After
thinking about it for a while I came to the conclusion that, yes, pure democracy
is the Tyranny of the Majority. This is one of the Tyrannies that the founding
fathers sought to prevent when they created the Government of the United
States. They were concerned about the Tyranny of an Individual, such as a
monarch or dictator, on one end of the spectrum and the Tyranny of the
Majority, mob rule on the other end.
The Tyranny
of the Majority is a more difficult concept to grasp than a Tyrant. With a
Tyrant you can point to the Tyrant, see them, hear what they have to say and
can see the concentration of power. The Tyranny of the Majority spreads the
power out to the mob. It places the group above the individual, in a way that
if sacrificing the individual will benefit the group it will be done regardless
of the individual’s desires. The new rosy term for this idea is called Social
Justice.
In Oregon,
the city of Portland (Multnomah County) and Washington County run the state.
The bulk of Oregon’s population is in these two counties, so that makes sense.
Yet it leaves people in the rest of Oregon’s counties frustrated because they
feel they do not have a voice. Not only that, but they also feel that the people
in the big cities are basically bossing them around. This is due to the
Democrats holding both houses of congress as well as the governorship.
As someone
of the Millennial Generation who grew up in Washington County and went to
college in Multnomah County (and who, no thanks to my teachers or classmates,
held conservative/libertarian views) Republican was always thrown around as a
dirty word. In fact it is used as a pejorative in some groups. I kept my mouth
shut in college because, one I was a shy person, and two I found that if you
said you voted Republican you got a lot of scorn and bullying. The insulation from
different ideas coupled with the demonizing of the word Republican turns people
away from even listening or understanding Conservative points of view.
Libertarians also get lumped into the not Democrat box and are seen as just as
bad if not worse in some cases.
I know
Republicans in Oregon do not expect, nor would they want, the government to fix
this problem. Yet I do think they would want to see a Republican candidate
running the state, just to get things back on track. My question is, what’s it
going to take to make that happen?