Vox Populi Vox Humbug!

In the beginning of America's national history, its founders established the nation not as a democracy, but rather, as a constitutional republic in the which individual citizens shall be extended certain individual liberties to exercise as they please, regardless of either partisan government wish or majority public opinion. The nation's founders both understood and feared the potential tyranny of absolute majoritarian democracy. This concept is consistent with the Bible scripture of Matthew 18:11-14, where Jesus Christ tells of the good shepherd who leaves his flock of 99 sheep, to look for one which is lost. In the sight of God, every individual is supremely valuable: "Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (Matthew 18:14). Thus today, we have in the U.S. Constitution the Bill of Rights, which are granted to individual citizens against either mobocracy or government encroachment upon them. Freedom is unfortunately not automatically self-enforcing, and individuals, above all, need the shield of the law to protect them against majoritarian popular opinion.

Are majorities always right? Individual inventors have often been ridiculed in their own life-times by collective majority opinion against them, saying their ideas are nonsensical and thus worthy of summary dismissal. Yet the courage of inventors to "swim upstream" against popular opinion at the time has greatly advanced civilization-at-large in later generations. Suppose Henry Ford and the Wright brothers surrendered to popular majority opinion of their day, where would America be today without the automobile and the airplane? In the early years of American military involvement in Viet Nam, nearly all members of Congress voted to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Only two members of the U.S. Senate--Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska--had the courage of their personal convictions to vote against the resolution, to say American involvement in Viet Nam was a political mistake from the beginning. Only as the war continued into the next decade with increase of American death and expenditure of money for the war, with no apparent satisfactory conclusion in sight, did Americans in large numbers find the courage to jump onto the band-wagon and say, "me-too", as opposition to the American misadventure in Viet Nam became more popular. But the credit for true, principled bravery goes to those two United States Senators, who from the beginning defied overwhelming majority opinion and voted their honest consciences on the war question.

The Bible records that Jesus Christ was crucified with majority opinion popular approval. That same majority voted to have released from prison a criminal named Barabbas, saying Jesus Christ should be crucified in his place. (Matthew 27:15-26) This same Jesus Christ also said that the road to destruction is wide, while the road to salvation in God's kingdom is narrow, and few would find it. Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" to Jesus Christ will enter God's kingdom, but just those who do God's will. (Matthew 7:13-27) He warned His followers that even as He is unpopular, His followers likewise would be hated by the world, and would suffer persecution at its hands. (John 15:18-20) The wide popularity of certain publicly-prominent individuals claiming to be Christian is therefore a sure sign and stamp that they are not of God. God has a reason for preference of the unpopular over the popular, as stated by the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 1:23-29: "...that no flesh should glory in His presence."

Right and wrong cannot be decided by substitution of numbers in place of absolute principle. Ethnic and religious minority groups who have had a history of persecution at the hands of a hostile majority can well-testify to this proposition, not just in America, but world-wide. What, then, about protection for the smallest of all minorities, the individual? What would the majority of people say of Jesus Christ today, were He to return to earth in the flesh now, and start up His ministry as He first did two thousand years ago? Is it not true that popular ideas, truths, practices and organizations begin as a vision in the mind of just one individual? If we could transport all Christians of our modern times back to Israel in the time of Jesus Christ, and He called out those transported Christians of today to be His first twelve apostles, how many of them would have the courage to answer His call and step up to the plate in the face of overwhelming popular unbelief?

We in America today must be careful not to outlaw actions and behaviours of other people just on the basis of their unpopularity alone. In so doing, our society-at-large may kill the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg, and lose valuable insight to the advancement of human civilization.

-LKM