Show Utah Analyst Examines Right of Majority to Govern By CHARLES P. Instructor in Political Science and i In an excellent which appeared in the October 17 issue of the Professor W. Harold Dalgleish argued for the t right of the minority to This he viewed as one aspect of the other being the right of the majority to With the reasoning and conclusions I am in perfect I shall examine the other side of the democratic coin the right of the majority to There is no magic in majority The majority may fail to govern in the interest of the whole and it may fail to promote even its own best Yet to allow the minority to govern would not result in any unless the minority were both wiser and more generous than the It is a part of the democratic belief that the latter is not so Even if it is argued that each group promotes its own then it is better that the welfare of the rather than of the should be The assumption here is another basic aspect of the democratic faith the fundamental equal worth of each human While the voice of the majority of the people is not necessarily the voice of the true democrat holds that in the long run it is the closest to it that we are likely to But are there any serious issues involved in the contended right of the majority to Does this mean that the majority has the right to deprive the minority of its right to Does it mean that it has the right to confiscate the property of the minority If it has any meaning at then it must mean these very But if the democratic right to restrict freedom of expression is then the democratic right to persuade and the welfare of the majority itself is Aside from the fact that the majority will not be tempered and informed by the and that a person may prefer to join the the democratic way the peaceful way of inevitable conflicts of opinion and interest is For if the minority can no longer win its and convert itself into a majority by peaceful the temptation to gain power by revolutionary means is greatly if not inevitably resorted If the majority realizes these they may be But what if the majority does not take away rights of but nevertheless uses its power in other ways which threaten to destroy the property and religious rights of the minority Will the minority not resort to forceful The question Is answered in part by a glance at the recent history of now fascist Germany and The only safe means of preventing such a catastrophe is to preserve the underlying unity of a There must be sufficient agreement on the fundamentals that we can bicker over the This is perhaps but to pose the question and leave it in To the task our heads must bow and our backs |