The Indifferent Majority

...For those who believe that the danger of subversion is real do so largely as a matter of faith, and no evidence indicating a low incidence of such activity can persuade them out of this belief...

...It ought to be understood that a Negro can suffer a curtailment of civil liberties no less than can a white citizen...

...So are the mentally ill, albinos, and homosexuals who, try as they will, cannot alter their basic character structure...

...Some questions arise: What about the difficulties that Roman Catholics sometimes encounter...

...and they can organize into an NAACP or an Anti-Defamation League, thus utilizing their political power and economic resources in an effective way (homosexuals have done much the same thing in Holland...

...There are, broadly speaking, two acceptable liberal views on civil liberties: one "hard" and one "soft...

...Is it not common knowledge that mixing the races is part of the Soviet plan to sap America's strength...

...Faubus has been one of a small handful of governors to take such a position (Nelson Rockefeller signed a bill denying drivers' licenses to members of the Communist party), and no matter what might be thought of his stand in Little Rock he clearly has a legitimate claim to the title of civil libertarian...

...Nor is this ambiguity confined to Congressional warriors on the internal security front...

...While judges may attempt to lay down general policies calling for toleration of dissenters, society produces new victims every day...

...This spectacle in 1992 will bring dismay to the hearts of the white people who, in 1962, wanted to help the Negro in his fight for equality...

...This has happened in Atlanta no less than in New York City...

...And he will talk about highway driving conditions, not the plight of the Puerto Ricans...

...there is the desire in some to be Jehovah's Witnesses...

...He will find that the color of his skin, or the land of his origin, or what others insist upon thinking of as the "race" of his parents, will bar him from jobs, neighborhoods and opportunities open to his fellow-citizens...

...For while it is part of the liberal orthodoxy to stand foursquare on the side of civil rights, there is much backing and filling on civil liberties...

...These freedoms include speech, petition, the press...

...More significant are the outlooks and sources of strength of those active on the two sides on the two fronts...

...Four of the nine members of the Supreme Court form a "civil liberties bloc," but this group has only prevailed when it is able to recruit a fifth Justice—as it has from time to time, but not with any degree of predictability...

...It will be a real test of our political system to see how far the causes of minorities and individuals can be advanced in the face of popular opposition...

...on the other, by groups presumed to be inferior to themselves...

...There are several avenues of approach, each one illuminating in its own way...

...The American majority is insensitive to civil liberties because most Americans cannot visualize themselves in situations where they would engage in non-conformist behavior...

...The organizations they join are unexceptionable, and their religions are uncontroversial...

...The Justices, or at least a majority of them, realize their limitations as a political power...

...The real question here is why he lost his job...

...Homosexuals can, of course, hide the fact that they are homosexuals...

...A further weakness of judicial protection for civil liberties lies in the case-by-case character of such intervention...

...American society, lames Madison forecast in the Federalist, "will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority...

...It is at least worth mentioning however, that in 1957 the much-maligned Orval Faubus vetoed an Arkansas loyalty-oath bill, though both houses of the State Legislature had passed it by overwhelming majorities...

...Its inherent power will carry it only so far, and the Court endangers its authority whenever it makes an unpopular decision...

...The Episcopal Bishop of California is one...

...For these reasons it is important to make some sense out of the civil rights-civil liberties imbroglio...

...As long as there are citizens who seek deviant or dissenting means of expression, the extent to which society tolerates them is the measure of civil liberties in that society...

...My students, for example, will press for the abolition of HUAC on one day (a civil liberties cause) and will join to support the Freedom Riders (a civil rights affair) the next...

...In other quarters there is a uniform insensitivity to both civil liberties and civil rights...

...The Catholic who leaves his Church, who joins another or none at all, finds that others cease regarding him as a Catholic...

...The typical dissenter is an isolated individual...

...And the answer is that he is punished not because he is a Negro but because he was active in a controversial area...

...Suppose that several decades from now Negroes have the same rights and opportunities as whites...

...This is true not only of subversives but, as has recently been demonstrated, of those individuals who do not want their children compelled to recite prayers at school...

...When this sort of thing occurs it is equivalent to saying that, at least in the eyes of others, you are not what you really are...

...The liberated Negro will read the Reader's Digest, not Remembrance of Things Past...

...The socalled "Negro vote" or "Jewish vote" is felt by politicians to be critical in winning elections...

...Communists, fellow-travelers and even non-political dissenters are viewed as subverting the basic institutions and values of American life...

...It is clear that no single theory, either liberal or conservative, can explain or justify one or another position in these areas...

...Someone who practices the rites of an unconventional religion will discover that doors open to others are closed to him...

...4. Judicial Power vs...

...At the same time their obsession with subversion makes them a prime target of the American Civil Liberties Union...

...This double-edged hostility is not confined to Southern lawmakers...

...There would be neither tyrannical majority nor tyrannized minority...

...indeed, the "majority" in America would actually be a coalition of various "parts, interests, and classes," forming and re-forming on different issues and never acting as a permanent or monolithic tyrant...

