Majorities mandate miasmas

Miasma
1. An unwholesome atmosphere
2. Unhealthy vapours rising from the ground or other sources

After elections the unwholesome atmospheres usually come from ideologues who always know better (but are no better). One commentator saw the 2008 US general elections as “I've read that Obama doesn't have a mandate, but I don't know what planet you have to come from to draw that conclusion” – personally, I come from the planet Earth. Votes in elections may decide winning candidates, but votes in elections do not decide which were the winning ideas. The only tangible consequences of elections are the persons who were elected. The elected then act according to their intangible ideas of what should happen (their own personal mandates). These actions also have consequences, and certain self-confirming superior individuals have always feared the unintended consequences of actions resulting from misguided votes in majoritarian elections – miasmic assertions such as Mitt Romney’s remarks that Obama administration actions “were very generous in what they gave to those groups”, or James Madison’s worry that some groups would not act in the “permanent and aggregate interests of the community”.

Declaring independence from the governed

In the 2012 presidential election only about 17.7% of the population of Louisiana voted Obama, but then only 25.2% voted Romney. In fact, less than half of the Louisiana populace (the Louisiana governed) voted in the 2012 presidential election, which means that less than half of the governed gave any consent to anybody. Louisiana is the home of “WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:  Peacefully grant the State of Louisiana to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government” – the first secession petition on the White House web site, dated 7 November 2012. Quoting from the US Declaration of Independence, the petition says government should derive its “just powers from the consent of the governed”. The petition was started by “Michael E” about whom little is known. Who gave consent to the Louisiana petition by signing-up? – the Louisiana governed? Looking at the last twenty electronic signatures at this moment (36,825-36,844) five are from the Louisiana governed and the rest are from outside the state.

Abortion and godlings

The desire to favour ideology over compassion for women has surfaced in Ireland in very distressing way. A pregnant woman (Savita Halappanavar) was admitted to University Hospital Galway (UHG), where she was found to be miscarrying and soon was in severe pain. Savita died of septicaemia a week later. Why did Savita die? According to an article in The Irish Times a request for a medical termination was refused because the foetal heartbeat was still present, and “this is a Catholic country”. Perhaps the doctors (godlings?) would also claim that even after rape any pregnancy is “something that God intended to happen” (believed by some in the USA)?

A necessary medical treatment to save the life of the mother because of foetal termination. We have a case where the perceived “rights” of a foetus (who had not been born) superseded the rights of a woman (who had been born) – this unfortunate position appears throughout many conservative political ideologies. Often “abortion” is a political issue dressed in religious clothes.

Hearts of stone

Sometimes ideology overcomes humanity. Sometimes an abstract idea becomes more important than reality. Some human beings forget they exist in world populated by other human beings without whom their existence would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Not wishing to bear one another's burdens, some humans seem devoid of any spiritual or communal feeling – espousing a morality of materialism.

They are statues with their hearts of stone.

The rights of the born woman

Given the many arguments about abortion, conclusions about embryos and foetuses are neither self-evident nor unambiguous truths – what is self-evident (and a truth) is that a woman has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If  you believe that life is a gift from a god and all fertilized eggs should be allowed to come to term then, logically, no matter the circumstances of fertilization, nobody should stop any embryo coming to term. Of course, this means any woman has a life that is a gift from a god, because she was once an embryo and then a foetus.