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Topic: The Tyranny of the Majority

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	TYRANNY - Avoiding Risk of Tyranny by the Majority or by a Minority
		Tyranny is most often defined as dictatorial power of tyranny by a minority—e.g., when a nation comes under the rule of a dictator, plutocracy or oligarchy and a minority forces its will upon the majority.
		And tyranny by the majority was the pervasive norm during earlier times, including in the United States where we did not abolish: slavery until 1865, disenfranchisement of women until 1920, and discrimination until 1964.
		Tyranny by a minority is where Congress has developed its greatest risks and is an important reason why this Amendment is urgently needed as a constitutional check-and-balance.
	www.cusdi.org /tyrannyrisk.htm (1540 words)

	ICT [2002/06/15] Tyranny of the majority a paradox in democracies
		The majority Hutu went on a rampage in 1994 in Rwanda and slaughtered 800,000 of the minority Tutsi.
		It may be comforting to try to urge that a few criminals at the top of the pyramid were to blame, but in fact those societies had nothing in place to protect their minorities from the tyranny of the majority, of which there are countless examples.
		Direct democracy is most difficult and dangerous when the tyranny of the majority ﾖ the willingness of the majority to ignore or run roughshod over the needs and aspirations of the minority ﾖ is unbridled and nothing can restrain it.
	www.indiancountry.com /content.cfm?id=1024155034 (1276 words)

	Majority Rule Equals Tyranny (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		The Constitution's Framers feared tyranny of the majority.
		In fact, one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that is confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical.
		Plus, we'd all agree that it would be nothing short of tyranny if where you could live and who you could marry was decided by majority rule.
	www.gmu.edu /departments/economics/wew/articles/00/majorityrule.html (598 words)

	Tyranny of the Majority: What Was Really Going on in the Senate?
		Parliamentary procedure is the Senate’s “rule of law.” Without that, there would be a tyranny of the majority and potential chaos, much the same as we see in the societies we are now trying to “civilize” who have not had a rule of law guiding their procedures.
		Once that issue was decided by the Chair, a simple majority could vote cloture and they could move to a simple majority vote on the judicial candidates.
		We just narrowly avoided allowing anarchic tyranny by a majority to overcome the rule of law by which we have run this country for over 200 years.
	www.buzzflash.com /contributors/05/05/con05188.html (1071 words)

	Founding Fathers Party Forums: Tyranny by Majority Rule (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Another possible example of tyranny by majority rule is the recent news that the California Supreme Court upheld the law that requires California employers to provide contraceptive prescriptions in certain company sponsored health plans.
		But, I would wager that the majority of Californians feel that contraceptive coverage is just another one of those burdens any "good" employer would provide on their own, so if they won't do it voluntarily, it should be compelled with threats of punishment.
		Tyranny of the majority a paradox in democracies
	www.foundingfathersparty.net /forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=139 (2763 words)

	Tyranny of the majority - Jun. 18, 2004 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Tyranny of the majority - Jun. 18, 2004
		The excuse of those in the majority is that opening them would delay the canvassing and the proclamation of the new president, adding a threat of a power vacuum and chaos if no president is proclaimed by June 30.
		Of course, the tyranny of the majority prevails.
	www.inq7.net /opi/2004/jun/18/opi_nhcruz-1.htm (1019 words)

	Mechanisms For Preventing Tyranny of the Majority in a Democracy
		Madison had thought that the greatest safeguard against the tyranny of the majority was the large number of sects and divergences of interests and opinions that divided people in ways that made it virtually impossible for coalitions to form stable majorities.
		Moreover, majorities in any legislature often merely impose their will on those numerical minorities with opposing philosophies for as long as they are able, which means at least one election cycle, if not many.
		The idea is that because majority rule in Congress is at best temporary and secure only until the next election, it would be wise not to pass laws that are intolerable to the minority party, so that they do not do the same against you when they become the majority.
	www.garlikov.com /philosophy/majorityrule.htm (3818 words)

	Tocqueville: Book I Chapter 15
		The majority was so eagerly employed in founding the new prisons that those which already existed were forgotten; and as the general attention was diverted to a novel object, the care which had hitherto been bestowed upon the others ceased.
		Tyranny may be exercised by means of the law itself, and in that case it is not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for the public good, in which case it is not tyrannical.
		The majority has absolute power both to make the laws and to watch over their execution; and as it has equal authority over those who are in power and the community at large, it considers public officers as its passive agents and readily confides to them the task of carrying out its de signs.
	xroads.virginia.edu /~hyper/detoc/1_ch15.htm (5503 words)

