Libertarian Thread # 3: Liberty will never die

Originally posted by The T Originally posted by Gerinski Originally posted by The T That is a basic problem Gerinski. Majorities deciding for minorities can lead to majorities deciding to step on minorities, or majorities deciding something about minorities that forces something upon them that they didn't agree to including things that you wouldn't qualify as legitimate, or majorities deciding that something perfectly accepted is illegitimate and thus forcing minorities to do as they want. Majorities can also, as has happened in the past, choose the wrong person who eventually lead to destruction of minorities.  Democracy is a failed god. Sadly, it's difficult to replace it for some things. But for others, private chice should do.  So, majorities can not decide for minorities, and presumably minorities can not decide for majorities. Cool, who decides whatever? The solution to your conundrum is splitting the territory and create 'countries' according to political views. A country for libertarians, a country for moderate liberals, a country for moderate social-democrats, a country for socialists and so on. This would not be too bad, the only problem being that all of them would fight to get the California soil for their country   I don't say I have the answer. One would be to go the entire anarchic way (better yet, anarcho-capitalism) with every individual making his own decisions and only agreeing with others in contractual ways, not with all-encompassing laws. I honestly don't think people are ready for this and a lot of other problems would ensue but in theory it would be the ideal scenario. Another way of course involves one person deciding. Other is democracy. But you can improve democracy and eliminate that power of majorities over minorities by reducing the number of aspects where majorities can decide, or, basically saying, by reducing the size and power of the majority-ruled machine. If, on the other hand, every single aspect of life is decided "democratically", then it runs the risk of majorities actually trampling minorities.

I am definitely pro-democracy, and would favor the last proposal: I'm basically calling for a return to the Constitution, which was supposed to safeguard liberty in a democratic republic by limiting the size of the government.  The founding fathers foresaw the danger of the "tyranny of the majority" and organized the government accordingly.  Then power-hungry politicians trampled on the constitution for centuries.

I don't know if the US will ever return to it's founding principles, but I'd rather try and fail than give up.