Fred Barnes: The Tyranny of the Majority Party - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612630389421904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion)


Alexis de Tocqueville never met Harry Reid. Had he encountered the Senate Democratic leader—or President Barack Obama or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—de Tocqueville might have learned about a new twist on his concept of the "tyranny of the majority."

The Frenchman toured America in the 1830s and published his conclusions in the classic "Democracy in America." He noted the powerful impact of public opinion. "That is what forms the majority," he wrote. Congress merely "represents the majority and obeys it blindly" and so does the president. They are free to brush aside minority opinion, creating a threat de Tocqueville described as the "tyranny of the majority."

Democrats in Washington do have large majorities in Congress. But instead of reflecting popular opinion, they are pursuing wide-ranging initiatives in defiance of the views of the majority of Americans. This stands de Tocqueville's concept on its head.

The most striking example is health-care reform. It is intensely unpopular but was approved by the House in November and the Senate on Christmas Eve. Asked in a Rasmussen poll in mid-December if they'd prefer no bill to ObamaCare, 57% said they would. Only 34% said they'd rather ObamaCare be enacted.


In some regards, I disagree with him. I think the party in power is, by and large, doing the kinds of things that the people who elected them elected them to do, notwithstanding any conventional wisdom to the contrary. notwithstanding.

Sometimes you can even have a tyranny of the majority of the majority (which isn't actually a majority).

But instead of reflecting popular opinion

If that were true, then the tyrants would be voted out of office. Since we have not only a hard left Democrat Congress, but a hard left Democrat president as well, I can only conclude that the people have spoken.

The bastards.

[
Sometimes you can even have a tyranny of the majority of the majority (which isn't actually a majority).

Sometimes? Heck, that is fundamentally what was the core reason for calling of the convention convened to 'fix' the problems with the Articles of Confederation (resulting instead in our Constitution, to the utter surprise and dismay of many who were happy with the near-total soverign independence of the states before that),. The term used then was 'tyranny of the electorate'...Samuel Adams was personally, and admittedly in his writings, astounded by that development once he recognized it for what it was, having up to that point insisted that tyranny could only ever by practiced by monarchs and other forms of absolute rule.

Yet here we are again.

If that were true, then the tyrants would be voted out of office. Since we have not only a hard left Democrat Congress, but a hard left Democrat president as well, I can only conclude that the people have spoken.

The bastards.

The problem with saying that the people wanted a hard left Democratic Congress is that any given person is only responsible for 3 of the 535 inmates running the asylum.

Sometimes you can even have a tyranny of the majority of the majority (which isn't actually a majority).



I would complain about the Tyranny of the Minority

Gay Rights ... Gays are what ? 2 - 4 % of the population ? how much do we hear about Gay Rights ....

ELF / ALF ... other environmental / Animal Rights Groups ...

certainly nowhere near a majority ... but all want to turn the country on its ear for their perceived needs

how many housing projects have been burned down, research labs trashed ...


the Enviro's have there own Climate Change Religion ... :evil:

Fred Barnes: The Tyranny of the Majority Party - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612630389421904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion)



In some regards, I disagree with him. I think the party in power is, by and large, doing the kinds of things that the people who elected them elected them to do, notwithstanding any conventional wisdom to the contrary. notwithstanding.

Sometimes you can even have a tyranny of the majority of the majority (which isn't actually a majority).

So basically, the party controlling the majority of seats in the House and Senate, as well as the Executive Branch, are doing the will of the minority (in all senses of the word) of Americans; effectively ignoring the will of the majority of Americans.

I would complain about the Tyranny of the Minority

Gay Rights ... Gays are what ? 2 - 4 % of the population ? how much do we hear about Gay Rights ....

ELF / ALF ... other environmental / Animal Rights Groups ...

certainly nowhere near a majority ... but all want to turn the country on its ear for their perceived needs

how many housing projects have been burned down, research labs trashed ...


the Enviro's have there own Climate Change Religion ... :evil:

How about when one person objects to nativity set and it has to be removed, or when a college takes a cross from a chapel, just in case someone mught object.