	Tyranny Of A Majority - A James Madison View
		He saw a majority of representatives in a body as having the right to speak for the whole, but he saw "the right of revolution...
		Several super-majoritarian checks on simple majorities were considered important enough to be included in the Constitution itself: Article V of the Constitution requires 3/4 of the states must ratify an amendment to the Constitution.
		Two-thirds majorities are required in the Senate to override a Presidential veto and to convict U.S. officials impeached by the House of Representatives.
	www.rense.com /general64/madi.htm (712 words)

	Victorious America Introduction
		In the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11th situations are now arising that are so erratic that the boundaries that separate reason from irrationality and democracy from tyranny, are threatening to be erased and be replaced by the forces of oppression and terror in all arenas of the human endeavor.
		This is the agenda of tyranny, the parent of terror.
		It is remarkable that protecting the minority against the tyranny of the majority was showcased as our first order of business in dealing with the problem of protecting citizen's individual rights from the onslaught of religious tyranny that the Puritans had faced from the onset.
	www.victoriousamerica.com /alert/introduction.htm (3648 words)

	Majoritarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Majoritarianism is a political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society.
		Majoritarianism is often referred to as majority rule, but which may be referring to a majority class ruling over a minority class, while not referring to the decision process called the majority rule.
		Although strict majority rule has never been tried in human history, majoritarianism (as a theory), similar to democracy, has often been used as a pretext by sizable or aggressive minorities to politically oppress other smaller (or civically inactive) minorities, or even sometimes a civically inactive majority (see Richard Nixon's reference to "silent majority").
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Majoritarianism (803 words)

	Quoteland :: Search
		Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.
		Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
		Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
	www.quoteland.com /search.asp?query=tyranny (578 words)

	Tyranny of the majority (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Mill argued that the tyranny of the majority could be avoided by a constitution, designed to balance short-term passions against long-term interests and majority power against minority rights.
		The means of overturning the tyranny of the majority is to exit the scene and leave the leeches to collapse under the weight of their own stupidity.
		As long as we have a majority of judges, and Justices, who understand that their task is to enforve the law as pressented, not to change it when they choose, then our bulwark against loss of sovereignty is greater than that of the British.
	www.freerepublic.com /focus/news/686347/posts (2865 words)

	Tyranny of the majority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Look up tyranny in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
		The tyranny of the majority is the dilemma facing a democracy when a minority's own interests are consistently blocked by an electoral majority.
		One of the most common ways of addressing the problem is through provisions in a constitution.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority (158 words)

	What Prohibition Has Done to America - Nature of the Prohibitionist Tyranny
		A moment's reflection will tell you that mere majority rule, unlimited, would be the most grinding of tyrannies; the minority at any time would be mere slaves, whose rights to life, property and comfort no one who chose to join the majority would be bound to respect.
		Nordhoff certainly did not intend his young readers to infer that such tyranny as he describes is either sure to occur in the absence of a Constitution or sure to be prevented by it.
		Thus the Prohibitionist tyranny is in no small measure a sectional tyranny, which is of course an aggravated form of majority tyranny.
	www.druglibrary.org /schaffer/history/e1920/fabian7.htm (2204 words)

	Jewish History - DEMOCRACY AND TYRANNY (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Democracy was meant to defend the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
		It is a demand on the majority, one that still cleaves unto traditional standards of biblical morality, that it capitulates ideologically and religiously to the demands of the minority.
		Those demonstrations were against immoral and unjust laws that represented the tyranny of the majority in a number of states of the Union against fellow American citizens.
	rabbiwein.com /modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2154 (966 words)

	Irrational Knowledge » Blog Archive » Tyranny of the Majority
		If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.” Government is a tradeoff between directly expressing the will of the majority versus protecting individuals from the tyranny of the majority.
		This is a very elementary form of protection against tyranny of the majority - it raises the bar to “tyranny of the supermajority” and lowers the bar for the minority groups in opposition.
		In theory, the majority should not be allowed to exercise powers not listed, a position made explicit by the Tenth Amendment.
	www.irrationalknowledge.com /10-19-2006/tyranny-of-the-majority (1442 words)

	Tête-a-Tête-Tête: Judicial Tyranny versus the Tyranny of the Majority
		Judicial Tyranny versus the Tyranny of the Majority
		Now, when the majority of people vote for a law or a political system that only effects the minority, and the minority who are affected oppose that law, that's what I think DeTocqueville had in mind when he talked about the tyranny of the majority.
		It's unfortunate that the majority of people so despise their countrymen who are gay that they are willing to deprive them of access to the same institutions they demand access to for themselves, even though it harms them none to do so.
	www.smijer.com /blog/archives/000877.html (851 words)

