[Sarvana]

So you think vomiting or urinating in the street does not harm anyone? Or does your definition of harm only include hurting someone physically? If so do you think that someone killing himself does not harm their family and friends? Or that the Westboro Baptist Church does not harm anyone by picketing funerals? I’m going to assume that you want activities to be legal that the majority thinks are ok to be legal. If so, why do you consider people in a state or city voting to decriminalize marijuana as mob rule?

[robertpaulsen]

"So you think vomiting or urinating in the street does not harm anyone?"

Not directly, no. Indirectly, maybe.

But people smoking pot harm others indirectly, just as suicides and those who picket funerals. That's why we have laws against those activities.

YOU are the one who suggested we use a different standard. YOU are the one who suggested we limit our laws to those activities that actually harm others.

As I then skillfully pointed out, that would open the door to a variety of activities that are rude, offensive, disgusting, insulting, and shocking -- but not harmful.

"If so, why do you consider people in a state or city voting to decriminalize marijuana as mob rule?"

Another poster coined the phrase as applicable to voter-driven initiatives. Referendums are essentially a pure democracy, something the Founding Fathers abhorred.

They, and I, prefer a representative republic, allowing legislatures to draft and pass laws with the approval of their constituents.