...Personalities split the other way are, to be sure, somewhat rare...

...This is one struggle where the proponents of democracy had best not rely on the principle of majority-rule...

...For that battle cry is on the other side...

...An individual who joins the Communist party will find himself convicted of a crime and sent to prison...

...Not everyone is content to be a Methodist...

...each citizen, rather, would find himself on one occasion in the majority and on another in the minority...

...They do not make speeches or sign petitions or write letters to the newspapers...

...It remains a potential weapon over candidates and parties, one that is unfortunately not available to those on the side of civil liberties...

...THINKING ALOUD The Indifferent Majority By Andrew Hacker IN the circles in which I travel—admittedly rather rarified—time is seldom taken to distinguish between civil liberties and civil rights...

...Our lawmakers, as often as not, will act the tyrant rather than the defender of the tyrannized...

...and this means that Negroes, Jews and others can take advantage of the principles of equal treatment which other groups have fought for before them...

...Liberals part company on the extent to which they perceive internal subversion as being a clear and present threat to the security of the nation...

...A total of 412 Congressmen, many of them liberal Democrats, gave a vote of confidence to HUAC...

...At all events, the Court as a whole has never challenged the basic existence of internal security legislation, loyalty checks or investigating committees...

...Something must be wrong with anyone who is left behind...

...In the course of this fight—if it is made at all—careers are destroyed and lives are ruined...

...What You Are...

...There is the citizen who does not belong to a recognized religious sect but who nevertheless wishes to be exempted from military service on conscientious grounds...

...It is often necessary to remind proponents of civil rights that what disadvantaged groups want is simply an equal, and rather humdrum, status in society...

...Not everyone is content to be a Rotarian...

...The quest for civil rights is the quest for equality...

...For, unhappily, most white Christian Americans are terribly insecure about their own status...

...A Jew only asks that he have the same opportunity for an executive job (if he has the talent), or to join a country club (if he has the money...

...A white Southerner doing the very same things would also lose his job—as not a few can testify...

...Andrew Hacker, an associate professor of government at Cornell University, has written for Commentary, the New Republic and the New York Times Magazine...

...Of course professional civil liberties organizations may intervene to help, but this happens only in a minority of cases and usually too late in the day to prevent major damage to the dissenter...

...The anxieties of "superior" Americans that they may themselves be looked upon as less-than-successful is the greatest roadblock to civil rights advances— in the North no less than the South...

...2. Expression vs...

...The recourse of dissenters, therefore, must be to the courts...

...The barriers they encounter stem from their freely chosen acts and are hence abridgments of civil liberties...

...Both are regarded as worthy causes, and the two-front war is actually a combined operation...

...Even the white Christian majority contains within it minorities such as Irish-, Italian- and PolishAmericans who have suffered discrimination...

...there will always be someone who wants to belong to the Socialist Workers party...

...It has supported the Internal Security Subcommittee in the Senate and the Committee on Un-American Activities in the House...

...They also embrace the freedom to associate, to organize with others, and to practice a religion of one's choice...

...When Negroes, or even Jews, move into a neighborhood, such an invasion immediately endangers the status of the white Christians already there...

...And he may suffer for his sentiments, just as a white American will...

...Young Americans for Freedom, subscribers to the National Review, and various of the Christian Crusaders shower their virulence equally on CORE and Communism...

...Most Americans of course express themselves in very conventional ways...

...Despite the insistence of the Church to the contrary, Protestant America is willing to honor the renegade's decision...

...The stands taken by these citizens are not shared by any substantial number of Americans, and the few who do share them are usually scattered throughout the country...

...The possibility of becoming either a Communist or a conscientious objector never occurs to the typical American, and he acts the tyrant without the fear that majority power might someday be turned on himself...

...Electoral Power...

...The Congress of the United States has passed, in succession, the Smith Act of 1940, the McCarren Act of 1950, and the (yet to be applied) Communist Control Act of 1955...

...The United States is filled with countless ex-Catholics, many of them in high places...

...Everyone would be tolerant, for all would know that they might one day be the target of majority suppression...

...Negroes have yet to make the most of their opportunity to organize a bloc vote that can be delivered to the party making the highest civil rights bid or displaying the best record...

...Consequently they will mutter that the Negro has "betrayed" them in settling for the general level of American middleclass mediocrity...

...Public insensitivity in these areas is probably not new, but the unsatisfactory status of civil rights and civil liberties is of widespread concern more now than before...

...Madison's theory stated that both civil liberties and civil rights would be protected from majority tyranny...

...The answer is that when Catholics are penalized it is because they are practicing communicants, going regularly to Mass and joining in the activities of the Church...

...Negroes, Jews and other minorities are also perceived as threats...

...Some of the more sophisticated will rise to the defense of the Supreme Court's decision on school prayers (civil liberties), at the same time criticizing society's treatment of the mentally ill (civil rights...

...The Negro merely wants to live in a normal neighborhood (if he can afford it), and to send his children to a normal school (if they can make the grade...

...Those whose civil rights are denied can at least share their plight with others under the same handicap...

