Enjoying the protections of the majority

Maybe it is time for a 28th amendment to the US Constitution. No, not that one. This one:

Amendment 28 - Protecting the Minority from the Majority
No law, policy, executive order, ruling, constitutional revision or amendment shall be passed at any level of government which prevents the minority from enjoying full access to civil law or the constitutional protections enjoyed by the majority.

Isn't the 14th Amendment, the one about equal protections, enough? Apparently not. Even legal scholars -- and Obama -- see wiggle room. It probably doesn't have much chance in passing (thank the Mormons for help in killing the amendment protecting women) but the discussion about tyranny of the majority will be good for the country.

Included in the debate will be such issues as: Exactly what is a minority? We can go to great lengths conjuring up small groups. How does it affect convicted criminals? How does religion fit into it? How about protecting the majority (women) from the minority (men)? The poor are in the majority too. Does it include citizens under the age of 21? Non-citizens? Does equal rights imply equal taxes? What unintended side effects might we trip over? A friend studying complex systems was reminded in a lecture there are no such thing as "unintended side effects" there are only "effects" and if they are unintended and on the side you didn't do your research. And we haven't gotten to the real issue of tyranny of the majority.

Perhaps it is time to revive and expand the Equal Rights Amendment (hey, what a great name!) by adding sexual minorities and giving it some teeth.


Speaking of tyranny of the majority. Are we civically illiterate? Does the average citizen know how the government works (or how it is supposed to work)? Is that contributing to instances of tyranny of the majority?

As Fanny's Room puts it:

It's frightening. The anti-gay crowd lambastes "elite" judges for countering the will of the people even though these judges play a vital role in our democratic system of protecting minority rights even if the majority of people do not deem these rights worth protecting. Personally, I take comfort in knowing that "elite" judges, no matter what they end up deciding, usually present more sophisticated legal and political arguments than "a whole buncha people think only a man and a woman deserve marriage, therefore only a man and a woman can get married."

To rate our civic literacy the Intercollegiate Studies Institute created a quiz to quantify what we know and was disappointed that the average score was only 49%, a failing grade. I took the quiz and got 91% (30 out of 33) -- and saw why lots of people flunked. As one critic named Brian on Fanny's Room put it:

But the civics test you link to is awful. Not only are most of the questions based on history and not civics (the Puritans stressed the sinfulness of all humanity?), but on ancient, non-relevant history (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?) The questions also indicate a fairly pronounced bias ("free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government’s centralized planning because:"). …

I can guarantee that if we were taught as children not that "this country is great because of Democracy!" but that "this country is great because we have a system of government that prevents absolute power vested either a single individual, or in an entrenched majority" this conversation would be very different.