The Will of the People

[cochrane]

@Sage_Rat

The laws exist by and for the people and the government exists by and for the people.

Therefore the people are bound by the laws they enact, or else why make laws? No, Leonard shouldn’t die. What a ridiculous question.

[Kobal2]

@Sage_Rat

It is not. Obviously, some arguments on the topic would (if accepted) also negate the value of the Brexit vote, but it’s not the genesis of the thread.

All right then. I was just curious what, if anything specific, you were driving at.

[ASL_v2.0]

@smiling_bandit

It is often true that the United States we have tended to get into the lazy anti-intellectual habit of pointing to something in the Constitution, and therefore saying it is right. This may be good law but it is not good thinking.

When one lays out a far-fetched hypothetical scenario like the one in the OP and concludes by asking simply “Should Leonard die?” after not much exposition, it’s not wrong (or at least not necessarily out of bounds, IMHO) to refer to the Constitution. Particularly when no further detail has been provided as to the nature of the society being examined, and we are thus left to conclude that, apart from those meager details provided, the society in which this decision is being made is our own.

Decisions are not made in a vacuum. Part of our “not vacuum” in which we make our decisions in the US is the framework provided by the Constitution which, unless the OP failed to mention it or I’ve missed a major update, has not been repealed.

I’d be more interested to have this discussion if there were someone, even the OP, seriously arguing that, yes, point of fact, Leonard should die.

[Lamoral]

Do “grocers” still exist? I don’t mean “someone who works at a grocery store”, I mean someone who if you ask him what he does for a living, he says “grocer.” Is that even a thing anymore?

[UDS]

@Lamoral

Do “grocers” still exist? I don’t mean “someone who works at a grocery store”, I mean someone who if you ask him what he does for a living, he says “grocer.” Is that even a thing anymore?

if grocery stores exist, then presumably someone who owns and operates a grocery store is a grocer.

[guizot]

@smiling_bandit

Sage Rat, Thank you for making an interesting philosophical question.

It’s not a philosophical question. It’s a fiction masquerading as a philosophical question.

[Bear_Nenno]

@Sage_Rat

Wrong according to who? All men are created equal. There is no ubermensch who knows what is and is not moral.

According to the United States Constitution for starters. WTF? If you wanted a moral or philosophical debate, then why bring the US government into it? If you wanted a legal or political debate, why ignore the supreme law of the land?

[kayaker]

I need more information. Does Leonard go by “Lenny”?

[msmith537]

@Sage_Rat

Wrong according to who? All men are created equal. There is no ubermensch who knows what is and is not moral.
…
Morality is not, fundamentally, an objective thing it’s subjective. It is the end-result of cultural world views, which can change over time and simple geography.

Except that’s not really true on a number of levels, is it? Generally, actions that have positive consequences are considered “moral” and actions that have negative ones are considered “amoral”. Where it gets tricky is deciding on the lesser evil (or greater good). Or perhaps defining what is considered “good” or “evil”. But I don’t think that can be extended to a sort of “moral relativism” where anything goes if enough people believe in it.

Certainly there were societies in the past that randomly killed people for “moral” reasons like they thought their Gods wanted them to it in order to have a good harvest. They may have thought that the loss of a few lives was moral compared to mass starvation. But that is a morality based on ignorance and superstition.

@Lamoral

Do “grocers” still exist? I don’t mean “someone who works at a grocery store”, I mean someone who if you ask him what he does for a living, he says “grocer.” Is that even a thing anymore?

Probably not that many in the OP’s society, if that’s how they are treated.

[Smapti]

@The 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution

Leonard must die, notwithstanding any protections provided to him by this Constitution or by the several states.

The important question is: was Ohio technically a state when they ratified it?

[Wesley_Clark]

@Sage_Rat

The laws exist by and for the people and the government exists by and for the people.

Which is why you also need a constitution because the will of the people includes things like Jim crow laws.

[BobLibDem]

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

I say this is not a lawful judgment. Picking someone at random and saying he is to be executed is contrary to centuries of common law. Were the residents of the town in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery acting lawfully? I think not.

[Johanna]

The phrase you’re looking for is "bill of attainder,’ and it’s prohibited by the Constitution in Article One, sections 9 and 10.
“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
“No State shall […] pass any Bill of Attainder”

It concerns both due process and the separation of powers.

