Partisan Rancor and Rank Misconceptions
A recent conversation on Twitter has again reaffirmed a long-standing theory of mine that the partisan rancor we have here in the U.S. is partly attributed to the very common misconception that the U.S. is a democracy, ruled by the majority.
The founding fathers did not establish a democracy ruled by the majority, but rather a republic ruled by law. In a true democracy, the elected officials are not held in check by the law. In a republic, the elected officials are themselves ruled by law (though they can change the law by following procedures defined by other laws). Because of this widely-held misconception, those in the majority ipso facto assume it’s their opportunity to assert their will on the people rather than governing within the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution.
To help illustrate my point, below is a quote from Lexrex.com:
The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.
And this regarding a republic (emphasis mine):
A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual’s God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution–adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment–with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term “the people” means, of course, the electorate.
Because of the common misunderstanding that a democracy is defined simply as ‘representation of the people’ and then the resultant, false deduction that the U.S. is a democracy because we have representation of the people, those who share a common philosophy with the ruling majority believe it’s their right, as a majority, to assert their philosophy. Constitutional process and respect for the law is thrown to the wind for the simple assumption that ‘we are the majority in the government and the majority rules in a democracy.’ Those who share this misunderstanding then become frustrated when their philosophy is resisted based on the rule of law, checks and balances, etc, which are in place to control and restrain the majority and protect the minority from the majority. See, the founding fathers were smart fellows who understood the insatiable appetites of man and so they created a system with the intent on preventing “the tyranny of the legislatures.”
Furthermore, calling the U.S. form of government a “democratic republic” is redundant, because by definition, a republic is “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.”
The woman with whom I began the conversation on Twitter has openly proclaimed her support of “the hallowed halls of Democracy [sic]“. However, with such false beliefs it’s fair to say she’d be better off gaining a clearer understanding of the concepts she’s using in an attempt to effectively communicate her opinion.
Use this link to see the entire conversation. The “show conversation” link on that page does a decent, but somewhat inaccurate chronological ordering of the tweets to form a conversational flow.
What’s interesting to note is that throughout the exchange she asserts her party loyalty and projects that onto me as if I too was towing a party line. I hadn’t at any point declared “a side” and instead tried to argue my position, my concepts, and ultimately my philosophy, which is itself independent of any one political party’s philosophy.
I should also remember that it’s nearly impossible to have a meaningful debate on a medium that restricts responses to 140 characters.