I would agree that way too many felonies have been created by legislative acts. But, there has always been a way to change this. The fact that it has not been changed, means that, on its face, the populace agree with the law, as it is written and applied.
That is an interestingly tautological argument, to whit:
- A law is passed criminalizing an action that by itself harms no others, out of a sense that in "pre-crime" fashion we can prevent harmful possible consequent actions that may or may not occur, and which are already criminalized.
- people, indicating a disagreement with that law, violate it
- they are caught, confess (as 98% or people do) and under that law denied the right to vote
- thereby removing from the voting rolls the very people most likely to vote against such a law
- and the more people convicted under it, the less people available to vote against it
- therefore - according to this argument - the law is just because it remains in existence
- because an insufficient number of people vote to repeal it (or because repealing such a law is politically infeasible)
Sorry: Doesn't work for me. It is hardly more elegant than positing right-handed people voting to enslave left-handed people, and maintaining that this would therefore be just, because not enough right-handed people vote to repeal the law.
The issue is never whether what the majority approves of remains legal - but of inviolately protecting the rights of the
minority to disagree with the majority. That's the purpose of having a republic rather than a democracy.
It is true that voting is a political right rather than a natural right - inasmuch as the ability to vote is contingent on the existence of government, and thus cannot, in a sense, precede the existence of government. But OTOH, this is an incorrect view: The right to vote is the political equivalent of the right to self-defense - one of the most fundamental rights in existence, and one that is never alienable (removable by political action.)
Why is the right to vote the equivalent of the right of self-defense? For the same reason that one cannot validly maintain that participation in the voting process thereby indicates approval, or even agreement, with the process. For what choice does one have? If one does not vote, one already knows that others may take the opportunity of voting to attempt to deprive one of one's rights and freedoms. One knows that by voting, one has at least a minuscule chance of retaining the freedom that one already possesses.
By voting, one knows that one can at least cancel the vote of a single person dedicated to using the political process to impose actions on others merely because it makes them feel more psychologically secure in the idea that their own self-imposed limitations on their own behavior ought not be subject to ridicule (as no one ever votes to impose a law that they believe that they would themselves violate). Therefore, one can never conclude that by the act of voting one has consented thereby to the results.
But what an odd idea, truly - the idea that by depriving some people in society of the participation in the political process, society is thereby safer. For voting provides a harmless illusion that one has some control over the direction that society travels. Exactly what does one expect to get from the process of
dispelling that idea for some people? If you tell people that they have
no peaceful way to indicate their wants in society wouldn't it be logical to assume that they might thereafter choose
non-peaceful ways to express their views?
At that point, what other choice has society left them?
Dex