Some things in life are just not meant to be. Karl Rove attempting to rap while in a tuxedo and doing a dance that would make Nixon look loose and rhythmic is one of them. How he can ever again be taken seriously as a power broker in Washington after that video hit U Tube is beyond me.
Here’s another thing that was never meant to be in America – rule by the majority of the people. “What,” you gasp. “Treason!” you shout. Well no, not really.
A short moment of research on Google using the phrase “Democracy versus Republic” brings up more information than most of us absorbed in our entire academic career. Turns out that this debate started centuries ago and continues throughout the world even today. Our Founding Fathers addressed it at length and ended up making it very clear that what they were creating was, in fact, a republic.
Here, briefly, is the difference. We have a democratic type of government but not a democratic form of government. While that may sound like splitting hairs, it isn’t. In a truly democratic form of government, the majority is unlimited in its power and individuals and minorities lack any legal safeguard to their rights. The majority’s decisions are absolute and cannot be appealed. In a republic, the majority is limited by a written constitution that safeguards the rights of individuals and minorities from the potential tyranny of the majority. During the Federal Convention of 1787, the framers of our constitution condemned what they referred to as the “excesses of democracy” and the abuses it potentially could visit upon the unalienable right of individuals and minorities.
Why am I presenting this civics lesson today? Well, I recently read an article in the Anchorage Press is which a representative to the Alaska Legislature was quoted as saying, “I’m always comfortable when the people have spoken. I’m comfortable with what the people want.” Frankly, that scares me. I want our elected representatives to understand that is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind and is not what America is all about.
History shows that what some people want is to trample on the rights of other people. In this country, all that stops them is a constitution that protects those who would otherwise be trampled. We are a country of laws that safeguard us from the sometimes very harmful and hurtful will of the people.
There was a time when the people spoke and said they wanted slavery to continue. There was a time when the people spoke and supported segregation. There was a time when the people spoke and said that Native Americans did not count as whole people, that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote and that African Americans would not be allowed to learn how to read. That was the will of the majority of people or, minimally, the will of people who spoke loudly and threateningly enough that most everyone else ducked their head and allowed those inequities to become law.
That those inequities no longer exist has a lot to do with the will of the people changing, and even more to do with courts that interpreted our Constitution to protect minority rights. These courts were, in essence, doing exactly what the framers of the constitution wanted them to do.
I think we are at a time here in this state where we need to remember this. I think we are at a time when we need to make sure that we do not enact laws that distort our constitution and make it a document of discrimination. All Alaskans should be viewed as equal in the eyes of the law no matter what someone’s personal religious preferences tell them is right or wrong. Because all of us belong to some sort of minority. And if we start letting the majority write discriminatory language into the very fabric of our rule of law, then someday we risk being the people discriminated against.
We are a republic for a reason. We are a country and a state governed by law, not the tyranny of the majority. Our Founding Fathers were indeed very wise in how they crafted our form of government. Let’s never forget that. And let us never attempt to abrogate its inherent wisdom and fairness.