Political Rant # 2: The real purpose of government.
I want to share a realization with you. It was Henry David Thoreau’s contention that democracy is a dictatorship of the majority, who are not necessarily more likely to be right, but simply stronger than the minority. Having read that previous article in the New Yorker, this had me doing some soul searching. When I was young, and my friends and I went out, we’d take votes on where to go, and end up saying something along the lines of, “6-2, majority rules, let’s head off over yonder…” Perhaps not the exact words “yonder” but the gist is there. And I never felt to question this proposition. However, I recently reconsidered this, and discovered that we had been very wrong, in my opinion, about the interpretation of majority rule and democracy…
First of all, the founding fathers created not a democracy but a representative republic. The fundamental difference being that we don’t have nationwide town hall meetings every Thursday night, but rather have elected officials in Washington, who represent the interests of the people, and vote accordingly. It never occurred to me to think about it this way, but here’s the thing, the fact that we have a representative government is precisely due to the fact that the majority is not necessarily always the most likely to be right, in fact they are likely to be ignorant, short sighted and gullible. Which is why we need representatives choosing policy, and not the majority.
Consider the Senate, 2 representatives from each state regardless of size. 2 from Texas, and 2 from Rhode Island, never mind the fact that you can fit 300 Rhode Islands inside Texas. Ever wonder why? I realized that it was because the founding fathers understood the principle that the object of government is not to execute the will of the majority, no for the majority can exercise its own will by virtue of the fact that it IS the strongest, the object of government is actually to protect the minority, the weak, the disenfranchised. The majority needs no help, its opinions by definition are the loudest, most visible ones, the minority needs help however, to remind people that dissent still exists.
The fundamental basis for a good government is a diversity of ideas, it allows society and civilization to grow. Government therefore, as an agent of progress, must ensure that differences in ideas exist. The burden falls on its shoulders to ensure that an idea, no matter how unpopular, is not marginalized, that it exists as either inspiration or in ridicule, or perhaps in simultaneity. It needs to keep farfetched ideas from being squeezed off the board, from become silent, from becoming tears in the rain. The importance of Government and what distinguishes it from simply mob rule is that it must protect the minority, allow the minority to be heard above the shouts of the majority, since the majority in unison has no problem propagating itself. Otherwise government is moot. Any angry mob can impose its will on one person, just as any majority can impose its will on the minority.
So many times before in history has a city had one ruling party come in, kill its opposition and minority in a bloody war, impose its will, then have another stronger group come in and do the same. We call those massacres, and we call those barbaric civilizations, but really in democracy the same is being done only silently, and without bloodshed…
Therefore, the idea of a democracy is really counter-intuitive, and paradoxal to the ideal role of the government. In a democracy, precisely the tyranny and oppression by the majority exists. Only in a representative republican government is such tyranny averted. I believe that this is if not the reason the constitutional convention decided to make the government a republic, then a satisfactory side-effect.
Whether or not this is still true in practice, especially the soft-money issue, is another story entirely, but in principle, and governmental idealism, that is what I think the government should do.
I want to share a realization with you. It was Henry David Thoreau’s contention that democracy is a dictatorship of the majority, who are not necessarily more likely to be right, but simply stronger than the minority. Having read that previous article in the New Yorker, this had me doing some soul searching. When I was young, and my friends and I went out, we’d take votes on where to go, and end up saying something along the lines of, “6-2, majority rules, let’s head off over yonder…” Perhaps not the exact words “yonder” but the gist is there. And I never felt to question this proposition. However, I recently reconsidered this, and discovered that we had been very wrong, in my opinion, about the interpretation of majority rule and democracy…
First of all, the founding fathers created not a democracy but a representative republic. The fundamental difference being that we don’t have nationwide town hall meetings every Thursday night, but rather have elected officials in Washington, who represent the interests of the people, and vote accordingly. It never occurred to me to think about it this way, but here’s the thing, the fact that we have a representative government is precisely due to the fact that the majority is not necessarily always the most likely to be right, in fact they are likely to be ignorant, short sighted and gullible. Which is why we need representatives choosing policy, and not the majority.
Consider the Senate, 2 representatives from each state regardless of size. 2 from Texas, and 2 from Rhode Island, never mind the fact that you can fit 300 Rhode Islands inside Texas. Ever wonder why? I realized that it was because the founding fathers understood the principle that the object of government is not to execute the will of the majority, no for the majority can exercise its own will by virtue of the fact that it IS the strongest, the object of government is actually to protect the minority, the weak, the disenfranchised. The majority needs no help, its opinions by definition are the loudest, most visible ones, the minority needs help however, to remind people that dissent still exists.
The fundamental basis for a good government is a diversity of ideas, it allows society and civilization to grow. Government therefore, as an agent of progress, must ensure that differences in ideas exist. The burden falls on its shoulders to ensure that an idea, no matter how unpopular, is not marginalized, that it exists as either inspiration or in ridicule, or perhaps in simultaneity. It needs to keep farfetched ideas from being squeezed off the board, from become silent, from becoming tears in the rain. The importance of Government and what distinguishes it from simply mob rule is that it must protect the minority, allow the minority to be heard above the shouts of the majority, since the majority in unison has no problem propagating itself. Otherwise government is moot. Any angry mob can impose its will on one person, just as any majority can impose its will on the minority.
So many times before in history has a city had one ruling party come in, kill its opposition and minority in a bloody war, impose its will, then have another stronger group come in and do the same. We call those massacres, and we call those barbaric civilizations, but really in democracy the same is being done only silently, and without bloodshed…
Therefore, the idea of a democracy is really counter-intuitive, and paradoxal to the ideal role of the government. In a democracy, precisely the tyranny and oppression by the majority exists. Only in a representative republican government is such tyranny averted. I believe that this is if not the reason the constitutional convention decided to make the government a republic, then a satisfactory side-effect.
Whether or not this is still true in practice, especially the soft-money issue, is another story entirely, but in principle, and governmental idealism, that is what I think the government should do.
