The TYRANNY of the MINORITY 

by Ken Simmons

As a 12 year-old student at Lindberg Jr. High School in Long Beach, California I was impressed by the writings of a man named Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a 19th Century French aristocrat who traveled throughout America in 1831 and wrote extensively about “Democracy in America.” Because I was so taken by his insights into the workings of our young democracy I wrote an essay about his work and my essay was published in its entirety in 1956 in the Long Beach Independent newspaper.

De Tocqueville was famously quoted as saying, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” 

He also wrote, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” 

the tyranny of the majority . . . 

But de Tocqueville also warned America about the Tyranny of the Majority. His concerns were that the majority could run roughshod over the minority by passing egregious laws that could ignore the concerns of the few. His observations about America’s addiction to human slavery as a driving force for America’s economy was particularly appropriate since slavery would continue to be the law of the land for nearly three decades before Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. The “majority” had a tyrannical stranglehold on a defenseless minority in America, i.e. the Tyranny of the Majority.

Fast forward more than 180 years to the America of today and we see a different threat to the nation emerging than the one which de Tocqueville saw and wrote about so eloquently. Unfortunately, pendulums tend to swing too far and often fail to find a balance. For America the tyranny that de Tocqueville warned us about seems to have been turned on its head from that of a tyrannical majority to a minority that now has America in a stranglehold. (NOTE: This minority to which I refer has nothing to do with race). Let’s see if we can put this into perspective. 

Recent laws in America have come down hard against majority views regarding what Americans have considered moral for nearly two centuries. On June 26, 2015 five out of nine justices of the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage would be legal in all 50 states. Like the shifting Santana winds of California, "morality" has once again been determined by the whims of Political Correctness. One begins to wonder if people actually believe that God changes His mind about that which is moral and that which is not. Hmm, does "For I am the LORD, I change not," come to mind for anyone? (Malachi 3:6)  

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: The Supreme Court’s “highly unrepresentative panel of nine” had violated “a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation.”  In this case nine black-robed justices, on behalf of a mere 3.4% of Americans who identified themselves as homosexual, have decided what constituted holy matrimony for 320.9 million Americans. According to a recent Gallup Poll 3.8% of Americans identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States ) 

the tyranny of the minority . . . 

This means that a minority totaling only 3.4% of Americans have power over the 96% of Americans because of Political Correctness. An egregious case of the Tyranny of the Minority. Let’s see how that translates for the average American.

Let's make this personal for you. Let’s say you’re Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, and David and Charlie want you to bake a cake to celebrate their homosexual wedding. You tell the two men that you can't in good conscience bake the cake because to do so would be an endorsement of what you consider immoral and would violate your religious convictions. David and Charlie sue you  and the courts fine you $135,000 and you’re forced out of business. This is just another case of the minority (3.8% of Americans) punishing the majority, in this case for their religious beliefs. (See https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-ruling-colorado-baker-refused-gay-wedding-cake/  ) Again, Tyranny of the Minority. 

Muslim rights over Christian rights . . . 

Now, let’s take a look at another case. Using our government's tax dollars (our money) in October, 2015, a branch of the U.S. Government, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Star Transport, an Illinois trucking company, because two Somali-born Muslim truck drivers, Mahad Mohamed and Abdkiarim Bulshale were fired for refusing to deliver beer. The two were awarded a total of $240,000 in compensation and punitive damages because forcing them to deliver alcohol would “violate their religious convictions.” 

Apparently the religious convictions of the two Muslim men carried more weight than the religious convictions of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker. Although the men knew that Star Transport routinely delivered alcohol they took the job anyway. Star Transport had to file bankruptcy and went out of business. (See https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/10-22-15b.cfm ) Here we see another case of the Tyranny of the Minority running roughshod over the majority.

In 2016 the *Obama Administration declared its Transgender Agenda by ordering every public school district in America to permit Transgender students, including students who claim to be Transgender (my comment), to use the bathrooms that match the gender identity they have "chosen." This meant that any state or school district that failed to comply would be threatened with losing countless millions of dollars in Title 10 federal funding if they failed to comply.

0.4% rights overrule 96% - tyranny of the minority . . . 

Imagine that your 11-year-old Middle School daughter is showering in the girls' locker room when suddenly a boy enters the showers and demands his right to shower with the girls. This is political correctness run amok and this insanity has gone too far.  And yet that's exactly what this mandate would permit. At the time I wrote an article stating that outraged parents should  march to the schools and post signs over every girls' bathroom and locker room that says, "If You Have a Penis, Do Not Enter!!"

For a perspective on this issue, 0.6% of Americans identify as Transgender. This means that 99.4% of Americans have been trampled by a tiny minority. Again, it’s the Tyranny of the Minority. (See https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-population.html )

*The Trump Administration has taken steps to reverse the Transgender Agenda of the Obama Administration and is no longer withholding funds for failure to comply. It appears that sanity has prevailed, at least in this instance.