On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
O.k., then we're likely so far apart in
political opinions that we'll
have a hard time agreeing on very much. If 90% of a population is
white, and votes in fair and open democratic elections to impose
rights violations ("separate but equal" or worse) on the 10% that is
black, you'd consider that a morally appropriate outcome? I don't
think so, but that's what I mean when I say that majority rule is
morally repugnant.
I agree, that would be morally repugnant, but no serious proponent of
majority rule advocates that sort of thing. The standard formulation
is that the "majority rules, but the minority has rights." The
question of how to define the boundary between majority rulership and
minority rights has always been difficult to define, but that
fundamental problem doesn't get any better if you resort to the only
viable alternative to majority rule, which is one-man dictatorship or
rule by a minority elite.
The alternative is the so-called "Rule of law" i.e. that we are ruled by
laws not men. This is the underlying idea behind a Republic, and the
purpose of a written constitution. It limits what one group (typically a
plurality or majority) can use the government to do to other groups.
It seem as if Sheldon Rampton and Jimmy Wales may be talking past each
other because the former is using the term "majority rule" figuratively to
mean constitutional democracy while the latter is using the term
literally. Perhaps if you can agree on terminology, you can then agree on
the issue.
M Carling