Absolutely! That's where the ethics argument gets fun! What is majority rule weighted against the consent of the governed. My government (for the past few decades) doesn't value a lot of things regarding individual liberty, even when a majority do value them - is that tyranny?
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Replying to @shouldITbonfire
I'm not talking about ethics for a change. I'm talking about a much simpler reality that the rules of a country reflect the societal norms within it because society makes the rules.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Does society actually make law? Our last election would have been decided (one way or the other) by ~45 Million, numerous eligible voters don't vote, nore are minors and other members of society. 60 Million Pastafarians could make Sagnarelli Law a reality.
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Replying to @shouldITbonfire
I am not talking about this. I am speaking on a much larger timescale in which yes, society changes and with it laws. Its not a coincidence that secular liberal democracies exist where the Enlightenment happened and Muslim theocracies exist where most people are Muslim.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
So to be clear, you are referring society (as it pertains to values) influencing government over a period generations (decades and centuries). As those moral values change over generations so then does the laws and governments.
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Replying to @shouldITbonfire
Yes, exactly. Look at how England has changed over the last 2000 years. The zeitgeist changes and with it society and with it government even if at various stages, it upholds some values which are at odds with the majority.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Got Ya! With that, do you think its possible for any culture or society to resist change. Even some of the most hardline cultures that have actively resisted reformation for fundamentalism are softening. (Ex: Women Protesting in Iran; China's talent for capitalism)
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Replying to @shouldITbonfire @HPluckrose
I am hard pressed to think of a single culture, business, or even group that became more fundamentalist. Some maintained certain values that were restrictive, but I can't think of one that became more restrictive for very long.
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Replying to @shouldITbonfire
Christianity? That made many societies more restrictive for a good thousand years.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
That was actually where my mind was going - on the grandest of time scales it becomes order and chaos. Humanity starts out very liberal free (tribal/pre-civilization), becomes constrained, then fundamentalist (law\religion), then those values undergo reformation.
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Yeah, but we are still very young. Also, if you look at progress in terms of violence, the decline is consistent. Pinker's Better Angels shows that we have become less and less likely to die violently. Earliest hunter-gatherers seemed to have had 40% chance of being murdered.
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