But, it turns out, we actually don’t like everybody’s freedom.  Just ours.  As in, “mine”, really.  Yours, not so much.

From the American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 245-269

Citizen initiatives that restrict civil rights experience extraordinary electoral success: voters have approved over three-quarters of these, while endorsing only a third of all initiatives and popular referenda.

Now, of course, this doesn’t state how these outstanding civil rights experiences were resolved (if indeed they were).  They could have been resolved via a ballot initiative, or an “activist judge”, or a legislature passing some additional legislation.  I haven’t found any similar analysis of resolutions to buck up any one of those three.  However, it’s pretty clear that historically, Americans are all on board with voting away rights of others.

More here, here, here, and here.

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Modeled Behavior is added to the blogroll.  Tip o’ the hat to Paulie.

Go read.  You’ll be somewhat catastrophically depressed, but read anyway.