Well, it is and it isn’t. There are various amendments saying the right to vote cannot be denied because of race, sex, age if over 18, etc.; but nothing in the Constitution says voting as such is a constitutionally protected right.
If you don’t like that, support Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Right to Vote Amendment.
Strong government is like a gun. It can be used to defend you or it can be used to rob you.
Libertarianism is the political equivalent of gun control. It’s the argument that if we get rid of guns, we’ll get rid of robbery so we won’t need self-defense. But if gun control actually prevailed, robbers would just use knives to rob you instead.
Libertarianism has the same blindness. It assumes all tyranny is the product of government. So get rid of government and there will be no tyranny and we won’t need any means to protect ourselves from tyranny. But if libertarianism actually prevailed, there would be plenty of non-government tyrants to oppress people.
So we keep guns and we keep government. They can be used against us. But they can also defend us when we use them wisely.
It depends on the state. Some states do explicitly protect it. I don’t believe that there’s any federal right however.
Count me in! I also want a wife strong enough, and strong-willed enough, to break my bones, but I don’t want her to do so.
I’d also like debating opponents clever enough to construct false dichotomies, but I prefer they not waste my time doing so.
A government where the majority oppresses a minority is not democratic:
[QUOTE=Google’s dictionary]
dem·o·crat·ic/ˌdeməˈkratik/
Adjective:
Of, relating to, or supporting democracy or its principles.
Favoring or characterized by social equality; egalitarian.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
While there is no universally accepted definition of “democracy,”[4] equality and freedom have both been identified as important characteristics of democracy since ancient times.[5] These principles are reflected in all citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure what your point is. Anything that can happen, will happen? 
Anyway, come back after you
[ul][li] define “tyrant,”[/li][li] reearch whether this question has been previously considered, and[/li][li] finally explain how the political model of Emackatopia differs from that of present-day Somalia.[/li][/ul]
I think that’s misguided. That’s what the Articles of Confederation were. The Constitution created a strong federal government with limited powers. But where it had powers, it was supreme to the states. However, where the government had no power, even the individual was supreme to the government.
The only federal right to vote is that you can’t be denied the right to vote based on discriminatory requirements.
If there was a right to vote, then immigrants would be allowed to vote. Immigrants have all the rights in the Constitution, there are no “citizen only” rights. If something is for citizens only, it’s a benefit of citizenship, not a right. The only way rights get involved is that you can’t discriminate against citizens, by say making only whites eligible to collect Social Security.
On the question of how can a government be powerful enough to sustain itself but not become a tyranny:
The founding fathers did think about this. That’s why they set up a government with three branches and checks and balances.
The idea is that the three forces would keep each other in check while avoiding a power vacuum that could be filled by something else.
Whether or not it’s working is another question. Some would argue that certain factions have been working for decades to control all three branches and overcome that balance and that this rash of voter ID laws are an attempt by those factions to gain back some recently lost ground.
I think you’re confusing libertarianism with anarchism. In general, a libertarian believes that a government should exist and should be strong, but should be limited in their powers. The government should do only those things that they must and, depending on how strong a libertarian they are, they may make some concessions for things that government might be suited for than the private sector.
For instance, libertarians still generally believe that the government should maintain the military, since it must be under the control of the government and not the whim of the private sector. It could still theoretically be possible to have tyranny under a limited government, but such tyranny would be less oppressive since that government wouldn’t have control over everything. At the same time, if issues arise on those things that could be fixed by government intervention, such a government couldn’t do that either. That’s where the trade-off is.
It’s anarchists that believe that government leads to tyranny and the only real safeguard against it is to remove government entirely. There certainly are some self-described libertarians who are probably better described as anarchists. Though they do both often arise from a distrust of government, they are ultimately different philosophies. Certainly both philosophies have issues, but it’s not fair to either to conflate the two.
There is another check: the Constitution itself. The limited powers doctrine has been partly eroded by the fact that all three branches agree on one thing: the federal government should be powerful, more powerful than the Constitution envisions. What they disagree on is which branch should be the most powerful within that government, which is our last saving grace.
How many examples do you need to realize this is wrong? The US government was specifically designed to allow slavery, deny women equal status, and continues to be used to oppress the LBGTTT community.
Yes you do. Lots of states have had ballots to define marriage as one man and one women, and those ballots passed with overwhelming majorities. And right now many states are voting to restrict voting access by requiring ID. What this shows is that when given an opportunity, voters will happily choose tyranny.
Okay, so what is going to encourage this strong but benevolent government from actually using its power to oppress rather than protect? It took the US a long time before it finally had a civil rights movement, during which time minorities were NOT protected.
Not possible when the desire of one group is to restrict the rights of anther. Even though Roe v Wade was supposed to make abortion constitutional, several states have found work-arounds to block its access. So if 50%+1 want abortion made illegal, who is the government representing?
Do you not see the problem of when the people desire the government to be a tyrant? A poll in 2009 found that 51% of Americans considered themselves pro-life, which is to say a majority of Americans want the government to restrict a woman’s right to control her body.
Again; the collective will of the people, including those in the government. There’s ultimately nothing else that works. You can pass laws; but a tyrant will just ignore them. You can make the government weak, but then society collapses into anarchy. All but the very worst tyrannies are better than that.
Of course it’s possible, it’s done all the time.
And if that happens with enough people, you will get a tyranny. No way to stop it.
The problem is that neither libertarians nor anarchists can seem to agree on what their philosophies are. It seems there’s a different version of libertarianism for every libertarian and a different version of anarchy for every anarchist.
Yes, we do see a potential problem. We just don’t think libertarianism is the solution.
Could people vote in a tyranny? Yes. Is the solution not letting people vote? No.