you are actually bringing up a very important point. The document doesn't actually protect anybody. It's just a bunch of words on some parchment. It provides the guidelines on how to govern. If the people in the government ignore the words in the Constitution, they have effectively nullified it. That's what happened with women and slaves. There was never any dispute that women were individuals with protected rights, but culturally and legally, this wasn't the common practice.
Some people back in the early years of the country would dispute that blacks were human. Many considered them sub-human and basically animals. In their opinion, blacks were no different than livestock. However, the US Constitution, in the one area where there is any mention of topic, refers to them as "persons". This one statement gave blacks all of the legal protection that they needed.....if the people in power didn't ignore the rule of law. Eventually, we had to add amendments to make it clear that the rights of individuals, male, female, black or white, will be protected.
I believe in the rule of law.
You believe in the rule of the majority.
As you and other liberals have pointed out, I am in the minority now. And I am in the minority in a country where the rule of law is ignored on a daily basis. Majority rule terrifies me. I know that when the rule of law has been discarded completely, people like you would confiscate my home and any other assets and redistribute them to more deserving people whose thinking is more along that of liberal progressives. I know that you will insist that my son go to public schools so that he can receive a proper liberal progressive education.
I wish that I could say "you democrats really have screwed up this country by having a policy of ignoring the Constitution". But it would be omitting the fact that the republicans are as guilty as the democrats. If the republicans had been true to the Constitution, we wouldn't be where we are today.
You've made it clear that you don't have a problem with violating the rights of individuals in favor of what you believe is good for the tribe. Once you take that position, you aren't in any position to judge others who violated the rights of individuals as a matter of practice (women's right to vote, slavery). If the majority says that, for the good of the tribe, blacks can now be owned as slaves, you would have no recourse but to agree with the policy. You are stuck with majority decisions in your democratic utopia. And in your democratic utopia, nobody has guns because the government is benevolent and everybody lives in peace and harmony. Except of course, the blacks who the majority have now voted back into slavery.
In a constitutional republic where the rights of individuals are protected. It doesn't matter if the vote to bring back slavery is 99 to 1, it is still illegal. And if the people in power choose to ignore the rule of law, at least that one dissenting black vote has the right to bear arms so that his dissenting vote is heard loud and clear.
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