Comment by asgard1024
11 years ago
It indeed means majority rule, in a certain sense. The majority is adhoc, unlike in dictatorship, where the decision makers are defined independently of the issue. This distinction is also lost on many. :-)
Regarding democracy/republic distinction. This is a non-issue, mostly invoked by people against democracy. Of course functioning democracy needs republic, constitution, and protection of rights of others, especially the right to vote (which is btw one of the first things stripped to people before genocide happens). Democracy by definition includes all minorities. You cannot have people democratically voting to take democratic rights away from someone - that's kind of a Russell's paradox.
And I believe that U.S. would be much better off (for normal folks) if it actually were democracy on federal level, which it isn't, I agree. On state level U.S. is often more democratic (these are remnants of progressive movement from the beginning of 20th century) and some decisions are lot better; there are even studies that show that.
It would be a non-issue if people understood that the rights of others weren't fungible. If the equal protection clause were better understood, such that other people's voting rights were as sacrosanct as their own, as would be other peoples' marriages, freedom of association, etc. Or perhaps if our legislative process weren't focused so much on attempting to pay lip service to the letter of the law while wholly attempting to violate the spirit of it.
Regardless, we should reject majority rule where it violates constitutional restraint, but in practice, people on both sides have shown themselves all to happy to prioritize their own whimsies over the rights of others.
This is not a critique of democracy, mind you, but it is a critique of the people who fail to understand the premise of constitutional restraint while attempting to enjoy their democratic privileges. If more people realized that, as a matter of schema, certain policy options were off the table, and that's a legitimate feature, not a bug, then I think we'd all be better off, but whether done through noble intent or bigotry, the suppression of another's rights is the result of having failed to understand that the necessary component to a healthy democracy is in the required inability to take things away from those you don't like.
Well, practice shows that people in direct democracies understand this. Because for them, being minority in referendum is a common thing. Most people are mostly in the majority and sometimes in the minority. It has been shown that (semi)direct democracy actually decreases the polarization in the society and increases willingness to compromise with others.
So you may have a valid complaint, but unless the society actually practices democracy it won't get better - you will just continue to live with the imaginary fear of "majority".
Being a minority in a referendum leaves you with being exactly that -- the minority in a referendum.
Having your views represented directly is only as effective as the majority respects them. Historically, we haven't been all that great there.
I'm not saying there's no good in it, but we should similarly not forget that Proposition 8 was the result of referendum.
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