‘Tyranny of the majority’ at work
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Editor,
The “public survey” has become a way of life here in Lake County. It’s a tool used by various organizations, foundations, community development corporations, or NGOs (non-governmental private corporations), to establish value sets and demographics county-wide. The results are then used to develop a “vision” or “master plan,” which is used by these same organizations to influence and guide the municipal laws and ordinances enacted through our local city and county governments.
Public input and public opinions are important elements to the principles of a free and civilized society. However, allowing for popular opinion alone to be the guiding influence and principle in the creation of our laws and ordinances has a significant impact on us all. Popular opinion, or “tyranny of the majority” over the minority and individual, puts at risk rights, which are unalienable — so says the U.S. Constitution.
A Republican form of government, which is legally binding on our elected officials through their sworn oath of office, is designed to limit the majority to protect the minority and the individual. The U.S. Constitution and our Montana State Constitution are the documents to which these sworn officials are limited in their lawmaking powers.
A Democracy is what you have when the majority has no limits placed upon its power and where the minority and individual are left unprotected by constitutional limitations. Or, you could say that a democracy is run by popular opinion developed through surveys without limitations.
When city and county officials use these surveys as their sole guide for creating master plans, laws, and ordinances and neglect to consult our Republic’s limiting documents, known as constitutions, they have put at risk the unalienable rights of the minority and the individual while supporting tyranny of the majority. This creates an opportunity for our form of government, which these officials have bound themselves to uphold and defend, to be subverted, corrupted and transformed. This new form of government is called a Democracy, whereby rights and freedoms are reserved by the majority for whomever they choose.
John Swenson
Ronan
