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Health & Fitness

Mob Rule and Referendum Votes

Do referendum votes really give power to the people, or do they subject minorities to the will of the majority?

“In a democracy, two wolves and a sheep take a majority vote on what's for supper. In a constitutional republic, the wolves are forbidden on voting on what's for supper, and the sheep are well armed.” – Anonymous

Referendum: noun, A general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision.  

When a majority votes on policy, that’s democracy, right?  We have referendum votes here in New York; California has them all the time, they’re all over the place.  It seems “fair”, doesn’t it?  The will of the people is what it’s all about, isn’t it?  Nope, it’s not all about the “will of the people”.  First of all, who are “the people” and should 51% of them overrule the civil rights or the property rights of the rest?  “The people” are a group  of individuals, a collection of singular persons, and their will has, more often than not been manipulated and used by agitating, power hungry soap box orators.  The will of the people can lead straight to tyranny, especially when times are bad.  The minority will eventually be enslaved, one way or the other.

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In this country, we don’t really have a true democracy, that would be catastrophic.  We have a Democratic Republic, a representative form of government.  We elect people to represent us, and the rule of law should come before the will of our elected representatives, and before the will of the people.  The individual’s civil rights and the individual’s property rights are the centerpieces of the American idea, and should not be taken by a majority’s vote.  

In California, they had a referendum vote to decide on the issue of gay marriage.  That’s a civil rights issue; should a statewide vote really decide on people’s rights?  We have referendum votes on whether to raise property taxes.  People with no property, without any “skin in the game” get to vote on whether or not other people will need to pay more.  Our money is our property too; do you think it’s right that a majority can take property away from a minority?  I guess it is, if it’s the “will of the people”.  

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Why would a politician want a referendum vote?  Don't they usually want power? Why aren’t these things run through a legislative body, and decided there?  Could it be it’s because they’d like to have power without accountability?  “I didn’t raise your taxes”, “I didn’t say you weren’t equal”, after all, it all boils down to the people’s will (copout).        

Our Representatives and courts are there for a reason, to write laws, to levy taxes, to interpret laws and to throw them in the garbage when they’re unconstitutional.  They should be making these decisions instead of pushing them off onto an electorate that might be more influenced by misinformation and emotions than they are on reason.  

Rights, principles, morality and truth cannot be decided by statistics, polls and vote counting.  Pure, democratic consensus rule will allow us to be controlled and manipulated by any smooth talking, snake oil selling, street corner political thug that is able to sell “the people” their bill of goods.  

Luckily, we don’t have a pure democracy, we have some protections here.  I think we should shy away from referendum votes and force our representatives to represent.    When they stop representing, or when they do a lousy job, we should fire them on election day.  Mobs are ugly, mob rule is really, really ugly and will lead to the tyranny of the minority. 

How about having a referendum vote on ending referendum votes?

"Democracy – A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic – negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." – 1928 U.S. Army Training Manual

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