The Editorial Board, The Sun-Sentinel

November 7, 2008

The Editorial Board
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: The problem with voters in a representative democracy is that sometimes they don’t understand what they must do. A comment on your astonishing conclusion on what the people said on Tuesday last.

Sirs,

“So, yes, we have come a long way, with historic change.
We just haven’t come far enough.”
Your editorial
Italics mine

“Far enough”, as in not far enough, are the referendum votes against racial preferences in real estate transactions and for keeping marriage a boy/girl only institution.
For the sake of advancing the argument I ask how far is “far enough”? How far is “too far”? Is it possible in the best of all modern American Liberal worlds for something to be “too far”?

Like it or not the people have spoken.

Several years ago the people of Florida gave Constitutional protection to pregnant pigs. Was that “far enough”? Was that “too far”? Was it just asinine? If the people can vote on things porcine shouldn’t they be allowed to vote on abortion? How about gun control? How about public executions? Would that be an amendment “too far”?

Voters in representative democracies don’t always vote the way enlightened editorial boards know they should.

Here’s a plan.

Before they get to vote on anything you get to choose which questions they get to vote on. That way you won’t get your knickers in a knot when the people vote against something that you know must be done. No more hissy fits at the Sun-Sentinel.