Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa
On Governance, Majoritarian Rule and Numeric Supremacy
In “Gulliver’s Travels,” Jonathan Swift somewhat cynically opined that a basic principle of lawyering is the ability to call black white and white black. I had considered a career in international law at one point and, while I think that might have led to a fascinating life, I can’t imagine not having been a teacher, a choice replete with immediate and enduring rewards. I wonder now what I would think, had I taken that path. Violations of international law have been on a troublesome upswing worldwide. And here at home we experience unlawful behavior by our government daily. Unfortunately, lawless behavior, whether international or domestic, benefits no one. We put ourselves at great peril so long as this assault on lawlessness persists.
Most disheartening is what appears to be willful malpractice on the part of the one institution whose primary obligation to the commonweal is to uphold the law without prejudice and to give no sway to those who would pervert its primary function: to work on behalf of ALL the people. However, when toadies and sycophants occupy the upper echelons of the Department of Justice, we all have an obligation to be ever more vigilant. All the more reason for passionate yet lawful resistance. No matter what stage in our development as a nation we find ourselves in, and there will always roadblocks, it is an effort worth the work.
The problem with majority rule is it allows for unchecked tyranny. Or, at the very least, it allows those with the numbers to ride roughshod over whosoever might be in the minority. Walter Lippman warned against the “tyranny of the majority” quite some time ago. As he puts it, just because you have the numbers does not mean you are right. Ironically, you could be very right just as easily as you could be terribly wrong. In fact, when in the course of making decisions that affect the commonweal, perhaps neither rightness nor wrongness alone come into play. The inherent problem is that when competing ideologies come into contact that are deeply rooted in diametrically opposed assumptions, compromise becomes nearly impossible. It can only occur when each side is willing to remove its blinders in an attempt to, as Plato put it, “walk in another’s shoes.” There is little evidence of that in the halls of a Congress that is supposed to be a deliberative body. One side sees black, the other white; there is no room for shading of any kind. Madison warned against the tyranny of factions; Jefferson abhorred parties. This notion of arrogating to yourself the right to impose your will on others is dangerous. At present, the Republican majority runs the show. It is especially dangerous because it appears to be in the thrall of perhaps one of the most flawed presidents of all or any time. To be fair, if the Democrats were in power they, too, would make every attempt to steamroll their agenda through. Biden and company did a pretty good job of that. There is enough complicity to go around. Unfortunately, we the people bear the brunt of this nonsense.
As I write, we are in the midst of a “partial shutdown.” It means that many government employees work without pay. Those responsible for their predicament blithely keep on getting their paychecks. The impasse revolves around ICE’s excesses, which by any standard have been as unforgivable as they have been unlawful. I needn’t catalogue them here. The Democrats have proffered a long list of reasonable demands; the Republicans, while seemingly not as upset about ICE’s egregious behavior, pretty much refuse to budge. So we have a needless stalemate. ICE continues to operate because it is fat with bucks—our bucks, by the way. So who wins here? Nobody. The reasonable approach here would be for both sides to budge a bit and be happy with not getting all it wants. Ideological greed is inherently tyrannical. The ideal scenario is to work together to end shutdowns once and for all. Too much fighting, very little deliberation. Way too much grandstanding; far too little quiet work toward compromise.
Only in the rarest of circumstances does majoritarian rule foster thoughtful deliberation. If you don’t have the numbers under our present system, you’re screwed. The recent vote on the war powers resolution is a perfect case in point. One side votes it down because it has a few more votes than the other side, which enables it to run roughshod over approximately the same number of people on the other side who see it as a good thing and consistent with constitutional norms. Sadly, the final vote in no way represents anything other than dominance by mere numbers.
One of these days perhaps we’ll get away from a system of governance rooted in numeric supremacy. I am not sure what form that will take. If it ever happens, it will not be in my lifetime. One can only hope.
Dick deRosa’s Hawthorn Hill essays have appeared in “The Freeman’s Journal” since 1998. A collection, “Hawthorn Hill Journal: Selected Essays,” was published in 2012. He is a retired English teacher.