Or when one eprson objects to a cross in the desert and then the idiot government goes out and builds a box around it so no on can se it while they sit and argue over it's right to be there.

I would complain about the Tyranny of the Minority

Gay Rights ... Gays are what ? 2 - 4 % of the population ? how much do we hear about Gay Rights ....

ELF / ALF ... other environmental / Animal Rights Groups ...

certainly nowhere near a majority ... but all want to turn the country on its ear for their perceived needs

how many housing projects have been burned down, research labs trashed ...


the Enviro's have there own Climate Change Religion ... :evil:

By and large, the minority has a lot more to fear from the majority than the majority has to fear from the minority. A minority may be able to control the societal conversation at times, and even effectuate some measure of oppression on the majority, but a majority has far more ability to substantively impose its tyranny and oppression on the minority. Further, the exercise of that ability often goes largely unquestioned, as it is usually wielded without conscience, anguish, or even recognition, the absence of which having resulted from the presumption of a kind of moral immunity which derives from the perception of inherent propriety attaching to this form of tyranny, as having been the will of the majority.

Sometimes, there may well be grounds to criticize the success of a minority in standing up to a turning back the tyranny of the majority (often through the judiciary), as having gone too far and essentially becoming a form of tyranny in and of itself - but that phenomena (largely) only exists as a result of a system in which the tyranny of the majority must often be fought against.

Both (notional and fluid) sides may have cause for concern and rightful bases for complaint. However, it is the minority that has the most to fear from democracy. It is the minority that is most vulnerable to the potential improper consequences arising therefrom.

If that were true, then the tyrants would be voted out of office. Since we have not only a hard left Democrat Congress, but a hard left Democrat president as well, I can only conclude that the people have spoken.

The bastards.

The people voted for the promise of miracles. Not bastards; fools.

Both (notional and fluid) sides may have cause for concern and rightful bases for complaint. However, it is the minority that has the most to fear from democracy. It is the minority that is most vulnerable to the potential improper consequences arising therefrom.



I guess that is where there are so many groups under the umbrella of the left ....

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Alexis de Tocqueville (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alexisdeto390854.html)

And I'd add this.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public or it's members with the public's money.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Alexis de Tocqueville (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alexisdeto390854.html)

And I'd add this.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public or it's members with the public's money.

cwo - I don't think Tocqueville ever wrote that, though it is often attributed to him. I've never seen where anyone has correctly attributed where it comes from, or even a verifiable reference to it dating to the 19th century.

Of course, you can never prove beyond any doubt that someone did not say a particular thing to someone, somewhere, 800 years ago - but, if we are to have a reasonable basis to believe someone did say or write something, we should have a record of some sort.

If you know of a reference as to the source of the quote, let me know - I'd like to think he actually did write or say it. Alas, I don't think he did.

If you know of a reference as to the source of the quote, let me know - I'd like to think he actually did write or say it. Alas, I don't think he did.

I've seen any number of disputes that he said it, and something similar that some other pundit of old - who also may not have said it.

On the other hand - de Tocqueville *DOES* talk at length about soft despotism which amounts to the same thing. You could take what he says about it and encapsulate it into the quote attributed to him.

I keep reading this as "The Tranny of the Majority Party" :ohwell:

I've seen any number of disputes that he said it, and something similar that some other pundit of old - who also may not have said it.

On the other hand - de Tocqueville *DOES* talk at length about soft despotism which amounts to the same thing. You could take what he says about it and encapsulate it into the quote attributed to him.

Yeah, I'm a Tocqueville fan. It certainly is the kind of view that he might express - though I don't think the wording would be as such. That said, it doesn't appear that he did say it - or at least, no one has any real reason to believe that he did. But again, I would welcome a legitimate reference (as to where he wrote or said it).