[octopus]

Lots or non-answers for such a simple question.

No. The US is, thankfully, not a pure democracy. What the majority thinks at a given point of time is not really relevant. If the US acted immediately according to what the majority thought we’d be like that dangerous kid in the Twilight Zone.

Now in a non-constrained pure democracy Leonard better have a lot of friends and a lot of guns.

[RickJay]

@Sage_Rat

On a Wednesday, the White House issues a national vote to decide whether to murder Leonard, a grocer in Louisville. There is no crime that Leonard has committed - he was randomly selected - they simply want to prove that the government will act in accordance with the public will.

Greater than 50% and Leonard will be captured and executed.

The vote is held and, the American public having come to doubt that the government was working as demanded, have voted 50.2% for the death of Leonard.

Should Leonard die?

This is illegal and immoral, so no.

[YamatoTwinkie]

@Sage_Rat

the government will act in accordance with the public will.

There are multiple mechanisms intentionally put in place by the US founders to put the brakes on “public will”, and for good reason, as unchecked direct democracy is just a recipe for majority tyranny, ill-informed knee-jerk reactions, and absolute chaos.

1. Representative democracy - The public does not make decisions at a federal level. The public merely elects those that do, and on infrequent (2 year) intervals. This allows legislators to be somewhat immune to hot-headed stupid public opinion that may be only temporary in nature, and allows legislators the latitude to make the right call that may upset 50.2% of the public, as long as they continue to do a good job in other ways.

2. 3 Co-equal branches of government. Any change in a law requires consent from both wings of congress, a unitary executive, and the judicial branch, all elected at different intervals, each with the individual ability to bring any changes to a screeching halt. Sure, each can be overrided in turn, but that requires an extremely high barrier (and thus, public will) to support.

3. A Senate with 6 year terms, spread out so that only 1/3 of them up for election at any given cycle - further insulating them from public will. As originally envisioned, Senators weren’t even elected directly by the people. The Senate was intended to be the place where hot-headed decisions by the House (who are closer to “public will”) go to die. The Senate, being elected by individual states, rather than by sheer population, also puts their decisions at odds with the House, as they draw from different bases of support, and neither can do much without the other’s approval.

4. A Constitution expressly enshrining minority rights, with a extremely high barrier to change (2/3 of congress, and 3/4 of states). This is guarded by the judicial branch who have lifetime appointments, and weren’t even elected to begin with. Good luck squeaking a Constitutional change with only 50.2% public support.

[tomndebb]

@Sage_Rat

On a Wednesday, the White House issues a national vote to decide whether to murder Leonard, a grocer in Louisville. There is no crime that Leonard has committed - he was randomly selected - they simply want to prove that the government will act in accordance with the public will.

Greater than 50% and Leonard will be captured and executed.

The vote is held and, the American public having come to doubt that the government was working as demanded, have voted 50.2% for the death of Leonard.

Should Leonard die?

@Sage_Rat

The laws exist by and for the people and the government exists by and for the people.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of the United States.
There follows a document, amended and ratified 27 times, indicating what the laws of the country will be. Please explain which Article or Amendment permits the scenario that you have outlined. There is no provision that I can find allowing a plebiscite to be called by a president.
This is probably not the issue you wish to discuss, but it would be better for discussion if your example was not in direct violation of the laws under which we currently operate.

Are you simply looking for a decision as to whether the people of the U.S. could simply kill someone by vote? Are you looking to discuss whether the Constitution is functional? Are you looking to discover whether the Constitution reflects “the will of the people”?
What is your intention?

[Eonwe]

@Sage_Rat

If the basis of government and law is in the people, then how does the will of the people not preside?

Because the will of the people in the past was such that the will of the people in the future would be curtailed to some degree.

Also, “majority rule” is one interpretation of the concept of the ‘will of the people’, but not the only one. Surely a system in which minority interests are not rendered completely powerless could be seen as representing the will of the people (and not just the will of 50.1% of the people)?

[Ravenman]

Besides the civil rights issue of killing someone for no reason other than popular support, the plebiscite ordered by the White House is illegal. We don’t have such votes in our country, so the outcome has no legal standing to begin with.

[dba_Fred]

If we’re gonna execute Leonard, can we off his accomplice Squiggy, too?