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Tyranny of the majority is a well known concept in political science. For example, initially the civil rights movement (both the civil war era, and the 1960s)
by ryanobjc 8y ago
Tyranny of the majority is a well known concept in political science. For example, initially the civil rights movement (both the civil war era, and the 1960s) and laws was quite unpopular. From a certain point of view, they were strong armed thru by activist judges and politicians who were violating the popular will.
- msla 8y ago> From a certain point of view, they were strong armed thru by activist judges and politicians who were violating the popular will. Not just "from a certain point of view", Obi-Wan: The whole point of a constitutional system is to check the majority, to say that some laws are impermissible, no matter how much the majority wants them, because they violate some principle we regard as more important than majority rule.
- kolpa 8y agoBut who is the "we" in this regard?
- roenxi 8y agoStill the majority of the population, as it happens. If serious percentages (say, 60%) of a democracy want something enough that they make it a voting issue, it'll happen eventually. You'll get a candidate who is happy to do 'everything the other guy would do + X'. The big thing with constitutional changes is that they will normally require serious unity amongst the population, most of whom will likely by default agree with the constitution. The majority isn't greedy and evil, they just don't put up much of a fight when the politicians 'misunderstand' and implement policy that favours the majority without accepting the damage to a minority. There are a lot of policies like that, and in many cases one suspects the politicians know exactly what they are doing but the public is intellectually lazy.