<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(68,68,68)">In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Justice Robert Jackson wrote:<br><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(68,68,68)">
"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts."<br>
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(68,68,68)">This, to me, makes of B of R the most important document in all of political history. We do not have a democracy. We have a partial one. Majorities cannot overturn the Constitution without a massive effort, and so minorities are protected.<br>
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<p style="margin:0px;font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(35,35,35)">Basically <b>being liberal means</b> a great deal of personal freedoms, less control and more mutual trust, less state or corporate interventions and questioning and hindering the power of the political, the corporate and the religious leaders. </p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(35,35,35);min-height:15px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(35,35,35)"><i>Motto for liberals could be "Do what ever you want, but don't stop the others from doing that, too."</i></p>
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I think that this is more of a statement of libertarianism than of liberalism, and 'do what you want...' is very extreme, more like anarchy - no rules at all. For classic liberalism we have to add free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, religion, trade, and private property. </div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(68,68,68)">Most people just don't understand that our Founding Fathers were all liberals. The conservative Tories were in favor of staying with the British as subjects. And they were the majority!! If everybody had voted we wouldn't have had a revolution. What our present day conservatives want to conserve is liberal principles. Some irony there perhaps?<br>
</div><br><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(68,68,68)">bill w</div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>There are so many different kind of democracy models... Not all democratic countries are free, fair or prosperous.</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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