To the editor:
When I was a young law student, I remember a comment by a legal scholar that, in a democracy, the majority can take care of itself, the law is there to protect the minority.
One of your columnists seems to advocate that parties to disputes, whether at Selectboard meetings, in court, or in the court of public opinion, meekly submit to any negative decision without any further attempt to advocate its position. This is in direct contradiction to the concept of democracy, which is the freedom to advocate, petition, litigate, or in other legal ways to attempt to obtain a legal result favored by the advocate.
Remember, Hitler was first elected in Germany. Perhaps if the nation did not merely acquiesce to the election of a madman, but fought through the courts and through protests and political action, the future would have been very different. The United States is a democracy that ideally protects the rights of its citizens through a written constitution, written laws, and an independent judiciary and jury system. To suggest that a ruling or decision should not be legally challenged by all legal means is a subversion of democracy.
Once a final decision is reached, however, all citizens are bound to uphold the legal decision of a court or other body with jurisdiction over the matter. You do not have the right to overthrow the government or ignore a final tribunal decision once all appeals have been exhausted. That said, legal attempts to change the minds of our fellow citizens are protected by free speech and the right to petition clauses in the Constitution. Look at what happened to hundreds of years of legalized slavery and women’s oppression in our nation, both of which were changed with subsequent Supreme Court decisions and legislative enactments.
Sometimes the majority is wrong, and undiluted acquiescence by the mob is disastrous to a free society. The law is there to protect all of us.
Stephen Cohen
Egremont
