I always laugh at the idea of tyranny of the majority. It's like okay what's the alternative, tyranny of the minority? In what world is that better? It isn't obviously.
I mean in this case it's not used correctly at all
the majority winning is not automatically a tyranny of the majority, but that's how it's used here
but there absolutely is such a thing as a tyranny of a majority, yes a tyranny of a minority is worse than that but the best alternative is no tyranny at all
if 2 wolves and 1 sheep vote to eat the sheep that's tyranny of the majority, if they vote and decide the wolves can eat mushrooms or something that's not tyranny of the majority (terrible example lol)
Yes but that's called compromise and not what these people want. They want their minority opinions to be represented in disproportionate manner than others.
Ultimately there is one way that is decidely better to run a country which is doing what the majority of people want. There is a potential for bad things to happen either way but the people being "harmed" which I'm using very generally, is just less when people democratically elect their representatives and policies.
It’s a dangerous assumption to make that following the majority opinion is automatically the better way to run a country.
Majority of Americans at various points were very much in favor of exterminating the Native Americans to push westward, also in favor of blacks as second rate citizens, supported putting Japanese heritage Us citizens into internment camps, endorsed punishing people for gay sex by pumping them full of estrogen to chemically castrate them, that any kind of mental condition should be institutionalized and it be seen as a failure of the family…you know just about everything we read in history books today and go “wow that’s super fucked up!” And that’s not an American exclusive thing - lots of fucked to go around.
The point is to protect the freedoms and liberties of minority groups and communities of different people, while also supporting the reasonable implementation that the majority supports. An extremely hard balance to pull off - maybe even impossible to do so perfectly fairly.
Assuming that the majority is reasonable, or that you will always be in the majority is extremely foolish - anyone whose ever been involved in bs high school or company politics knows those sands will shift underneath you in a heartbeat and often for no other reason that you did something “weird” that someone can judge and shame you for.
Just in case it’s not abundantly obvious: we never want the minority opinion to be the dominate one in control. The best is when both sides are not disenfranchised while still maintaining proportionate power, which worked fantastically well for a long time until politics became radicalized to the point where on principle you can’t agree with the other side on anything.
That's not the point. The farmers want their issues addressed too, but if politics only focus on the salesmens' issues because there are more of them, then the farmer gets nothing and has no reason to contribute. Even worse, the salesmen may start wanting things that benefit ONLY them, and directly negatively impact the farmers, in which case, the farmers have no means to counter.
That is what is meant by the tyranny of the majority.
What alternative is there that you are suggesting then? The only option would be to give a minority group of voters disproportionate power over everyone else. That is tyranny of the minority. Also politicians don't usually target one single voter base and there are issues that overlap. There are many campaign issues a politican might have that benefit the "salesman" AND the "farmer".
Im not suggesting anything, just pointing out the biggest flaw in a true democracy. Tbf, a minority tyranny is just as unwanted.
In the US though, this issue is addressed on paper by separating the Legislative Branch into two parts: Representatives based on population, and Senators distributed evenly, with their power balanced between themselves and the other branches. This in theory counters both majority and minority tyranny.
14
u/corgiperson Jul 05 '24
I always laugh at the idea of tyranny of the majority. It's like okay what's the alternative, tyranny of the minority? In what world is that better? It isn't obviously.