John Stuart Mill was right when talking about the tyranny that can happen in democracies.

In his “On Liberty” he states “Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”

He’s talking about the so-called “tyranny of the majority”, but as it happens, in today’s America, it’s the minority that is more tyrannical.

How else can you explain things like folks losing their jobs for the use of one simple word? Sure, it’s a word that’s not polite to use, but we still have the First Amendment. Or how do you explain things like someone moving next to an interstate, then lobbying (successfully) to get the speed limit on that section of highway reduced to lower the sound? Or moving next to a speedway that’s been there 50 years, and trying to get it demolished because of the noise and “low property values”?

The minorities in this country seem to think that they’re owed something by the majority because somehow they’ve been victimized just by being in the minority. The only thing the minority (any minority group, not just the typical ones) is owed by the majority is to not suppress the minority’s rights. Yet time after time the minority groups take advantage of this, and we end up with the majority suppressing their own rights so as to feel better about themselves.

Right now there are two more prominent examples of minorities trying to overturn the will of the majority, even though no rights are involved. The first is California’s Proposition 8, which basically affirms that people of the same sex can’t get married. The people of California overwhelmingly approved this measure, but the losers in this case are not going away quietly. They’ve rioted, they’ve protested, they’ve done just about everything they can short of a violent takeover of the government (and who knows, that could be next). The people spoke, and affirmed thousands of years of tradition. Gay folks still have the privilege of getting married just like everyone else has; but not to a person of the same sex.

The other example of a minority trampling on the desires of the majority is the current Senate race in Minnesota. Erstwhile comedian Al Franken is still losing, and indications are that if he’s not declared the winner of the election, they plan on taking the issue to the US Senate to decide who the senator from Minnesota will be. This would be a terrible mistake, and would effectively disenfranchise not only supporters of Norm Coleman but of Franken as well.

it may sound like I’m trying to justify the ruling majority’s “rights” to do whatever they want to the minority. That’s not the case. Sadly, in the United States, we do have a few examples of that (e.g. slavery, voting rights) but I think we eventually get it right. But a past transgression by the ruling majority doesn’t give the folks who happen to be in the minority at the time the right to ask for reparations, other than gaining any rights they may not have had.

For example, no one alive today has been a slave (in the United States at least). Yet there are people who think that all “African” Americans should be given something because of the history of slavery in this country. In other words, the minority wants to punish the majority for something with which the majority had nothing to do.

Two wrongs have never made a right, and that couldn’t be more true in this case.

The majority has to be ever diligent in regards to imposing its will on the minority. When and if the majority errs in this, their only obligation should be to reverse that; the minority shouldn’t err in imposing its will on the majority.