Discussing the Right On list: Minorities.
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:43 am
An anonymous list in Thank God CBS didn't shut him up!:) beginning "Right on" carries a paragraph on minorities and assertsAnonymous wrote: I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers.It's cleverly worded in that "numbers" carries a double meaning. Either it's numbers as in statistics or it's numbers as in preponderance. Obviously a minority is the lower count where any preponderance exists and the statement, viewed that way, is self-fulfilling. The implication of "a victim of anything except statistics" is that statistics can legitimately, to the popular mind, be made to say anything at all (which I'd dispute, of course).
As far as preponderance goes, democratic government (representative or otherwise) is selected by the majority of a voting electorate. It's prevented from victimizing a minority by the establishment of rights. Once a right is legally established the democratic will of the majority is constrained and the minority is protected from being a victim of numbers. In areas where no right has been established the majority view is paramount and the will of the minority is overridden.
As far as the statistics sense is concerned, that's just a matter of accurate data and scientifically legitimate deduction. It might not be easy but it's testable.
As far as preponderance goes, democratic government (representative or otherwise) is selected by the majority of a voting electorate. It's prevented from victimizing a minority by the establishment of rights. Once a right is legally established the democratic will of the majority is constrained and the minority is protected from being a victim of numbers. In areas where no right has been established the majority view is paramount and the will of the minority is overridden.
As far as the statistics sense is concerned, that's just a matter of accurate data and scientifically legitimate deduction. It might not be easy but it's testable.