Religion in English

502 Words2 Pages

Religion in English

"...prefers a democracy to any other system, on account of its comparative

advantages, and not on account of its perfection. He knows it has evils;

great and increasing evils, and evils peculiar to itself; but he believes that

monarchy and aristocracy have more." (p. 920)

Cooper describes a number of evils inherent in a democracy, great problems that

are extremely destructive to a democratic nation. He states that "It is a besetting vice of

democracies to substitute public opinion for law. The is the usual form in which the

masses of men exhibit their tyranny. When the majority of the entire community

commits this fault it is a sore grievance, but when local bodies, influenced by local

interests, pretend to style themselves the public, they are assuming powers that properly

belong to the whole body of the people, and to them only under constitutional

limitations." (p. 930) I think that this is the most detrimental of all the evils. For

example, in this country right now we have a problem with crime. In every politicians

campaign crime is the number one topic. The controlling of it, the handling of it, the

punishment for it, and so on. We as the American people fear crime. We will do

anything to stop it, even if it means giving up our own rights. The recent drunk driving

law in New York City comes to mind. If you get pulled over in NYC for driving drunk,

you automatically get your car impounded, and you can not get it back. This seems like a

good idea to the law-abiding citizens of NYC. They think that the law only applies to

drunk drivers, and they are not drunk drivers. The masses just don't think that it will

happen to them. They will be very upset to find out that the law applies to everyone. I

think that what Cooper is trying to say is that it is very easy to give up your freedom, but

it is very hard to get it back. There are laws being made all over the country right now

that are constitutionally questionable, but because the have to do with crime prevention,

the people are all for them. Once you break the constitution, it is very hard to fight back.

This type of evil is the most evil of all. For the legality of something is not taken

into consideration at all when it comes to crime.

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