	"The Fear of Majority Rule - Forward.com"
		If a governing majority were composed of a coalition of different elements, there would be little to fear because it would be many-minded and internally divided.
		But if a governing majority were composed of a homogenous mass where its basic commitments were uniform, there was the real danger that it would show little tolerance for any who disagreed.
		Madison believed that it was easier for such a tyranny to evolve in a small nation than in a large one —- such as a union of many states into a nation with a variety of economic, ethnic, political differences.
	www.forward.com /articles/the-fear-of-majority-rule (653 words)

	Tyranny of the Majority - Opinion - Arutz Sheva
		One of the less commonly discussed aspects of the flaws of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
		John Stuart Mill, in his essay "On Liberty", speaks of the tyranny of the majority and says, "Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through acts of the public authorities.
		Despite the fact that the Likud referendum on disengagement was illiberal in essence, some polls have shown that the slim majority of opinion in Israel is contrary to the referendums results.
	www.israelnationalnews.com /article.php3?id=4076 (1100 words)

	Tyranny of the Elect
		And yet, scarcely a single voice has been heard to articulate the view of the overwhelming majority who not only merely approve of, but deeply respect and admire, the faith and courage embodied in an act that so horrifies adherents of the modern mentality.
		Few people, and certainly not this writer, would dare to suggest that the few cases of involuntary sati that are said to have occurred in the past are in any way laudable.
		The result is a veritable tyranny of the elect, all in the name of ‘progress’, or whatever happens to be the current fashion.
	hamsa.org /tyranny-elect.htm (1347 words)

	Archive \| November 20, 2000 \| The tyranny of the majority
		Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address in 1801 said, "Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;...the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression".
		Without laws, we are subject to the impulses of the majority or to those with the means to enforce their whims.
		We would not accept a majority ruling that abolished the Bill of Rights, or one that legalized murder because we know that these actions would not support the general welfare of our nation.
	www.enterstageright.com /archive/articles/1100tyrannymaj.htm (759 words)

	Church & State Issues--Beliefnet.com
		John Stuart Mills essay on the American democracy: Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities.
		Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether is be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
		Anyway, nearly every one of those who knew her blanched when they learned that she was not running with the majority party, and while many of them did end up voting for her, the party machine maintained its grip on the reins of power.
	www.beliefnet.com /boards/message_list.asp?discussionID=465212 (1352 words)

	Majority Rule
		Even with super-majorities, however, the tendency of majority rule processes is to divide society into two competing coalitions (often referred to as the right and left, or liberals and conservatives).
		One key to controlling what is sometimes called the "tyranny of the majority" are norms and rules which prevent the majority from disregarding the basic rights of the minority.
		Majority rule votes, they observe, can lead to destructive outcomes as they enforce a win-lose approach to conflict.
	www.colorado.edu /conflict/peace/treatment/majority.htm (597 words)

	The Hindu : Tyranny of the majority
		There are certain inherent shortcomings in the system of democracy besides the so-called ``will of the majority'', which is the omnipresent part of the very system.
		The tyranny of the majority is more prevalent in our social structure than in our Parliament where the tyranny of the minority has been the reality.
		Gail Omvedt's recommendation of proportional representation system as against ``First-Past-The-Post'' system is unlikely to solve the issue of ``tyranny of the majority'' since the minority will remain a powerless minority in Parliament.
	www.hinduonnet.com /2000/08/31/stories/05311306.htm (332 words)

	Drifty's Rants - -
		What happens is that the majority end up making a poor choice, essentially screwing over the minority that saw how wrong the majority was; and yet the superior minority get trampled upon by the inferior majority.
		It is wrong, but the tyranny of the majority seems to moronically disagree.
		All of this was put into place to act as a buffer between the tyranny of the majority and the electing of a president.
	www.ocf.berkeley.edu /~bac/DR/rants/democracy.php (949 words)

	Editorial The Telegraph - Weekly (Nepal)
		The Supreme Court summarily gave the judgement in the form of a suggestion that the bill approved by the Koirala regime were, if offered the Royal seal, would mean that the law superseding the constitution adopted in 1990.
		The tyranny of the congress majority stands thus badly exposed in the eyes of the entire nationalist population.
		As per the constitution, the constitutional monarch is obliged to act in a manner desired by the parliament according to the article 72, which forces the King to approve any bill or whatsoever that bears a sticker of the "finance" bill.
	www.nepalnews.com.np /contents/englishweekly/telegraph/2001/may/may02/editorial.htm (698 words)

	Essay: The Tyranny of the Majority (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		With the exceptions of China and the US, they’re all elected by the majority of their native populations.
		Now, whether or not the same can be said of the other 5 democratically-elected G8 leaders, the fact remains that none of them have come out to condemn the contempt for the views and LIVES of the protestors which were brutalized at this year’s G8 conference.
		And this is what I call the Tyranny of the Majority.
	www.bjorn-comic.com /tyranny.htm (664 words)

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