We should not be surprised that those on the Left look upon murderers, robbers, and rapists as just another potential voting bloc that they can count on to keep them in power, but
Reason magazine, a libertarian publication that often runs some good investigative articles, also favors letting imprisoned convicts cast a ballot. The article asserts that there are “plenty of people who are in prison who deserve to be free. Don’t they deserve to have a voice in American democracy as well?”
Sadly,
Reason misses the point just as much as the left-wing
Daily Beast. The purpose of government is not to ensure that the will of the majority prevails, but instead is to ensure that our rights to life, liberty, and property are protected — and many of those inside prison walls are who we need to be protected from. Both publications use the word “democracy” to describe our system of government.
Democracy simply means that the people rule. But as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, we can suffer under the “tyranny of the majority” just as much as from an oligarchy or a monarchy. Just because the majority votes to take our property — simply because they want it, we have it, and they do not — does not make it morally correct.
Our Constitution created a
republic, not a democracy. A democracy, as it has been bluntly put, is like two wolves and one sheep deciding what’s for dinner. If we were a democracy, then the Bill of Rights would be redundant — indeed the entire Constitution would be redundant.
John Locke argued that criminals broke an implicit social contract. Such a rule-breakers should lose their right to participate in the making of the rules, because, after all, rule-breakers are the reason we even have government to protect our God-given rights. Locke’s social contract theory was the foundation for the Declaration of Independence, which declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Note that the Declaration clearly states the purpose of government: to secure our rights. Government’s “just” powers are derived from the consent of the governed. In other words, the “just” powers of the government are those that carry out the purpose of government, i.e., to secure our basic rights. Even the majority must exercise only those powers of government that are just.
We do not create government so the majority can take our property via a vote. If one person wants to practice a religion, that person should be allowed to freely practice that religion, regardless what the majority think, unless the religion infringes on another person’s rights. Yet, under “democracy,” the majority can dictate the religious practices of the minority.
More at:
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usne...ons-to-vote-raises-questions-about-government
