if the fringe gets control in a democracy (or representative democracy) then
the will of the people is the fringe, and then the fringe is really no longer fringe. I don't
like that- and I'll always be against it, where the "fringe" ideas seem to be based on
belief that has no connection to reality as I understand it.
Keeping in mind that democracy itself was once a fringe belief not based on reality (reality was that you needed kings and emperors, that the illiterate mass of the people could never govern themselves). John Locke, on whose writings much of our Constitution is based, was a fringe writer who rejected the reality of his day. The notion that a colony had the right to self-determination, to break off from their country just because they wanted to, in defiance of the divine right of Kings, was an extremely fringe notion with no possible basis in reality, since nobody had ever done it before. And the idea that a government should guarantee freedom of religion instead of imposing a state religion was totally fringe, not to mention that atheists had any rights to exist, let alone be protected. Fringe, no basis in the reality of their times.
The notion that Native Americans were people whose rights should respected was a fringe belief totally at odds with the reality of the ignoble savage, the half naked, unChristian creatures who were hardly any more human than the beats. The notion that slavery should be abolished -- totally fringe, violating the clear reality that slavery has been a part of virtually all civilizations for millenia (even the civilized Greek and Roman civilizations, the height of human civilizations, were based on slavery).
All of these, fringe belief divorced from the clear reality of their day. But all became mainstream beliefs.
Now, if we could only get rid of that fringe notion, which clearly contradicts reality, that women have the capacity to responsibly exercise the franchise or hold public office . . .
<ducking!> |
