In this thread about Christine O’Donnell candidacy, **Whack-a-Mole[/b asserts that she is objectively unqualified for the position, because she’d use her ideology in office:
This just astonishes me. I had tried to draw a line between a position you disagree with, something that disqualifies her from ever getting your personal vote, and OBJECTIVE disqualification, like not being 30 years of age or a resident of the state in question. My point was that while anyone can – and many do – feel as though abortion positions will drive one’s personal vote, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone claim that a politician who wishes to make abortion illegal should be objectively disqualified from seeking office.
So I asked:
On the face of it, that seems absolutely incredible to me to even consider such a restriction. Of course you may strongly disfavor limiting reproductive rights… but would you literally claim that a politician who wanted to make abortion illegal simply can’t be elected, that they should be considered disqualified from an objective standpoint?
Since this topic had broader implication than “2010 Elections,” I have reproduced the dialog here.
More specifically the argument was about abortion from rape or incest. O’Donnell says she would not allow those exceptions. They are far less mainstream.
No, a person should not be DQd for having any abortion stance, pro or con. But are there stances that should exempt them? If they want to put Muslims in concentration camps, should they be allowed to run?
I don’t think he’s saying that she legally is ineligible to become Senator (unless your proposed amendment passes). He’s making a moral argument; that someone who holds her views is morally unsuitable to hold public office.
Of course they should be allowed to run. People run on crazier platforms every day, and we don’t vote them into office.
What troubles me about it though, is that we have put people in camps and it wasn’t really that long ago, and well, how did that happen? And can it happen again, if we elect enough people into office who want it? And just because the majority says so, does that make it ok?
But that is a different kettle of fish. There are politicians out there every day who scream their dogma about religion, abortion, what have you. I grit my teeth and vote for the other girl - teeth gritted because she probably isn’t any better.
I posted in the other thread but will summarize here:
First Captain Amazing is correct on what I am on about. I know she is legally eligible to run.
As to the rest we could suppose a prospective Senator wanted to legalize pedophilia via an amendment to the constitution. It is legal to do that and in Bricker-land that the person is morally bankrupt does not objectively disqualify the person for office.
I think it does (albeit obviously the person is not legally barred from running).
And I know you know she’s legally eligible to run.
But since you said, “So yeah…I’d say O’Donnell’s vision is as anathema to US ideals and as Gestapo as can be thus objectively disqualifying her from office. Or it should anyway,” it seems you’re saying it SHOULD legally disqualify her to run.
Neither is a pedophile candidate objectively disqualified to run. Certainly he or she is personally disqualified; under no circumstances would I cast my vote his way.
Or maybe I don’t understand how you’re using the word “objectively.”
I thought that it was a fundamental basis of the government of this country that if the entire moral code of the populace changed, it could via election of representatives and amendments and the like reconfigure the government to match the public’s expectations of it. This being an alternative to government change via armed insurrection. I mean, isn’t this the whole point of allowing constitutional amendments?
For an example, suppose if persons who disliked slavery had been disallowed from participating in government? What then?
So yeah - let any loon run. If they start getting elected, that isn’t due to a problem in the government; it’s due to a problem in the populace. In which the proper solution is to seek to educate the populace, to flee to Canada, or elect somebody who will take care of the problem with the populace for you, perhaps by legislating to get all anti-choicers sent to death camps or whatever.
Disqualifying people because of their beliefs is nonsensical because if you can get a sufficient number of people to agree to the rule that would enable disqualification you can bet your life that any person who would be disqualified would never get elected.
Probably.
Although such a scheme could be used to make it harder for people in later years to quickly change some aspect of society and to slow such changes down.
Yeah, pretty clearly Bricker is correct here in as far as the word “objectively” is being used.
I think I understand what Whack was going for, which is that some stances are so far outside of a person’s moral framework (and, perhaps, that of the nation as a whole) that that one stance or belief makes all other considerations irrelevant. To Whack, any candidate that expresses the belief that raped women should be forced to bear the fruit of that assault are automatically rendered unqualified in his eyes to hold the office they seek.
Put another way: some ideas and beliefs are so beyond the pale (to an individual or to a society) that the idea that they could hold levers of power is morally offensive.
It is also a bit more problematic, as you addressed in that thread, for a candidate to an executive office to express dissatisfaction with the current law of the land, especially if they express a desire to overturn or ignore said law. For a potential legislator this is less of a problem.
I thought the whole checks-and-balances system meant that if a nut got elected, he or she wouldn’t be able to do anything too radical, no matter what their personal beliefs.
Listening to the Rachel Maddow show last night she noted that there are 5 current candidates for senate who strongly oppose abortion under any circumstances (including rape and incest). That is 5% right there (if they all win which is admittedly unlikely) and while I doubt they will get abortion outlawed in the case of rape/incest they will certainly push hard for the strictest anti-abortion regulations they can get away with…considering most of the rest of the political-right have moved ever further right they may have a reasonable expectation of achieving some of that.
Well, you’re just gonna have to trust your fellow citizens to backlash the shit outta these guys if they get elected and if they start making serious anti-abortion inroads (assuming of course the various courts don’t stymie them from the get-go and the president doesn’t veto their legislation and whatnot).
The issue is in two parts. First, there is the issue that some beliefs make a person morally bankrupt. Slavery, KKK, NAMBLA, Neo-natzis.
Secondly, if we agree that there are some beliefs that make a person morally bankrupt, then there is an objective measure.
So we could say that objectively a person that runs on a platform to decriminalize pedophile priests is morally bankrupt, and thus not fit to serve in office.
The question could also before phrased as, “should a person who is morally bankrupt be blocked from an election?” Then we’d have to try and decide if we can objectively measure the concept of morally bankrupt.
Obviously, Whack-a-Mole proved this can’t work because he picked a topic which is NOT objectively morally bankrupt.
Isn’t this the argument the right wing has been using against Obama? He’s pushing his ideological dogma on the country, according to the wing nut bags. I don’t know what ‘objective’ is supposed to mean in this argument, but the only thing close to a non-legal disqualifier might be a candidate who promised not to uphold their oath of office. Even then, they would likely get some votes. Of course, who could have faith in the promise of someone who vows to break their next promise. That candidate doesn’t actually sound all that different from the rest. I guess that’s why the attacks on Obama work so well, except when they don’t.
My subjective view is that an amazing number of people don’t understand that objectivity is hardly ever a human quality. For instance, it is dumb to expect a news reporter to be objective. Fair, yes. Objective, no.
This thread is really a mildly annoying grammar/usage rant with an anti-abortion rights slant, said conclusion based on subjective but unimpeachable logic.