Stevens: Majority rule root of discrimination

A fictional fellow with a political agenda walked into a newspaper editor’s office with a letter he wanted published.

The letter was 301 words long. The editor told him the word limit was 300.

David Stevens

“How about we take out one word?” the editor asked.

“No,” the fellow said.

“Can we change ‘unexpected surprise’ to ‘surprise?’”

“No,” the fellow said.

“Can we take out the part about Obama being sworn into office with his hand on the Koran since that’s not true?”

“No,” the fellow said. “I have a constitutional right to free speech. You have to publish my letter exactly the way I wrote it.”

The editor, a kind-hearted, deep-thinking, compassionate guy (OK, the editor is also fictional), calmly explained that the fellow with the political agenda had a constitutional right to his opinion — but no right at all to express it in the newspaper unless he followed the newspaper’s reasonable rules.

“You can make the changes,” the editor suggested, “or try another newspaper, or post your letter on social media.”

“No,” the fellow said. And he wanted to know why the newspaper got to make the rules.

“Because,” said the editor, “it’s our newspaper.”

The fellow disagreed, and he took the newspaper to court. A judge with a political agenda ruled in favor of the fellow with the political agenda and ordered the newspaper to publish all letters to the editor, no matter how long they were, no matter whether they were true.

“You cannot discriminate against loquacious liars,” the judge ruled. And it was law, at least in that state.

A bunch of people got mad, but a bunch of other people were really happy.

Newspaper editors throughout the land were aghast; partly because they didn’t know what loquacious meant, and partly because they didn’t want the government telling them what to do.

And so they contacted the government in their jurisdiction and asked for a law that would allow them to discriminate against loquacious liars.

“You cannot pass a law that allows discrimination,” one fictional senator said, “unless you claim your religion requires you to do so. ... Hmmm.”

And so there became laws allowing discrimination, at least in states that loved the Lord.

The moral of the story:

If two people can’t agree, and one of them is going to end up really mad despite having options that would resolve the issue for everyone, the thing to do is get the government involved.

That way, individual liberty is redefined by majority rule and every single resident of the United States of America becomes a victim of discrimination.

Thank goodness this was a fictional story, huh?

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]