Even if there were fifteen million Muslim Brothers in Egypt, though, James Madison would still support including their voices in Egypt’s noisy political system. The most spectacular thing about democracy is not that it heeds to the will of the majority—something that is true of any bar fight—but that it tolerates the peaceful participation of the minority, no matter how unattractive their speech.
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Extremist movements with small numbers but shrewd leadership and fanatical devotes have been known to co-opt larger more popular movements … the October Revolution comes to mind.
Belief in and adherence to ideas like freedom of speech and religion is not a suicide pact. When dealing with individuals and movement whose primary aim is to use the tools of an open society to destroy said society, all bets are off. Or, to quote another well known progressive civil libertarian:
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means. .
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Tue 22 Mar 2011 at 05:42 PM
So much is wrong with this write-up.
Interpreting Madison et al. as favoring democracy is like interpreting Hitler as supporting states' rights. Contortion of history. In fact, Madison et al. would settle for nothing less than a republican society as the best protector of liberty and property against the "violence of faction"; to put it lightly, they were no champions of democracy (and that is to say nothing of the Anti-Feds' sentiments).
You employ the words democracy and democratic a total of nine times, each time portraying democracy as the end-all. Meanwhile, in Federalist No. 10, Madison uses the words democracy, democratic, and democracies a total of six times, each time criticizing democracy. One of you is not merely couching the benefits of a REPUBLIC in the language of "democracy."
Good thing you didn't give a direct quote of Madison on democracy: it would have destroyed your entire premise.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 22 Mar 2011 at 06:07 PM
Two words to dispel this latest bit of CJR historical revisionism....
Stephen Decatur...
A one-man can of eighteenth century anti-Muslim Whoop Ass dispatched by none other than President James Madison to kill Islamist terrorists.
A task he fulfilled admirably.
Madison didn't send Decatur to Algiers to start a dialogue... Or to foster democracy among the Muslims...
He sent Capt. Whoop Ass to... Whoop Ass...
To force Muslims to pay money damages for their terrorism. and to do our bidding (i.e., to stop terrorizing, raping, thieving and enslaving)...
Sorry to rain on this Liberal Fairy Tale Parade... But the facts are the facts.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 22 Mar 2011 at 09:22 PM
The editors need to fact-check this column. The following statement:
"[Madison] believed that this many people [80 million] could govern themselves sufficiently in a truly democratic system."
is *demonstrably* untrue. Madison considered democracy (as construed by Martin - "true democracy" - Madison called it "pure democracy") a serious danger to liberty and individual rights that could NOT be ameliorated simply by scale, as Martin argues. Madison concludes in Federalist No. 10 that only a Representative Republic (not a "pure democracy") would be satisfactory. The following is a direct quote from Federalist No. 10 that contradicts Martin's thesis:
"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
On the other hand, maybe Martin is being subtly ironic and making an (implicit) judgment about Egypt's future..... I invite the editors to read Federalist No. 10 and see if it comports with Martin's summary and thesis:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist/10
#4 Posted by Publius, CJR on Sun 24 Jun 2012 at 09:17 PM