A Few Problems with Rights, Responsibilities, and the Protection of a Political Minority

There is no doubt that a certain degree of effort must be made under any system of government to ensure that no person is neglected, and none is abused. To this great end has been formed the concept of a citizen's specific rights. So different they may be in people's minds and politics, they nonetheless are there, in some form. But this does not ensure that such systems are perfect.

For every representitive to a government's legislature, a political party carries with it a quantity of political force. There are many factors to affect it, but it still remains true that any two persons have more power than one, and so forth. Given the unobstructed power of the majority, there will certainly occur abuses. However, if steps are taken to even the political force between the majority and a minority, similar problems occur.

Most significantly, it will lead to the representation of the particular minority to not balance with its population. Thus each citizen represented by the minority will enjoy the political benefits of several similar citizens in the majority. The natural effect is that politics will become balanced so as to favor those otherwise of lesser importance.

To avoid this, it might be possible for the government to determine, in advance of any legislation, certain individual rights which may not be infringed. If used correctly, and sparingly, this will not cause significant harm to the political process. In excess, however, undeniable rights are an obstruction to reasoning. Any number of strategies, sought with good reason to benefit the people, might stop short at a single element of the process. It turns the ordinary world of what ought and ought not to be done, into the abstract world of what can and cannot be done, under the confines of the system. Again this will do great harm.

The last effort in correcting the faults of democracy, is to establish certain responsibilities to exist for each person. This is one of the most flawed strategies, and yet this is not obvious when seen against the background of politics. It simply amounts to the free spirit of nature, that no responsibility, however well mandated, will be retained. It suffers more severely to the failures of the undeniable rights, as it creates the new abstractions of Right and Wrong, adding to the confused spirit of absolute justice that must be applied under such a system.

There is no perfect government, and never will be. The best that can be done is to cite each problem as it occurs, and one by one correct them.

A Few Problems with Democracy

It may be that there will never be found a government better than democracy. It may be that there will never be the concept in the mind of the population of a better government. But there is so much that could be better.

First of all, the logic of the democratic process is significantly lacking. Consider the following situation: party A and party B compete for a political office; the winner is decided by vote. Suppose also that party A has a very slight majority, and thus, by the logic of democracy, is more apt for governance. Now suppose, by some mischivous act of nature, a large subpopulation consiting mostly of party A is killed by a flood, hurricane, or whatever. All of a sudden, the representitive of party B is more fit to govern.

Now, for the sake of arguement, party B is in control of the government. Using their legislative powers, party B votes to suspend the voting rights of subpopulations dominantly favoring party A. Thus party B, originally a minority, has taken control of the government. If the logic of democracy is used, the preceding events have made it the will of the people for this to happen.

If the majority party of any government is allowed, by virtue of having a population greater than the minority party, to control the legislature, and thus to direct the action of government, it is in no way impossible for them to further only their own intrests. If the leaders of the majority party profitted from a specific industry, there is little doubt that it would receive favorable attention from the government. If the leaders of the majority party belonged to any specific economic class, the economic force of the government would be directed in the intrests of that class. Any number of abuses can be found, and most would be exploited.

Perhaps there is no hope of solving all the problems. Even more likely, people will simply resist any attempts. Democracy is so honored in the modern world that to compromise its force in any way could not be premitted.