"My Gang Better Than Your Gang!"

Remember that line from your childhood? There is a larger question to all the recent hooha that has been made over 377A: in wanting to live life the way you want it, will you also respect my wanting to live life the way I want it? Or will you force your way of life upon me?

If your answer to the above question is "that's democracy, pal", then I have to ask you what your definition of democracy is, for its most obvious Achilles Heel is that depending on how it is implemented, a tyranny of the majority may result. The best defenses against such tyranny lie in the constitutional limitation of government powers and a bill of rights for all citizens, but these are swords that have effectively been denied to us. Any claims of this country opening up are therefore largely non sequitur.

Perhaps it's best illustrated by a small-scale example involving five friends who are trying to decide where to go for lunch. Say the majority vote for a particular cafe, so the whole group goes there. In this case, it's just a single instance of where they go for lunch, so it's tolerable. But suppose this happens everyday? Suppose these five friends then vote on not just where they go for lunch, but how they are to spend their money, how they spend their time, what subjects they shall study in school, what houses to buy, how they should plan for retirement, and who they are allowed to go after? In further extension, suppose the majority three in this circle then declare punishments for anyone who violates these policies, and beat up any offenders in their group accordingly?

If this scenario is so patently ridiculous to you, then why should it be permissible at a national level? And yet this is precisely what is happening. In wanting to change the world for what they think is for the better, liberals and conservatives alike would do well to beware of this very convenient back door to fascism that their notions of democracy contain.

Saying that one champions a more enlightened way of life in comparison to everybody else sounds bankrupt once such a cop-out is necessary for one's vision to succeed. Whatever the justification, fascism is only objectionable because it is an ideology that is only embraced by bullies. Of the original circle of so-called friends, even if the bullying three that decide things all the time are expelled from the group, there is still no guarantee that of the the remaining two, one of them would not transform into a bully as well.

When you think about it though, whatever the size of a given population of people, a tyranny of the majority will result at some point, for one cannot infinitely subdivide minorities in order to cater to each and every person. The issue then becomes one of marginal utility, and a few questions come to mind:

1) What is the size of the group that one is trying to cater to?
2) How significant are the differences between this group and its immediate superset?
3) How much effort would it take to cater specifically to the needs of this group?

Even with these pragmatic considerations in mind, a lot can still be done. To any who might presume to lead the country in a superior manner to what we currently have, it must be asked: to what extent would such a grotesque transformation and fate be avoided? Unless we all make a concerted effort in this direction, we will continue to watch re-runs of our tired human history over, and over, and over again.