People (*) seem to like to make up specific quotes from highly revered (or even despised) historical figures that precisely and eloquently fit modern circumstances - somehow their specific fit into modern circumstances, and their prophetic nature as such, endows a particular notion with inherent merit. The notion in play here doesn't really need that as its merit is self-evident and hard to assail regardless. At any rate, some quotes get repeated and referenced so often and for so long that they just get accepted by the general conscience as being properly attributed, when in reality they are likely spurious. Thomas Jefferson seems to be a quite frequent victim of this phenomenon.



(*) I obviously don't mean cwo, this particular quote has been around for a while, and he didn't make it up.

I keep reading this as "The Tranny of the Majority Party" :ohwell:

I wonder which one it is. Pelosi maybe?

Fred Barnes: The Tyranny of the Majority Party - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612630389421904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion)



In some regards, I disagree with him. I think the party in power is, by and large, doing the kinds of things that the people who elected them elected them to do, notwithstanding any conventional wisdom to the contrary. notwithstanding.

Sometimes you can even have a tyranny of the majority of the majority (which isn't actually a majority).

Which is why we have a constitution that says "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!"

We ignore it at the peril of freedom and liberty today as much as 1830 or any other year since we started setting the principles of freedom and liberty to pen and paper.

It only matters if the people say it does.

People (*) seem to like to make up specific quotes from highly revered (or even despised) historical figures that precisely and eloquently fit modern circumstances - somehow their specific fit into modern circumstances, and their prophetic nature as such, endows a particular notion with inherent merit.

My two favorites out there are these two (three):

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage. Alexander Tytler“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”Winston Churchill.

Nothing I can find anywhere can establish where these quotes came from, but there's no original evidence proving the men mentioned ever said or wrote them.



Thomas Jefferson seems to be a quite frequent victim of this phenomenon.

However, he did come up with a lot of quotable aphorisms. I'm still trying to find a quote of his I remember from high school where the gist of it is that people should be free to speak awful things as living proof we have the right to speak as we want.

My two favorites out there are these two (three):

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage. Alexander Tytler“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”Winston Churchill.Nothing I can find anywhere can establish where these quotes came from, but there's no original evidence proving the men mentioned ever said or wrote them.





That Tytler quote has made a few rounds. I've heard people say what is attribute there to Churchill, but I don't recall anyone attributing it to him. I remember being out on a sailboat once with a guy who was about 70, and he had expressed quite a bit of liberal ideology, and then he repeated that saying. Under the circumstances, it struck me as funny.

However, he did come up with a lot of quotable aphorisms. I'm still trying to find a quote of his I remember from high school where the gist of it is that people should be free to speak awful things as living proof we have the right to speak as we want. Do you have any recollection of the context? Was it in a letter, an address, a debate over legislation?

Absolutely - that's probably why so many spurious quotes are attributed to him. Jefferson had an incredibly keen mind, an abundance of perspective, and an eloquence of thought that is rivaled in very few. His writings contain some of the greatest, and most understated, insight that one might want to find.

One of my favorite letters (from Jefferson) is one that he wrote about a year and a half before his death. An old friend, Samuel Harrison Smith, had asked him to offer some life advice to Samuel's son, and Jefferson's namesake, Thomas Jefferson Smith. Jefferson began his letter to the young Smith, '(t)his letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels.' He went on to offer various bits of advice, a poem, and then what he called 'A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life':


1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.


I dare say that it would be hard to give someone better advice, in fewer words, than that.

Yeah, I'm a Tocqueville fan. It certainly is the kind of view that he might express - though I don't think the wording would be as such. That said, it doesn't appear that he did say it - or at least, no one has any real reason to believe that he did. But again, I would welcome a legitimate reference (as to where he wrote or said it).

People (*) seem to like to make up specific quotes from highly revered (or even despised) historical figures that precisely and eloquently fit modern circumstances - somehow their specific fit into modern circumstances, and their prophetic nature as such, endows a particular notion with inherent merit. The notion in play here doesn't really need that as its merit is self-evident and hard to assail regardless. At any rate, some quotes get repeated and referenced so often and for so long that they just get accepted by the general conscience as being properly attributed, when in reality they are likely spurious. Thomas Jefferson seems to be a quite frequent victim of this phenomenon.



