Beware of the tyranny of the majority

George Will has an interesting column in Thursday’s Washington Post about how conservatives shouldn’t be quite so quick to condemn judicial activism and celebrate majority rule. Will writes: “The conservatives’ party, the Republican Party, was born in reaction against repeal of the Missouri Compromise — against, that is, the right, established by Congress in 1854, of Kansans to own slaves if a Kansas majority approved of that. . . . Lincoln’s greatness was inseparable from his belief that there are some things that majorities should not be permitted to do — things that violate natural rights, the protection of which is the Constitution’s principal purpose.”
Of course, what many of the conservatives and liberals who complain about the judiciary really want are judges who are activists for their causes.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

5 Comments

  1. Proudman
    Posted September 1, 2005 at 12:42 pm | Permalink

    I always like to ask the people big on democracy if lynch mobs are democratic or not.

  2. Joe Williams
    Posted September 1, 2005 at 1:33 pm | Permalink

    Actually our constitution was designed for seperation of powers as a check on majority rule. This includes the people. We might look at the three branches of government, but there are actually four.

    They knew that mob rule would be a disaster. They put provision in the Constitution that prevented that to happen.

    I do not think their is judical activism, rather, there are skilled lawyers who are persauding the sitution to favor their means. Although there are differences between judical ideology amoung judges, for the most part, they are doing their job. The ideology is either strict or broad interpretation and anywhere inbetween.

  3. Anon
    Posted September 2, 2005 at 2:40 pm | Permalink

    Judges are only called “activist” when they rule against your position.

  4. Jed
    Posted September 2, 2005 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

    You people who want strict majority rule, and who see nothing wrong with the majority trampling on minority rights should remember that in some way, each of us is a minority of one. Some day your turn will come, and you’ll have no right to complain. Of course that won’t stop you!

  5. gary
    Posted September 4, 2005 at 9:03 pm | Permalink

    I do not think that people want a judge just too personally satisfy his or her cause, but I think we as people want a judge who can weigh the evidence or presentations of the prosecuter and the defense attorneys and understand the true facts of the case instead of false representations of what really did or did not happen! in other words very opened minded.