On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, 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. 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 alternative is the so-called "Rule of law" i.e. that we are ruled by laws not men. This is the underlying idea behind a Republic, and the purpose of a written constitution. It limits what one group (typically a plurality or majority) can use the government to do to other groups.
It seem as if Sheldon Rampton and Jimmy Wales may be talking past each other because the former is using the term "majority rule" figuratively to mean constitutional democracy while the latter is using the term literally. Perhaps if you can agree on terminology, you can then agree on the issue.
M Carling