductions of personal freedom, in every single case where a reduction in personal freedom is a choice.