The Divine Right of Majorities

This is a very long blabber I wrote today about democracy, posted on my personal Live Journal, and I thought I'd share it with you. I'm quite prepared to get flamed by anyone who makes it all the way through. I won't be offended if you don't read it, and I won't be offended if you tear it to shreads. Lay on, if you like.


There was a time, before the Enlightenment, when the theory of the Divine Right of Kings ruled the political sphere. The theory was that the monarch's rule was enshrined by God, and that the King's rule could not be denied. That theory of governance has, in almost all countries, effectively passed away to a more liberal interpretation of the basis of governance, best described by the Constitutional Peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "power derives from a mandate from the masses." And this is the basis for the form of governance today popular in the West, called "democracy."



Democracy, it is said, is the worst form of government, except for all other forms of government already tried. In America, however, democracy is not the form of government; federal republicanism is the form of government. Federal because the national government shares many powers with smaller, semi-independent, sovereign states, ceding many powers to the states altogether; this relationship, too, is outlined in the United States Constitution (and subsequent amendments). Republican because power is derived from the people and the people are ruled by laws passed in accordance to a constitution.

Democracy is the form of choosing representatives to enter into the republican system, it is not the form of government in itself. It is said that the United States is a representative democracy; this definition, though, is inaccurate. In a democracy, there are no rules except "majority rules." In a republic, the constitution is the law.

Or, at least, it's supposed to be.

More and more, the Constitution is set aside in favor of the whims of the majority. The first income tax, for example, was passed in spite of constitutional restrictions (in the Civil War, under Lincoln, the first direct income tax was levied). The Sixteenth Amendment was passed much later, in the 20th Century, allowing Congress to assess an income tax without violating the Constitution.

This summer, in the Kelo v. New London case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Constitutional protections against seizure of private property except when used "for public use" and with "just compensation" to the owner were thrown out the window. SCOTUS ruled that the city of New London could take someone's perfectly good home, declare it "blighted," purchase it for "market value" five years previous (before the housing boom), and sell it to a private corporation so that they could build a mall in New London. SCOTUS ruled that deference to the locally, democratically elected town government was in order.

And so you see the fight between democracy and constitutions. Constitutions define individual rights and limitations on government power; democracy seeks no limit on government power and no rights for individuals, seeking only the desires of the majority. This belief, that the majority has a RIGHT to rule, using the violence of the police power, I and others refer to as "the Divine Right of Majorities."

This is the source of the greatest immorality and greatest cause of personal suffering in the world.

There are several theories on what Western governments must aim to do; I shall describe three. Some want government to do nothing more than protect the property and life of individuals. Others want the government to redistribute income through heavy progressive taxation and social welfare programs. Still others want government to enforce private morality through drug bans and anti-sodomy laws. All three of these groups -- libertarians, liberals, and conservatives, respectively -- fight to form majorities in order to wield the precious "police power" -- the right to use violence without repute in order to force their vision of the world on others. They fight because they believe unquestioningly in the Divine Right of Majorities, the right of the majority to force its morality and its vision on the rest of the public. And the minority, for the most part in America, plays along, in hopes that it, too, may someday wield the police power and become the majority. Indeed, any group that claims to restore the limits of the Constitution do so only because they, as a Majority, would think it the best thing.

The police power invoked in the Divine Right of Majorities theory is used in different ways. Taxation is the most basic use of the police power. The Majority assesses a tax. And nearly everyone, out of deference to the Divine Right of Majorities to rule, pays this tax. Others, however, pay out of fear of retribution. Through the police power, the Majority is able to extract payment by threat of force -- don't pay the tax, welcome to captivity in jail. Last week, a woman in Texas was arrested on a warrant for forgetting to file tax returns and for owing $1.16 in back taxes. If the woman had resisted the attempts of the Majority to imprison her, she very well may have been shot dead. And so, the Majority, through unconcealed violence, ensures payment of taxes. And all because the people the Majority use violence against are in the same nation or state -- it's all because of imaginary lines!

The taxes are collected at various levels and go to various programs depending upon whom is in the Majority at the moment. Libertarians will collect fewer taxes -- but still, they will collect taxes to pay for police forces because they are dedicated to protecting life and property. And thus they, too, must use the police power to achieve their means. Similarly, conservatives will use the police power to gather taxes and will use the police power to prevent social immorality (prostitution, for example). And similarly, liberals will use the police power to gather taxes and will use the police power to prevent economic immorality and prevent social immorality (racism, for example).

All Western government in the 20th Century was based on this police power. From Fascist Italy to Communist Soviet Union to Republican America, the use of force was necessary to uphold the state. Yes, Monty Python's Constitutional Peasant, Dennis, spoke for me when he called out his fellow peasants, "Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

Under the Divine Right of Majorities, the stakes are so high, the rewards so large, the power so great, that nearly no group can withdraw from its power. Even those who seek to do immense good with the power must first agree to play by the rules, they must fight to have a majority and, until then, agree to be subjugated to the other majorities. While they fight and struggle, they support, however unwittingly, all the actions taken by whatever Divine Majority is in power, because they continue to willingly submit to the police power exerted by the Majority. Thus, conservatives support the war on poverty, liberals support the war in Iraq, and libertarians support the war on drug users. No matter how much talk these different groups make, they still believe in the Divine Right of Majorities, and still hope that one day THEY will be the Majority, THEY will hold the police power, and THEY will make the world a better place through it.

But until then. . . until then they are guilty of consenting to acts most disagreeable to their morality. I wonder how long people will gamble on becoming the Divine Majority. I wonder how many people feel this immorality, feel the wrongness of the Divine Right of Majorities. I wonder how many souls are tortured by the thought that they are perpetuating the cycle of welfare poverty, that they are perpetuating murder in foreign wars, that they are perpetuating the violation of basic freedoms to self-ownership. How long will it be until the people rise up? How long until they embrace their power to do good without use of the Police Power? How long until the idea of the Divine Right of Majorities becomes as laughable as the Divine Right of Kings?

How long until we embrace morality, and not violence?