Nathan Key

Don't Panic

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Are we TOO secular for Representative Democracy? (part three)

6/30/2009

 

Based on some of the comments from the other posts (here and here) I wanted to address something that should clarify my position a bit and also add to the discussion.

Comment: All laws spring from some sort of morality.
True.

And on the State and Local level, where the government is more in tune with the morality of the community, I believe that governments should have the ability to legislate freely. It's with the Central Government that I'm a little wary.

Here in the United States, we originally limited the powers of the Federal Government to the protection and unification of our people under a select number of rights- springing from a common sense of morality.

What I was trying to argue- and failed at- was this: as we've allowed the Federal Government to gain more and more power and influence over its citizens, the end result has been laws that don't always land squarely on a shared vision of morality.

Let's face it, not all people or religions share a common idea of right and wrong.

Those ideals that gain nearly unanimous consensus probably belong at the Federal Level. But the rest of the laws should be saved for the local level, where they will remain coherent with the will of the people closest to them. This is why we've got the tenth amendment. And I think we need to look into re-emphasizing it a bit more.

Mr. G
7/17/2009 03:51:38 am

I'm a bit late on this one, but wanted to note that I agree for the most part. It is incredible the transfer of power that has taken place between the states and the federal government since the founding of our country. Mrs. G argues that this is, in large part, the result of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution which provided for the general election of Senators, as opposed to their selection by the state legislatures. This removed the only practical check on the federal government which the states had. The federal government has grown unimpeded since.


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    About Nathan

    Nathan Key likes to think about faith and philosophy and talk about it with others. He lives with his family in New Hampshire. He doesn't always refer to himself in the third person.

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