Tyranny of the minority
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is universally regarded as one of the most influential books ever written about America. The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals.(emphasis mine)
Let’s think about that in today’s culture in America. Are Americans being tyrannized by the majority? Or is it the minority? The Woke minority? The DEI, CRT people? The majority of Americans know there are two sexes: male with XX chromosomes and female with XY chromosomes in all of the cells of the human body. There are anomalies, children born with both sex organs or some other biological error, but we do not base science on the anomalies. Or we didn’t. Trans organizations and some state governments have prioritized the minority over the majority to the point that women are being eradicated in the name of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
When I was a hospital chaplain 25 years ago, I was asked to visit men in the psychiatric ward who truly believed they were Jesus. They were very gentle men. I often thought what was the worst they would do in the real world? Try to walk on water?
But these men were in a psychiatric facility. And 25 years later we have boys who say they are girls, men who say they are women; girls who say they are boys,
women who say they are men. And then the totally confused-non-binary. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Fake females committing child sexual abuse, raping real women in prisons, competing in women’s sports and winning all the time.
In 2017, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-16, which resulted in trans-identifying inmates with intact male genitalia being allowed to transfer into federal women’s prisons.
And girls who say they are boys? Well nothing like a mass shooting. Could it be the testosterone they are given?
And then we have children, CHILDREN, declaring they are neither a boy nor a girl. And our society supports this in the name of gender affirming care. What sex is non-binary?
But these people, for some reason, are not in psychiatric wards. Why is that?
I wrote a book about Woke culture DEI and CRT where I discussed society being bullied by these fake people. Society has been told to bend the knee to this infinitesimal minority, or else. I called the book the Bullies of Woke and their Assault on Mental Health. I think it would have been better named the “Tyranny of the Minority.”
How did we get here? How did we, living in democracies, republics, get to a place where the minority rules the majority?
The American Constitution includes warnings about tyranny of the minority.
Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, expressed this concept of democracy in 1801 in his First Inaugural Address. He said,
All . . . will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression. “In every genuine democracy today, majority rule is both endorsed and limited by the supreme law of the constitution, which protects the rights of individuals. Tyranny by minority over the majority is barred, but so is tyranny of the majority against minorities…. When, and under what conditions, should the rule of the majority be curtailed in order to protect the rights of the minority? And, conversely, when, and under what conditions, must the rights of the minority be restrained in order to prevent the subversion of majority rule?” (emphasis mine)
It never occurred to me when I wrote my book that the majority would let the minority tyrannize them. Tell them what to say, what pronouns to use. The new meaning of sex and gender that turns science on its head. And evolution as well. That an infinitesimal minority would tyrannize the majority regarding the meaning of male and female. I never thought WOMEN would defend fake females playing in women’s sports. That any woman would choose to die on this hill after women fought so hard for equality during the era of feminism. Governor Gretchen Whitmer comes top mind.
In 2016 University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson refused to use “chosen” pronouns. He “believes the idea of a non-binary gender spectrum is specious and he dismisses as nonsensical the raft of gender-neutral pronouns that transgender people have adopted—ze, vis, hir, and the singular use of they, them and their.” For Peterson “Being told what to say—and by the government no less—was just one more step along the slippery slope to tyranny.” January 2022, Peterson resigned.
In Britain, deliberately calling someone by the ‘wrong’ gender pronouns could become a hate crime punishable by imprisonment under a Labour government.
What happened to the rights of the majority? How did the minority get to a place where we bend the knee to false gods to fake science? To outright lies for the sake of a divisive and Marxist ideology?
How did we get to a place where the rights of Drag Queens to read to our children or perform for them overrules the rights of parents?
That teachers have the right to withhold “gender” information from parents. How did we get to a place where a teacher feels confident in telling a young boy who is playing with a doll that he may be a girl? This happened to the very young son of a friend of mine. He was in tears for days.
“Families stand at the center of our society. And every family has a personal stake in promoting excellence in education.” — Ronald Reagan
How did we get to a place where fake females have the right to use girls/women’s bathrooms and change rooms? Or participate in women’s sports when 79% of Americans oppose men competing in women’s sports?
In America, it is taking an executive order to protect women from the minority.
Yes, tolerance, debate, and willingness to compromise are required when faced with competing visions. Our greatness depends upon our willingness to engage with narratives and perspectives that make us profoundly uncomfortable. As a community, when we silence the voices we don’t like and marginalize the people asking the difficult questions, we all lose.
But how did we get to a place where the tyranny of the minority marginalized the majority?
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
Diane Weber Bederman
