Pick Your Tyranny?
In the 19th century, John C. Calhoun, on whose former plantation I taught, was concerned about the tyranny of the majority. That is, he feared that a majority would impose their wishes on the whole country without regard to those who were harmed or disadvantaged by their actions. He had a point, even though at the time it was a point about slavery (and secondarily, about tariffs). But equally distressing is what the U.S. is experiencing now, the tyranny of the minority. A vocal minority is trying to inflict a narrow, change-resistant, anti-democratic way of being onto a majority that clearly and openly disagrees with them about guns, abortion, book censorship, gender identity, sexual orientation, and a whole host of cultural issues.
The Constitution tried to avoid that kind of cultural tyranny in parts of the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment and the Fourth (which until Dobbs was interpreted as creating a right of privacy). The general attitude of the cultural majority is embodied in the bumper sticker, “if you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.” If you don’t want your child to have gender-affirming care, you are certainly free to make that choice, but don’t inflict your minority religious and political views on my child. Likewise, if you don’t want your child exposed to ideas in certain books, you have that right, but it does not allow you to prevent everyone else’s children from engaging with those ideas or books. (By the time those protected children are adolescents, many of them will be intensely curious about the content of those forbidden ideas or books—and will find a way to satisfy that curiosity!)
If readers want to accuse me of being “woke”, I am happy to wear that label. I don’t want to be asleep. I want to be aware of the challenges others face and help them find ways to overcome them, whether those challenges arise from an unwanted or life-threatening pregnancy, gender identity, sexual orientation, poverty, racism, misogyny, or any of the many hazards of being human in a pluralistic society.
Economic policies are a different matter. We can assert our own cultural practices without inflicting them on everyone else, but the economy is community property. We all affect the economy with our earning and spending and saving and its ups and downs in turn affect each of us. As you may have noticed, it has become increasingly difficult to get agreement on our shared economic policies—the budget, the national debt, the tax system, the role of government in infrastructure and disaster relief and reducing poverty. In economic policy, the tyranny is that of a very wealthy minority who want lower taxes, less government regulation, and privatization of everything from schools to health care to fire protection and law enforcement. Those changes would let them get out of contributing to these services for anyone outside of their immediate families in their private schools and inside the gated communities tat provide their own road maintenance, fire protection,and security..
That minority has been quite successful in imposing their view of how the nation should run its government budgets, school choice, reduced funding for public higher education, and resistance to expansion of publicly funded health care. In health care, for instance, the US. has worse health outcomes and higher health expenditures both public and private than any other developed nation. They are aided and abetted in this pursuit of unenlightened self-interest by certain features of our Constitution that were put in place to placate the wealthy slave-owning plantation class by ensuring that that nation would have disproportionately ore more representation in Congress and the electoral college from smaller, rural, and from 1787 to 1868, slave-owning states.
We don’t need more Republicans or more Democrats, more congressional hearings or more showdowns over shutting down the government. We just need to give up the joy of tyrannizing over those with whom we disagree and, in the words of Rodney King, ask ourselves “Can’t we just all get along?” The cry of tyranny (often rephrased as fascism or socialism) is used by both sides to try to get their own way, but it also undermines trust and confidence in our institutions by convincing people that they are in the service of the tyranny on the other side Democracy, unlike football, is not about winning. It’s about compromising. It’s about considering the needs and concerns of all kinds of minorities whether their minority position is grounded in religion, culture, gender, age, race, income, health, security, education, or anything else. It’s also about the role of government in meeting the needs of the majority for basic public services and protections and ensuring that the cost of providing those services is shared equitably among its citizens.
None of us can or should get everything we want at the expense of others. Considering differences in needs and desires and being willing to make compromises is the hallmark of being an adult and a good citizen. As the 2024 elections approach, those are the qualities I will be looking for.in candidates for public office fro city council to the president of the United States.
PurpleSage41 