“Tolerance…[is] the last virtue of a dying society”—Aristotle
When you hear the word democracy, what comes to
mind? For me, it’s about fairness, and
yes, equal treatment under its banner; it’s about listening to every voice and
giving equal credence to them. It is, as
G. K. Chesterton said in his book Orthodoxy, “the elementary liberal doctrine
of a self-governing humanity.”
Chesterton further said, (also quoted from Orthodoxy), that:
This is the first
principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they
hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that
the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in
common.
The Merriam/Webster online dictionary says
democracy is (1) “Government by the people; especially: rule of the majority”;
and (2) “A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and
exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation
usually involving periodically held free elections”
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy).
The online site: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
says this:
Democracy is a form
of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either
directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and
creation of laws. It encompasses social,
economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of
political self-determination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy).
So, “vested in the people,” “self-determination,”
and “self-governing humanity.” These are
some of the catch phrases which attempt to capture what democracy is in
succinct or pithy form. But how do we
deal with the emerging idea (perhaps emerged
idea would be more accurate) that a minority voice should be heard at the
same decibel as a majority voice? As
already stated, a dictionary definition of the word democracy is “Government by
the people, especially: rule of the
majority” (emphasis added).
It is only fair that majorities have
disproportionately more power and say than minorities; not as people
individually examined (each person, regardless of whether or not they get
attached to a majority faction or minority faction of a society, is to be
considered). However, once individuals
are heard, they begin to be classified and attached to the collective voice of
a faction they identify with.
If there are, for example, 50 Democrats and 10
Republicans, or even 50 African Americans and 10 Caucasians, however it is
divided out, it has to be (if we are to remain purely democratic) that the 50s
be 5x as loud or noticed as the 10s.
Said another way, let’s say there are 100 individual people who form a
democracy: 63 are Caucasian, 17 Hispanic, 13 African American, 5 Asian, and 2
other (this exactly mirrors the demographic makeup of America as of 2012). In this scenario, 63 Caucasian voices, vs.,
let’s say, the 17 Hispanic voices; who is, and should be louder?
Whites in America are the ruling race (or
ethnicity) and should rightly, according to the democratic ideal, be so. But tolerance without root is license and
anarchy, allowing the minority voice to overwhelm the majority one. If whites were to exist in smaller numbers
than blacks, for example, in let’s say South Africa (Oh yeah they did) then
whites would be the minority and ought to have been made to voice only at the
decibel their total numbers suggested.
Because whites were the minority in South Africa, but for years the
ruling class there (before apartheid was eliminated), it was an unfair
government which had to go, especially, if democracy was their aim.
But alas, too many, I fear, are not really about a fair democracy; they are
about their own way in a wider berth expression than even what their collective
numbers can create. Indeed, as Bob Dylan
said: “Man is opposed to fair play; he wants it all, and he wants it his way”
(from the song Licensed to Kill).
