Representative Democracy and its dissidents

As I said last night, Cindy, Kate and I watched the Torchwood mini-series on television last Saturday night and early Sunday morning. The story involved the effort of an alien race to come to earth and demand the lives of 10% of the children of earth. As the plot unfolded, the British government was willing to host these alien invaders and try to placate their coming to earth, in hopes that the aliens would seek no recompense from the British people.



As we watched the mini-series, we found that the British government had encountered these aliens before, in the late 60's and had given them twelve Scottish children from villages and towns far from the public eye. Afterward, the aliens had left them alone and the bargain seemed a good one to those involved in the transaction.



But now the aliens were coming back. The British scrambled to be good hosts to these visitors. In the end, they allowed other countries to participate as secondary participants in the entertaining of the aliens.



Unfortunately, when the aliens were questioned as to why they had returned to earth, the aliens made their demand for 10% of the children of the world. Upon receipt of this demand, the British envoy requested the reason for this demand. The aliens allowed them to glimpse into the place provided for the aliens, and the scientists and politicans found that the aliens used these children as a drug. The aliens had taken eleven of the twelve children they had taken in the 60's for some intoxicating effect they had on the aliens. Now they wanted more children to build a supply of drugs for the future.



At this point, the governmental and military powers put their heads together and tried to come up with a plan. Not willing to band together to fight the force of the aliens, the British and the Americans were willing to surreptiously gather children from all over the world in order to satisfy the needs of these alien visitors. As the story continued, it appeared that the aliens would get what they wanted and the governments and the military would be complicit in assisting their desires.



At this point, the remaining members of Torchwood, this governmental agency created to fight aliens who attacked Britain, jumped in and defied the government and the military and hid children and fought the aliens. Fortunately, in the end, they found a way to defeat the aliens and protect the children of earth from being used by their official governments as pawns in an enormous drug trafficking ring into outer space.



I realize that this story is science fiction, but science fiction often provides a valuable lesson for our daily lives and a source for discussion in the real world. As I watched the mini-series, I thought about the many times in the history of the world in which governments and military forces have been cowtowed to or have cowtowed to the threat from without or within because it was expedient to cave in rather than fight the powers of wrong and evil.



In the story, the duly-elected governments and contituted military powers were faced with a threat, a terrible threat to the people. The final threat was total eradication if they did not comply with the demand. However, rather than attempt to fight the alien threat, the governments and the military decided that the demand was not so great that it could not be complied with in order to satisfy the demands and the threat.



At this point, the individual citizens acted against the determinations of the government and the military, and attempted to hide their children and fight the aliens. This action of dissent against the elected officials ultimately was successful; however, points to a real element of living in a democracy.



When we elect our representatives in the governments, we defer power to them to represent us and make good and sound decisions about the threats and needs of the country as a whole. Most of the time we grudgingly allow these officials to act on our behalf. However, there are ultimate limits on their power and we must withhold ultimate control from the powers we constitute in order to protect ourselves from the tyranny of the majority.



Perhaps this is why the Second Amendment is ultimately so important. The glory of a democracy, where the citizens of a country retain the power to govern themselves, is also the ultimate threat against that same democracy. The question is this: what happens if the government, duly constituted and politically able, determines through its rules and procedures to destroy the citizens of the nation? Theoretically, the democratic government could vote to commit suicide, much as the Jewish people who found themselves on the heights of Masada did, when they were facing the legions of Rome. Theoretically, this would be a legal decision.



But that doesn't necessarily make this decision the right decision. On the contrary, we acknowledge that our government can make the wrong decisions. That is why we have appeals in court cases, and the rights of recall, redress, impeachment and so forth in the legislative arena. In this context, perhaps the ultimate redress is the action of the minutemen in Concord and Lexington, arming themselves against the actions of the government and military, and firing that "shot heard round the world" on Concord bridge. In that action, perhaps the only ultimate court of inquiry is the court of history and the findings of posterity as to the actions of their fathers and mothers.



Most Americans have accepted the actions of those dissenters in early American history to take hold of the reins of government from the British King and Parlaiment. Most Americans condemn the actions of the citizens of Charleston to take control of the reins of power and fire upon Fort Sumter in 1860. Most Europeans laud the efforts of the resistors to Nazi and Fascist powers in France and Italy and Germany and throughout the European continent.

The ultimate question is when it is appropriate for the citizens to take arms against their own country. Our legal system is filled with remedies for the citizens when the officials of government act against the authority of law or against the best interests of the voters. But like the members of Torchwood, we know that there is a limit beyond which we citizens might take matters into our own hands and protect ourselves against the forces of our governments.

Ultimately, perhaps that is why we have the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. That is a troubling thought in some ways, but certainly an interesting issue to find its discussion in the context of a work of science fiction. It is only when it came up beyond the forum of fiction and found its discussion in real life which forms the ultimate issue of citizenship and the limits of democracy.