(*) I obviously don't mean cwo, this particular quote has been around for a while, and he didn't make it up.

This is the Alexis de Tocqueville Link (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville.html) I used. The site never attributes its quotations. I really didn't mean to get the discussion going in this direction.

As you made me curious, I did check this Alexis de Tocqueville Link from Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville) which states this quotation is misattributed. My mistake.

Tocqueville also had some strong opinions regarding socialism, Islam and minority races.

Back to the thread at hand, Obama (in part) was elected on the promise of more benefits for the entitlement class provided by raping the working class. Congress seems hell bent on enacting legislation to ensure his promise is kept.

Do you have any recollection of the context? Was it in a letter, an address, a debate over legislation?.

You know, I was so determined to find this attribution that I found an old journal I wrote over 30 years ago, where I remembered I'd written it down. Took some doing - and having now checked it, I realize that parts of it are paraphrased. The paraphrase part at the beginning of the quote kind of changes the overall meaning, but - it is from his inaugural address.

The meaning I gave is *close* --

"We are all republicans: we are all federalists. if there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change it’s republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."

When I was 17 years old, the quote was prefaced with "those who hold unpopular views" rather than referring to those who wish to dissolve the Union. Nevertheless, it does encapsulate something ELSE I agree with, which is why I prefer freedom of speech, and Vrai has alluded to it often, although she would likely describe it more colorfully. She'd probably describe it as "let those morons say whatever they want, so that everyone can see how idiotic their ideas are" or something of the kind.

In my opinion, Jefferson said exactly the same thing, but with grace and elegance.

This is the Alexis de Tocqueville Link (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville.html) I used. The site never attributes its quotations. I really didn't mean to get the discussion going in this direction.

As you made me curious, I did check this Alexis de Tocqueville Link from Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville) which states this quotation is misattributed. My mistake.

Tocqueville also had some strong opinions regarding socialism, Islam and minority races.

Back to the thread at hand, Obama (in part) was elected on the promise of more benefits for the entitlement class provided by raping the working class. Congress seems hell bent on enacting legislation to ensure his promise is kept.

No problem cwo - nothing that leads to a discussion of Jefferson is lamentable.

You aren't the only person that accepted that that quote came from Tocqueville (or that any quote was from anyone for that matter). I'm sure I've referred to quotes in the past that were mis-attributed. Even if they weren't his words, it is the kind of view that Tocqueville held and articulated.

You know, I was so determined to find this attribution that I found an old journal I wrote over 30 years ago, where I remembered I'd written it down. Took some doing - and having now checked it, I realize that parts of it are paraphrased. The paraphrase part at the beginning of the quote kind of changes the overall meaning, but - it is from his inaugural address.

The meaning I gave is *close* --

"We are all republicans: we are all federalists. if there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change it’s republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."

When I was 17 years old, the quote was prefaced with "those who hold unpopular views" rather than referring to those who wish to dissolve the Union. Nevertheless, it does encapsulate something ELSE I agree with, which is why I prefer freedom of speech, and Vrai has alluded to it often, although she would likely describe it more colorfully. She'd probably describe it as "let those morons say whatever they want, so that everyone can see how idiotic their ideas are" or something of the kind.

In my opinion, Jefferson said exactly the same thing, but with grace and elegance.

:yay: Newly elected Presidents should be required to read Jefferson's First Inaugural Address before they are allowed to take the oath of office. Another gem from it:

Still one thing more, fellow citizens - a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

:yay: Newly elected Presidents should be required to read Jefferson's First Inaugural Address before they are allowed to take the oath of office. Another gem from it:

I'd be happier if they read it long before they even started running for office, let alone win. I'd be even happier if it helped guide their thoughts and informed their actions.

:yay:

:buddies:

BTW, Bush is a Churchill fan. Fitting given that Winston lead the downfall of England.

Damn, even WWII is Bush's fault :killingme

Har.