By Tim Rohr
Ms. Rustick begins by calling on Guam's lawmakers to live up to their "job description, " beginning with "represent constituents."
One wonders where Ms. Rustick found a copy of said lawmakers "job description." The only official job description for lawmakers is set forth in their oath of office:
“I solemnly swear (or affirm) in the presence of Almighty God that I will well and faithfully support the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the United States applicable to Guam and the laws of Guam, and that I will conscientiously and impartially discharge my duties as a member of the Guam Legislature (or as an officer of the government of Guam).” (Aug. 1, 1950, ch. 512, § 14, 64 Stat. 388.)
Aside from the fact that elected lawmakers' Number One job description is to "faithfully support the Constitution of the United States" - which now permits states and territories to make their own own abortion laws (like the Heartbeat Bill which Ms. Rustick opposes), there is nothing in the oath that says they are to "represent constituents."
And by the way, what does that mean? As Bob Klitzkie commented on his show yesterday, does that mean every time a lawmaker has to make a decision said lawmaker runs outside, licks a finger, and sticks it in the wind?
Our system of government is not a "majority rules" or a "direct" democracy. It is an indirect democracy, aka a representative democracy wherein we elect officials to represent us in matters before the government.
Our "say so" does not have to factor into every decision before the government. Elected representatives are free to do what they think is best. Thanks to the First Amendment (though it is facing hard times) we may mouth off any time we want. However, the only time we actually have a "say" is at election time.
Ms. Rustick states that "74% of Guam voters believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases," and I don't doubt that. Just look at who we re-elected for Governor. And, for years, the abortion reports have demonstrated that Guam's "native" population has lead the field at murdering its own progeny even while said native population continues to drastically, and irrecoverably, decline.
(Apparently Ms. Rustick and her Adelup counterpart want to see more of this.)
Ms. Rustik also makes the case that there were far more testimonies opposed to the Heartbeat Bill than there were in support. The answer to that is:
"So?"
Once again, we don't elect our lawmakers to "count." We elect them to "do," and do what they believe is right. And if we don't like it, we vote them out.
If we had followed Ms. Rustick's version of democracy wherein "majority rules," we would still have slavery, forced sterilization of individuals with disabilities, interment camps for ethnic groups we don't like, racial segregation, racial discrimination generally, sodomy criminalized, child labor, and amongst many other injustices, Al Gore as president. See: 13 Worst Supreme Court Decisions of All Time
In fact, our Founding Fathers, fleeing tyranny themselves, wanted to make sure that their new nation would not succumb to a new kind of tyranny, a Tyranny of the Majority, and thus sought to ensure against such an atrocity by establishing a representative democracy that will sometimes do what people like Ms. Rustick, former slaveholders, eugenists, Japanese haters, Black people haters, etc., do not want it to do.
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