Horrors of Democracy and Duties of the Moral Man

[John Scott]

We've all seen the horrors of democracy in the democratically elected Third Reich's slaughter of millions, democratically elected governments enforcing slavery, and democratically elected governments persecuting and murdering minorities.

Most of these atrocities are committed for on the basis of ethnic division. We see a lot of that in Africa, where hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were killed by Hutu.

Sometimes the lines are drawn on Religio-Ethnic lines, such as in the genocides that targeted Albanians, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.

Saddam Hussein, although not technically democratically elected, enjoyed a great deal of support while he murdered over 1,000,000 Kurds.

The democratically elected gov't of the USA hunted and killed thousands of Native Americans, imprisoned 110,000 Japanese-Americans during WW2, and today the gov't holds hundreds at Guantanamo Bay, outside of the US in order to deny them their constitutional rights.

The conclusion one might draw is that democracy is capable of extreme injustice.

So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the democratically elected gov't of the US, with popular support and support from Supreme Court determines that learning impaired people are no longer deserving of protection, and parents who choose to can take their learning impaired children to a termination center.

Every day, a million are murdered.

You, as an intelligent human being, recognize this is injustice. You and like minded people however have not been able to prevail through democratic means, and the murder goes on.

What is your moral obligation? To not interfere with the process, or to break the law and attempt to impede it?

[G10]

I would say yes, it would be my moral obligation to try to overide the system and get it changed yes.

Though I could foresee it falling on deaf ears as if this was put in place by the government, then their spin doctors would be using all sorts of lie tactics to justify their decision which would make it very difficult to overturn.

That said, one must still try - Just my take.

[South]

I don't see how the rhetorical situation you suggested differs much from the abortion situation. Not trying to take the thread off track, but you can pretty easily see how the media vilifies those with the guts to stand up to it.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by South

I don't see how the rhetorical situation you suggested differs much from the abortion situation. Not trying to take the thread off track, but you can pretty easily see how the media vilifies those with the guts to stand up to it.

That's one thing I was thinking of. But also the Nazi death camps. I have this feeling that those who stand by and allow the genocide to happen are just as culpable as those who commit the genocide.