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by dragonwriter
1214 days ago
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> An obvious and extreme example would be American slave states pre-civil war as viewed from the perspective of Black Americans When you define a large mass of people as property and deny them the franchise, that's not oppression through democracy, because its not democracy at all. |
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In any event it's not necessary to argue this point because there are no shortage of further examples which include authoritarianism exerted over non-disenfranchised demographics. Here are some further examples of authoritarianism within the USA:
* Japanese internment of 1940s
* Every historic invocation of martial law (more than a dozen)
* Every historic invocation of conscription
* Historic oppression of women, which continued well after the suffrage movement in a variety of ways
There are of course countless other examples throughout the history of democracies. Even a cursory reading can uncover countless examples, from contemporary democracies all the way back to its origins in ancient Greece. It is not uncommon for a majority rule system to impose authoritarian controls -- in fact, it is the norm. This is why we have concepts such as constitutional rights, which are specifically designed to balance against the authoritarian tendencies of majority rule.