Democracy Vs Minority Rights

Democracy vs. Minority Known as the “Father of the Constitution”, James Madison helped to lay the framework for one of the most valuable pieces of documentation in our country’s history. The three basic branches of our government include the legislative, judicial, and executive branch. The Constitution of the United States promises to protect the rights of all citizens whether they are part of the majority or minority. In an ideal world, during elections and in the legislature, the majority has had the numbers on their side to build a system that they favor. In an optimal democratic state, the minority would be protected by the judiciary and their rights would be upheld by the constitution. In reality the majority and minority is never consistent
Federalists were in favor of separation of powers with a strong national government and weak state governments. The Anti-Federalists craved a strong state government in fear that a more powerful national government would become a power hungry tyrannical monster. The debate between the two parties over the majority rule versus minority rights had to be handled with care in order to prevent a disruption in the balance of the Constitutional Convention. Madison encouraged pluralism as a solution to the majority rule versus minority rights, meaning that if enough groups had a connection to the political system there would not be one group that had dominant rule. A majority that was only interested in their rights could potentially steam roll the minority party’s rights. If there were too many small groups trying to obtain protection from the government for their own rights any power the democracy had would be
Both words appear in the Declaration of Independence as well as the Bill of Rights and today they are used in the same context yet they refer to different types of protection. Civil liberties protect the people from government actions, while civil rights are positive actions the government takes to create equality. Most of the nation thinks that civil rights and liberties are the fundamental protection of freedom at all times however, legitimately most civil liberties are actually competing rights. For example, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 was created after September 11th in order to protect the nation from terrorist attacks as well as reduce the vulnerability, minimize damage, and assist in recovery for attacks that may occur. This new act came with a large number of new services, offices, and even a scale to gage the risk of a terror. While the government is doing what they feel is best they have compromised some of the nation’s privacy. Under the act there are two subtitle acts the Critical Infrastructure Information Act and the Cyber Security Enhancement Act. The Cyber Security Enhancement Act amended the US Patriot Act and loosened restrictions on when, and whom internet providers can voluntarily release information about their subscribers. This puts users at a risk for personal privacy to be breached and it is also a poor security strategy, more importantly the law does not provide judicial