Majority Rule
INSPIRATIONAL, 29 Jun 2015
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
A Frenchman arrives on a South Sea island. A Native welcomes him, invites him to his home, shares his food with him, and offers that he is welcome stay with him as long as he wishes. Sometime later, the Frenchman asks, “Can I bring my friend, too?” The host graciously says, “Of course, my home is your home.” Again sometime later, the two Frenchmen tell the Native, “We have decided that you should move out, this home is too small for three people.” The Native protests, “But this is my home!” The two Frenchmen say, “No, we practice democracy, we are in the majority!!” This story shows persuasively that denying the Hawai’ians independence because a majority of today’s inhabitants, most of whom immigrated from the mainland of the United States, prefer to remain a U.S. State, is equally unjustified.
After Johan Galtung
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Dietrich Fischer, born in 1941 in Münsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations.
Excerpted from Dietrich Fischer’s Stories to Inspire You – TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 29 Jun 2015.
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