Friday, May 15, 2009

Tyranny of Popular Vote

This is an essay written by my Grandpa Janairo back in the 1930's. My dad has quoted parts of this essay since my childhood and luckily a copy was found recently. Thought I'd share it.


Tyranny of the Popular Vote
Man irks under the burden of compulsory obedience. It is repulsive to his sense of self respect that he should be made to follow blindly and to accept ungrudgingly that which is imposed upon him to be sheer superiority. He has revolted from spiritual tyranny when Martin Luther flung his memorable defiance in the Council of Nantes and declared that the human spirit can not be imprisoned by bigotry and fanaticism. Man struck the death knell of corporate tyranny when the days of the feudal lords were declared gone forever by the onrushing tide of human freedom embodied in the Magna Carta of England and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Political liberty has been since its birth the antithesis of tyranny. And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, it has brought about, by the strength of its ideal and the dynamic force of its principle, a new tyranny strong because its set is the masses, uncompromising because it springs from ignorance, powerful because it is regarded as the people’s voice. This offspring of democracy is the tyranny of popular vote.

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