Page:Essays on the Social Problem.pdf/13

 To support government is to aid tyranny. To become a part of it is to join hands with organized murder.

Political action is for the ignorant, the deluded and the knave.

It does not take much reasoning to show that majority rule is not just, wise or best, and that it is absolutely lacking in that element of justice which it has previously been supposed to embody. But few have stopped to calmly consider the tyranny of majority rule. Tyranny has been supposed to be confined to the rule of one or a few, but in reality the rule of the majority has been and ever must be as tyrannous as the rule of a single despot.

Compulsion, whether it takes the form of incentive to action, or of restraint from action, except in cases of necessary defense against aggression, is tyranny. Where a vote is taken on any proposition and a majority votes in one way, and compels the minority to abide by their decision, it is tyranny. A majority may vote to prohibit the use of beer, and by enforcing that decision tyrannize over the minority who wish to drink beer. On the other hand the majority might vote that every one should drink so much beer every day. That would be tyranny to those who do not like beer, but it would be no more tyranny than to prohibit those from drinking beer who desire to do so.

Every attempt to regulate "public affairs," or to control the conduct of others, must be done by appeals to superior brute force, direct, or to "majority rule." The former is generally recognized as tyranny, and the latter is, logically, equally so. A few, for instance, do not wish to go to church on Sunday, but prefer to spend the day, or part of the day, in the woods, in a park, on a river, at a theatre or at a ball game. The majority do not want to spend their Sunday that way, and by right of their power, as the majority, prevent the minority from following their desires. It may be that out-door exercise is necessary to the health of some of the members of the minority, but by the decision of the majority they must go to church or stay at home, and this may be as galling and tyrannous as if the majority compelled every one to go out-doors and stay away from church and from home.

The majority may think that a certain form of association is "right and proper," and by the means of compulsion at hand force all to conform thereto, but that form of association may be very obnoxious to the minority and its enforcement extremely tyrannous.

In groups or societies formed for special purposes the principle works the same. If the majority rules, then the minority may feel tyrannized over, and as much restricted as can well be. The minority may want to work in a certain manner, or at certain occupations, but if the majority says they shall not, but must work in a certain way, and occupy their time in certain employment, then they must do it, and it becomes tyranny. Even in secret orders, and voluntary societies the rule of the majority often becomes very disagreeable to the minority, but the minority has no rights that the majority is bound to respect, so they must submit, or withdraw and lose what they have in the institution, and in some instances be persecuted unbearably for so doing.

So we see that everywhere majority rule breeds tyranny, is tyranny, and can be nothing else. If all agree there is no rule in the matter, but if one disagrees then the compulsion begins, and the tyranny of majority rule manifests itself. In essence there is no difference between a minority composed of one individual and a minority composed of one half minus one individual. If the lone individual has any rights in the matter, his rights are equal to the right of each other one, or of all the others together. If he has no rights in the matter then, one half of the people minus one have no rights in the matter.