Tyranny

2002-10-3 00:39:00

Just a few comments on your last post, Larry, then I hope to move on to Blayne and Susan's.

Larry comments that it seems a tyranny, as he understands the word, that we have abuses through the law because of the war on drugs. Some consider it tyrannical that some drugs are illegal to begin with. Larry notes several injustices such as the seizure of property, sometimes from innocent people.

It is true that the majority of people support the idea of recreational drugs being illegal and some punishment for those who break the law, but I would submit that the majority are dissatisfied with how the war is being fought. The majority would also not support unreasonable seizures of property nor would they support some of the abuses of law enforcement if they were aware of what they were.

The fact that abuses occur, of which the majority is unaware, does not mean that the majority supports them. In order for the majority to support any form of abuse it first has to know what the abuse is.

Larry writes:
Does the majority often "have a clue", to use modern vernacular, or a will of its own? It doesn't appear so. So in a very real sense the "will of the majority" is simply the result of whichever small minority has been successful in convincing or subduing the majority. Is it the case then that John's words are simply summing up this almost self-evident fact that?

JJ
Good point. If the majority is deceived then the true will of the majority is not expressed. For instance, if a jury is convinced an innocent man committed a crime and they convict him - this does not mean that the jury "wills" that innocent people go to prison. The point made in the book is that the majority generally will desire that which is right and not knowingly support terror or abuse of others - but a power crazed dictator will not care about the suffering of people.

Larry,
Quoting those words again: "In almost every example you can give me of tyranny there is a very small group involved who is causing it, not the majority." This might very well be true as a principle if we understand that the majority opinion is almost always the result of the "lobbying", or influence of a determined minority - sometimes a very small minority. It is almost always the case that some minority has acted as the _cause_ of majority opinion.

JJ
If a person is lobbied or pressured a certain direction, he is still responsible for the direction he takes. If he is deceived through misinformation then his good will may be misdirected and the deception can prevent the true will of the majority from being expressed.

An important point to consider is that there are laws in existence that almost everyone as an individual will have a gripe against. I really do not like some of the speed limits out there. On my way to the office there is a long stretch where the speed limit is 20 MPH where it could be 40MPH and I have received several tickets traveling it. Now let us suppose I was not careful and received so many tickets they took my driver's license away. Many people in this situation would cry "tyranny" because of the inconvenience.

The fact is that if we water down the definition of tyranny to abuses of police in enforcing the law then there is tyranny everywhere in every country. Many burglars and bank robbers think their treatment is tyrannical after they are justly arrested.

Perhaps we can put things in perspective by applying tyranny to a marriage. In marriage A the couple has a good relationship with few complaints. The only problem is that the female smokes and the male is demanding that she not smoke. Finally he gets so upset that he starts stealing her cigarettes and throwing them away. She is upset and cries tyrant.

In marriage B the male seeks to control all aspects of his spouse's life. He controls her money supply, where she can go, the friends she can have and how much she can see them. He controls the indoctrination of the children and forbids her to see her mother. She has to ask permission for the simplest of things.

In marriage A you have an imperfect marriage situation, but not a tyrannical one even though the wife may attempt to make a case for it. But in marriage B you have a true tyranny and the wife is just in rebelling and dissolving the marriage over the situation.

The free (relatively speaking) countries of the world are like Marriage A in relation to the true tyrannies past and present. Some of their citizens cry tyranny, but overall there is not enough abuse to label it so.

Marriage B is like the Old Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Nazi Germany etc. These are true tyrannies and the majority of the civilized world today is indeed against such a suffocation of freedom.