From Australia but very applicable in the US….rsk
They won’t say it, so I must: our political class blundered when it lowered the voting age to 18. Eager, optimistic and brimming with idealism today’s post-adolescents may be, but they also lack perspective and insight. Take that as my diagnosis of an arrogant ignorance only time can remedy.
It isn’t difficult for Malcolm Turnbull to bat away suggestions that he is betraying his position on gay marriage by supporting a plebiscite. After all, as he says, what could be more democratic than a plebiscite? What indeed?
The implicit proposition is that if 50% of voters-plus-one support gay marriage, Amen! Game, set and match. But, in this case, should a simple bare majority be sufficient to upend a longstanding institutional arrangement; and, separately, a majority of whom?
The outward show of democracy is government by majority will. Fifty per cent of votes plus one holds sway. For the most part, decisions are not directly made by the voting population but by their elected representatives. The 50%-plus-one still prevails, one level up as it were, from the underlying popular will. For deciding most issues, it is hard to think of a better system. But, for deciding some issues of far-reaching consequence, like, say, in passing, the portentous mass immigration of people with incompatible cultural values, it is not nearly demanding enough.
What does ‘far-reaching’ mean? A reasonable guide is that it should apply to a change which cannot feasibly be undone by the current or future generations and which goes to the heart of national culture, conventions, traditions or institutions. Constitutional amendments often fall under this category of change. And, appropriately and accordingly, usually more than a simple bare majority is required to make amendments.
In Australia, a majority of the population nationally, plus a majority in a majority of states, have to agree before a change to the Constitution is made. Special provisions governing constitutional change are par for the course in other countries. However, constitutional provisions are seldom all-encompassing.