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Larry Wilson's avatar

Thankfully we live under a constitutional Republic that protects minority rights. Democracies inevitably trample minorities as history points out. The idea that citizens of New York City should be able to determine policy for citizens of small town Wyoming is absurd. If a proposed policy is really worth considering it should generate widespread approval by the electorate. But that takes hard work to convince people a policy has value. Much easier to muster 51-49 majorities especially in today’s world of instant communications and gratification. Governing is not supposed to be easy that is why Republics endure and democracies eventually fail.

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Joe Waters's avatar

One of the things I'm struck by when reading about American history is just how often both parties have tried to tip the scales one way or another when it comes to voting. If we looked at American history in decades we could point to long periods when voting just wasn't fair in a lot of different ways and very undemocratic. Is our time really SO DIFFERENT? For someone like myself who was born in 1967 and has lived through a relatively "stable" time when it came to democracy and voting, wasn't that just the calm before the inevitable storm? Yes, the storm is here and it's threatening. But the tempest off our bow has always been there. We need to steel ourselves like previous generations did. We should take strength from that.

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