Is ‘majority rule’ moral even when the majority don’t want freedom?

By David McElroy · October 24, 2011

When Somali’s parliament unanimously agreed two years ago to make Islamic sharia law the basis of their country’s legal system, it was a clear demonstration of democracy in action. That’s a picture of the happy vote. At the same time, it was a serious limitation on individual freedom. So which matters? Democracy or freedom?

Most people mistakenly believe that freedom and democracy are the same things. I’ve talked about this before. The U.S. government is clearly confused about the issue, though. It uses our tax money around the world to support rebellions that will supposedly bring about democracy in more and more places. But if the vast majority of people want something other than freedom — and they want to enact laws to repress other people — why is this a good thing?

The latest example of this is in Libya. The United States spent $1.1 billion over throwing the old dictator (and other western powers spent even more), but there are worrisome signs that the new people aren’t exactly interested in individual liberty. The head of the new Libyan government said over the weekend that sharia law is going to be the foundation of the new country’s law. The same was true under the old regime, but the new regime is signaling that it’s going to go even further in forcing people to behave as their version of good Muslims — or else.

Why are western governments obsessed with majoritarian systems? I think it’s largely ignorance, but I suspect it’s something else, too. You can measure democracy in a mathematical way. You can’t measure freedom so easily. The bureaucratic mind likes things that it can quantify and compare and model. You can do that with a system that allocates power across a population in numerical ways and then operates in a mechanical way. There’s a role for bureaucrats in that. They have no role of importance when the priority is to say, “Hey, don’t tell people how to run their lives.”

The ignorance is harder to explain. The Founding Fathers of this country certainly had no intention of setting up a democracy. They were adamant about that. Today, most people don’t even understand the difference between a democracy and a republic, much less the difference between democracy and freedom. My suspicion is that it is related to the takeover of the educational establishment by the progressives from the era of John Dewey forward. They believed in democracy. The didn’t really believe in individual freedom, at least not certain kinds. I think their ideas slowly came to be accepted as gospel in textbooks and in teacher training.

Sunday, a friend of mine took exception to me referring to the people of this country being brainwashed into believing they have a duty to pay taxes, but I don’t know why anyone would be offended by that. The government-run compulsory education system spends 12 or 13 years indoctrinating most children — sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly — to believe in the glories of majority rule and in supporting the current system (and its ideals). If that’s not brainwashing, I’m not sure what is.

It’s immoral to set up rules to force people to live the way you want them to live. The fact that the majority of your neighbors want it that way doesn’t make it any less immoral. Politicians don’t even think about it anymore. They just talk about democracy — and then wonder why “the people’s will” so frequently produces things that are totally anathema to us. It’s irrational, but I don’t know how to change it.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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