The misconception of liberty and democracy

By MT Webmaster Last updated Apr 28, 2015

So, if this one man says that the 50 demonstrators who opposed the cross above a church a few days ago committed a crime then they would face the law. If he says they did not then they get off. And 108 Malaysians gave him this power. That is democracy.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It’s misleading to say that democracy is all about “majority rules”, because it’s not. “Majority wins” is a voting system promoted in a democratic system. It isn’t a silver bullet to resolve all issues in a democratic system.

That’s the reason why we have the constitution, laws and judiciary system. The wish of the majority is not, and should not be always fulfilled; else it will become anarchy and not democracy.

RPK knows this important principle very well, but has been advocating otherwise repeatedly.

That was a comment posted by reader Wk Oonk in my article ‘Why democracy and freedom of expression are bad’ (READ HERE).

Students of political philosophy would understand the limitations and shortcomings of democracy and how democracy can actually be opposed to liberty. Democracy takes away your liberties because the minority has to abide to the wishes of the majority.

The renowned essay On Liberty that was written by English philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1859 explains this well. (Mill is part of the study on political philosophy run by Oxford). In his essay, Mill talks about the danger of democracy to liberty. Democracies, said Mill, are prone to the tyranny of the majority.

In a representative democracy (which is what Malaysia is), you can control the majority and get them to vote for your party’s candidates. Then you can control the entire population (like in Malaysia 222 MPs decide on behalf of 30 million citizens). These 222 MPs will then pass whatever laws they feel are needed.

It could be that 112 MPs propose a certain law while 110 oppose it. However, since the 112 MPs outnumber the 110, the law will get passed. It could even be that the 110 MPs represent 55% of the population (which means they won 55% of the popular vote) but since the 112 MPs (who won less than 50% of the popular votes) are the majority then the law will get passed.

This is what Mill said in his introduction in On Liberty:

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries.

Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism.

Plato, who was born in 427 BCE, is hailed as the greatest western philosopher of all time. In 377 BCE he published The Republic (De Republica), which basically talks about the failures of a democracy.

According to Plato, democratic self-governments do not work because ordinary people have not learned how to run the ship of state. They are not familiar enough with such things as economics, military strategy, conditions in other countries, or the confusing intricacies of laws and ethics.

In their ignorance, the people tend to vote for politicians who charm them with appearances and vague statements. The people then inevitably find themselves at the mercy of the government and will be subjected to conditions over which they have no control because they do not understand what is happening around them. The people are guided mainly by unreliable emotions more than by careful analysis.

So the greatest of philosophers did not think much of democracy. And people like Wk Oonk demonstrate this when he equates democracy to just voting. He talks about ‘majority wins’, whatever that is supposed to mean. Does he mean majority votes because majority votes does not mean you will win majority seats in Parliament?

In fact, Parliament recently passed the amendments to the Sedition Act that takes away our liberty to oppose and criticise with a vote of less than 50% of the 222 MPs. According to the Constitution that is perfectly legal. That is democracy. So 108 Malaysians have decided on behalf of 30 million Malaysians that you can be sent to jail for 20 years if you do certain things, which in the opinion of one man, the Attorney General, is a crime.

Yes, 108 people have given the absolute power to one man to send you to jail for 20 years based on his personal interpretation of what constitutes a seditious act. This is democracy. This is legal. And you still say the system is good and it works?

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK