Funny anecdote. I'm a child of the 80's, and I grew up in a mixed Fundamentalist/Evangelical/Pentecostal environment, all quite conservative. From K through 6th grade I attended a Fundamentalist Baptist (KJV-only) private school. Homeschooled 7th grade through the Abeka (formerly A Beka) textbooks and video cassette classes through Pensicola Christian College. And then my 8th grade year was at a different private school. I attended with my family a non-denominational church until I was 8 years old, after our family was kicked out we ended up attending a Foursquare church.
My education, at school, at church, and in the home was very conservative. A pro-Reagan, then pro-Bush (Sr.) environment. When Clinton took office in the early 90's, it was a VERY big, and very bad, deal.
That's the context, here's the point: In all of this I was told, over and over again, that because America is a democracy, that it is the majority that should decide what happens. That is, the majority of the country was Christian and conservative, therefore Christian conservative values and policies should be what Congress passes--it was the will of the majority, the will of the people. And not doing that was catering to the minority of secular humanists and atheists who wanted to undermine America's Christian heritage and values.
In other words, the staple of my upbringing was that the majority SHOULD rule over the minority, because that is the will of the people.
What is obvious to me now is that this rhetoric was useful only when the majority is "people like me", if "people like me" are not the majority, then the majority is now bad.
The older I get, the more I realize that it's always been about power. It has never been about consistent principle, it's never been about values. It's always been about power. It's always about keeping the "right people" in power.
The "right people" being "people like me".
-CryptoLutheran