Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Meet the Mob

Sharing

North Dakota faces a serious problem: The Mob. 

“The point of being a republic is so that Mob doesn’t rule,” warned Chris Berg, host of Point of View on Fargo, North Dakota’s Valley News Live. “If you live in a true democracy that’s where Mob can rule.”

Berg called citizens petitioning issues onto the ballot for a vote “a mob-​rule system … that allows us to change the actual constitution of our state.”

Not sure which constitution one might work to amend except for the “actual” constitution. But I do see a clearly articulated concern with mob rule. 

“A republic, my folks, is what we live in,” continued Berg, juxtaposing the ballot initiative process as “a pure democratic system.”

But ballot measures are no more pure democracy than are acts enacted by the legislature. Both can be challenged and overturned if they violate constitutional rights.

The focus of Berg’s anti-​initiative worry is Measure 1, an ethics amendment passed last November and derided by Berg as “a bunch of Hollywood money to change North Dakota.” 

True, Measure 1 did receive support from folks outside North Dakota, including groups supported by Hollywood stars. 

Those financial backers were well known to North Dakotans, 54 percent of whom voted for the measure. 

And freedom means the right to associate with fellow Americans across state lines. 

Responding to Berg, Dustin Gawrylow, managing director of the North Dakota Watchdog Network, said the citizen initiative process was “the best way to keep legislators honest and in tune with the people.”

After all, without “a way for the people to actually set the rules for lawmakers,” the people would be ruled by … the capitol mob.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

citizen's initiative, democracy, mob, North Dakota, initiative

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts


3 replies on “Meet the Mob”

Mob rule is Marxist. A dictatorship. We see this within the DNC. This type of rule is against our U.S. Constitution and anything operating against our Constitution cannot continue. There is only one way this can continue, is if the “people” keep silent and do nothing.

John Lockes determination for our governments power was logically limited to the protection of each individual’s right to his/​her life, his/​her liberty, and also his/​or her property,and any government that interfered with these rights instead of protecting them was illegitimate. It is this language that ultimately appeared in our Constitution as the rights to life, true liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our Founding Fathers, intellectual heirs expressed by John Locke, consciously and deliberately creating the first government of these United States.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *