Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Minority Rights Amendment

MRA

There is a fatal flaw in the United States Constitution. It is the flaw of democracy by majority rule and it becomes increasingly problematical as democratic populations in numbers. This proposal fits the U.S. Constitution position but its principle is a universal solution applicable to every democratic government.

At the time of founding the United States of America and the writing of the U.S. Constitution there were less than seven million people in all the original States. In 1776 democracy by majority rule did not have the severe disenfranchisement problem for minorities within the country as it does now simply because there weren't that many minority populations other than ones already disenfranchised like women and slaves. But today, with the U.S. population at about 270 million, many minority populations are effectively disenfranchised and without voice in the government of their country. A 5% minority population equals 13.5 million people, more people than the populations of many nations of the world and far too many people with no say in the governing of their lives. And this is the situation of most minority populations within the U.S.
Year after year majority populations elect the governing representatives for the whole country and minorities have to abide by whatever decisions are arrived at by the majority's government representatives. What hope can there be for black people, for Latinos, for Native Americans, for gays, for all the minority groups when they only get token representation from a handful of lucky minority leaders elected to office who then still have to rely on their personal powers of persuasion to convince the ruling majority's representatives to agree to minority needs from government.

This is why many minority groups, especially ones that cannot fit into the European-American majority's cultural heritage and economic expectations, have made such little progress in rising out of economic poverty and it's attendant crime statistics. All the rules are written by and for the majority population. Minorities that don't agree with majority decision- makers just do not count. And this situation gets worse every year as minority populations increase, filling our country with millions of effectively disenfranchised people. Only a Minority Rights Amendment can change this situation and save America from increasing crime and violence from minority populations frustrated for decades, even centuries, with no other way out of the political and economic bind democracy by majority rule puts them in.

Amendment 28 to the U.S. Constitution

"Congress shall pass no law that violates the political, economic, cultural and religious rights of minority populations within the United States of America as long as these rights do not interfere with the rights enjoyed by all United States citizens. No State shall pass laws that violate the political, economic, cultural, and religious rights of minority populations as long as these rights do not interfere with the rights enjoyed by all citizens residing within the State. A "minority population" is defined as any group of U.S. citizens that has achieved legal recognition and identity as an ethnic or religious or cultural group within the majority population of the United States."

This Amendment may be the most important one ever to amendment the U.S. Constitution. It will work to destroy cultural prejudice within our country that has kept millions of citizens in poverty and put hundreds of thousands in prison for crimes that have no victims other than the poor minority member who's "crime" is often nothing more than having a darker skin color from the majority populations' or using a different intoxicant such as marijuana instead of the majority's legal intoxicants like alcohol. America stands for Freedom from tyranny and oppression. Without this freedom for all U.S. citizens there is no real freedom for any U.S. citizen.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is just dumb because you don't define precisely at all what a "minority" is. Existing laws identify illegal discrimination against groups that are fairly well, but not perfectly, defined. Your proposal makes no effort at all and your lead-in is just a rant citing historical and political injustices. There are already ways for people to air their grievances, albeit imperfectly. I would like to see more citizen political involvement, your proposal doesn't do anything and would only make lawyers(a minority) more wealthy.

Steve Lewis said...

"A 5% minority population equals 13.5 million people, more people than the populations of many nations of the world and far too many people with no say in the governing of their lives."

I'd leave it up to the specific minority group to "define" what "it is" save for a bottom line number of members pegged, admittedly arbitrarily, at 5% of the American population.

Steve Lewis said...

Plus, I am certainly not a Constitutional lawyer or a lawyer at all. I'm a visionary and I produce visions of eutopia, of alternative ways of solving social and environmental problems. The devil's in the details and I leave that up to others to work out.. :P

Anonymous said...

One of the reasons that Instant Runoff Voting(or proportional representation) was effectively eliminated by the mid 1950's in metropolitan cities was because it was viewed as giving to much power to the minorities.Example,in 1957 Cincinnati elected an African American mayor.The PR form of elections for the city was eliminated shortly after.

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