Accountability and Mob Rule

Referring to the incidents in Little Rock, Dwight Eisenhower once argued that "Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed to Override the Decisions of Our Courts".

Mob violence is, in my mind, almost never inspired by a desire to enforce a tradition or even to bring about change. It is an expression of a grievance, at times connected with the issues it addresses, but not always.

Yet if we react to our experience at Little Rock by putting our faith in unelected authorities from fear of the rule of the mob, no progress will have been achieved. If anything, we will have taken a step backwards.

Authorities are just as capable of acting out on their grievances as crowds are. The answer is not to choose the one over the other, but rather to make them accountable to each other.

That authorities should be accountable to the masses seems almost obvious to citizens of the oldest standing democracy in the world. But to make the masses accountable to their officials? What is the meaning of this?

When a system of government is ratified democratically, and officials are voted into that system, a majority of citizens have consented to be ruled in a certain manner and for a time, by certain people.

These days, there are those who take the idea of holding officials accountable to an extreme that would be laughable had it not the potential to be dangerous. Huge crowds of people band together to demand that things be done a certain way, and if politicians disagree with the demand and proceed with their original plans, they are branded as tyrants, traitors, sellouts, and any number of phrases which express an equal willingness to be reasonable.

This behavior is absurd. In a country of 300 million, why should we want our leaders to be so accountable to whatever group that can rally a few tens of thousands?

Mob rule is not the rule of the majority, and is therefore not the principle risk of democracy. Mob rule is the abandonment of rule of law whenever enough people are unhinged enough about something to make a formidable force. In this tree of a country, you can't shake a twig without 10,000 people getting pissed off.

But we are a Republic. Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to express ourselves within the broad confines of the law. Yes, it is fine to promote an agenda through protests and activism. But it is absurd to expect politicians to be the slave of whatever interest group can get the most signatures on their petitions--because no matter how many those groups might represent, they will never be more than a tiny fraction of the overall population.

The rule of mobs, or perhaps more accurately the rule of activists, is more rooted in anarchy than it is in democracy. It dissolves the order established by the majority so that the most aggressive minorities can have an impact disproportionate to their size.

The question of how to avoid tyranny while at the same time not falling into mob rule has been prominent in our nation's history.

The answer lies not in the faith of any particular group, but rather in checks and balances, an idea which I think should not be unfamiliar to us but is often misunderstood.

You vote for a candidate, and they either win or they lose. Nevertheless, by voting, you are reaffirming the legitimacy of our current system regardless of the outcomes of any particular election. You, and all registered voters, are therefore held accountable for the laws and rulings which come as a consequence.

Politicians pass laws, appoint judges, and go to war, and they are held accountable for this not by wailing barbarians and exhibitionists who comprise a small part of their constituency, but by the shifts in voter's confidence. These shifts can be expressed directly, by voting not to reelect a particular candidate, or indirectly, by punishing the larger political party which that candidate belongs to.

But they are not expressed in signs or in mass gatherings. The protest is a fine means of expression when appropriate; this I do not contest. But it should be aimed not at political leaders, but at voters--to give some the confidence that there do exist many people who agree with them, and to attempt to persuade the rest.

The protests of the Iraq War have been an unashamed hodge-podge of Old style communists and socialists, slander and smear, with pretty words like "peace" screamed about repeatedly. This can, of course, send a beacon out to those who already agree with these sorts of things who might be comforted in the knowledge that there are a number of people willing to say it in public.

But it certainly isn't going to persuade anyone. If anything, it will alienate potential allies.

If you're going to argue that officials should be held accountable to their citizens, then you must have a faith in the value of persuasion before setting out to be an activist. If you feel that it is impossible to persuade because people never change their minds, then what is the point of going out to protest in the first place? Vote, and by the breakdown of the vote you can get a better idea of how many citizens currently agree with you.

If you feel that people with your beliefs are in the minority, and you don't believe in persuasion, then what reason could you possibly have to protest? I see no possible motivation for this sort of behavior beyond a base attempt at mob intimidation in the hopes that those in power will bend over at the sight of you and yours.

If your faith is in democracy, then vote, vote regularly, and don't engage in activism unless it is your intention to argue for a proposed course of action.