Paramount Theatre
Black's Disservice to Democracy
RECEIVED Sat., July 25, 2009
Dear Editor,
I was gladly nodding my head in agreement with this article until I came across the part where Black refers to democracy as nothing but tyranny of the majority ["Page Two,” July 24]. Not only is this wildly inaccurate, but it seems to be a prevalent idea among Americans.
For some reason unknown to me, Americans make the Athenian version of direct democracy equivalent to modern democracy. It is not as though they are referring to the modern idea of direct democracy (referenda and initiatives); they are merely referring to a system where the whim of 50% plus one overwhelms the remainder of the populace.
Black and Americans need to get familiar with democratic principles before they start trashing democracy without knowing much about it. Democratic principles include the concept of concurrent majority, which means the rights of a minority are protected from the whim of a capricious majority.
Perhaps basic civics courses in high school need to include ideas on democracy and not just useless memorization, such as the date of Election Day.
I was gladly nodding my head in agreement with this article until I came across the part where Black refers to democracy as nothing but tyranny of the majority ["Page Two,” July 24]. Not only is this wildly inaccurate, but it seems to be a prevalent idea among Americans.
For some reason unknown to me, Americans make the Athenian version of direct democracy equivalent to modern democracy. It is not as though they are referring to the modern idea of direct democracy (referenda and initiatives); they are merely referring to a system where the whim of 50% plus one overwhelms the remainder of the populace.
Black and Americans need to get familiar with democratic principles before they start trashing democracy without knowing much about it. Democratic principles include the concept of concurrent majority, which means the rights of a minority are protected from the whim of a capricious majority.
Perhaps basic civics courses in high school need to include ideas on democracy and not just useless memorization, such as the date of Election Day.
Hillary Corgey
Houston
Houston
[Editor Louis Black responds: Now I may well have missed something, but are there not any number of theories of democracy, often contradicting one another, and each with its own group of followers? If we talk about a democratic form of government, is it now universally accepted that we mean concurrent majority? I’m serious. If the Athenian model has been entirely discarded, I'm even less aware of current theory than I realized. Given that John Calhoun, the intellectual force behind the idea of a concurrent majority, was in favor of slavery, states’ rights, nullification and limited government, I would think that some theorists would be at least a little uncomfortable following his reasoning. Certainly there are legitimate arguments for states’ rights and limited government, but in Calhoun’s case he supported them as a way of preserving slavery.
I don’t like voter-mandated referenda and initiatives, mostly because any proposition that has budgetary impact but is not being voted on by those directly responsible for balancing the books is capricious.]