Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
O.k., then we're likely so far apart in political opinions that we'll have a hard time agreeing on very much. If 90% of a population is white, and votes in fair and open democratic elections to impose rights violations ("separate but equal" or worse) on the 10% that is black, you'd consider that a morally appropriate outcome? I don't think so, but that's what I mean when I say that majority rule is morally repugnant.
I agree, that would be morally repugnant, but no serious proponent of majority rule advocates that sort of thing.
That sounds naive. It's not the idea of majority rule that is repugnant, but it's application. Unfortunately, people like simple answers, even simplistic ones. They equate democracy with simple majority rule, and don't want to consider anything more complex. The "serious proponents" that you mention are a minority. This is de Tocqueville's tyranny of the majority.
The standard formulation is that the "majority rules, but the minority has rights." The question of how to define the boundary between majority rulership and minority rights has always been difficult to define, but that fundamental problem doesn't get any better if you resort to the only viable alternative to majority rule, which is one-man dictatorship or rule by a minority elite.
The one-man dictatorship is often more reliable and predictable than a minority élite.
Eclecticology