...Another group suffering civil rights disabilities are women...

...Civil liberties and civil rights will both have to be secured over the opposition or indifference of the American majority...

...If someone is born a Negro, a Jew, or a Puerto Rican, it matters not if his behavior is in complete conformity with the dominant values of society...

...The Court is not an elected body and it cannot fly in the face of majority sentiment with any regularity...

...In a word, equality means the opportunity to enter middle-class respectability...

...The most recent indication of the Congress' feeling was given in 1961 when the annual appropriation for HUAC was put to a vote...

...The typical Negro family will sit goggle-eyed watching some third-rate television program, surrounded by a well-manicured suburban lawn, and discussing the merits of various station wagons...

...What about the Southern Negro who is active on behalf of desegregation and consequently loses his job...

...Supreme Court Justices like Tom Clark, Potter Stewart and former Justice Felix Frankfurter always joined their colleagues in unanimous civil rights decisions, but nevertheless broke away from Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William Douglas and William Brennan Jr...

...The demand for equality is not a demand for anything spectacular...

...1. What You Do vs...

...If the True Believers are sure in their minds about what they are for and against, the dust in the middle of the road is far from settled...

...The point is that there are always some individuals who seek to express themselves in ways that injure the sensibilities of their neighbors...

...What we "really" mean by civil liberties are controversial acts of expression, the kind that can get you into trouble...

...What is just as important is that minority groups are able to use their votes as a means of achieving equality...

...There is the housewife who finds the local public schools inadequate and who wishes to educate her children at home...

...The sad fact is that the citizens of the American democracy have few tears to shed over the fate of dissenters...

...Had they decided to refrain from such acts they would have been immune from persecution or prosecution...

...Indeed it is a grave disservice (and not a little patronizing) to assume that Negroes encounter obstacles only because of the color of their skin...

...The disorder is particularly apparent in the liberal position...

...In recent years our lawmakers, doubtless reflecting the sentiments of the majorities who elect them, have devoted more attention to chasing subversives than to protecting civil liberties...

...To be sure, a Negro's moving into a hitherto white neighborhood is always "controversial...

...Is this because of what he is or what he has done...

...Negroes, lews and women, for example, are significant groups in society...

...The individual confronted with an abridgment of his civil rights is unable to correct the situation by changing the color of his skin or by adopting a new set of parents...

...And a few Negroes pass...

...For they assumed that, once liberated, the Negro would rise to philosophical and cultural heights...

...Civil rights cases are no less common in the courts, and Federal (if not all state) tribunals acknowledge that the Fourteenth Amendment's "equal protection of the laws" clause is the law of the land...

...Only six members of the House were willing to go on record as opposed to the Committee...

...he is someone standing alone and without an organized group or class to support him in his hour of need...

...Indeed, they would have been of little interest to anyone...

...But anyone who glorifies an underdog just because he is an underdog is bound to be disillusioned when emancipation day arrives...

...In many areas, for example executive positions in business, Catholics are not accorded the same opportunities as Protestants...

...But Communists and others accused of subversive activities have had a mixed experience at the hands of the judges...

...So can some Jews hide their parentage...

...They fear that their friends will suspect they have somehow become tainted by remaining in a "changing" neighborhood...

...They sense, correctly, that the superior privileges they have are based not on personal accomplishments but rather on the happenstance of being born with a white skin and Christian parents...

...Clearly, those whose civil liberties are threatened cannot look to the legislative branch for protection...

...for example, both have civil rights voting records that win them high scores from the NAACP...

...If this relatively mediocre level of aspiration is not understood at the outset, there will be subsequent disillusionment among those who have been supporting civil rights from the sidelines...

...Civil liberties are the freedoms of expression ostensibly guaranteed to all Americans...

...It takes a non-democratic institution to apply the First Amendment of the Constitution...

...But what is controversial is not his being a Negro, but his desire to own a suburban split-level— and that is about the most uncontroversial goal an American can have...

...A Tyrannical Majority...

...Equality...

...and it is as if a little of the blackness or Jewishness has rubbed off onto them...

...Put in its baldest terms, most Americans feel threatened: on the one hand, by individuals who presumably harbor subversive tendencies...

...Civil rights, on the other hand, are abridged not because of any behavior a citizen has engaged in but simply because of what he is...

...and Representative Francis E. Walter (D.Pa...

...Indeed, had they so decided, these individuals could have elected not to join the Communist party or to make a speech or to sign a petition or to practice an unpopular religion...

...But is Madison's theory valid when applied to those whose civil liberties stand in need of protection...

...Up to now minorities have been lackadaisical in mobilizing voting power...

...The civil liberties of individuals such as these can be abridged by either private organizations like trade unions or public authorities such as a school board...

...will pursue suspected subversives from the rostrum of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security while blocking desegregation legislation as he chairs the full Judiciary Committee...

...A Negro who decides to voice an unpopular position on HUAC or nuclear disarmament is speaking as an American rather than as a Negro...

...What all of these civil liberties cases have in common is the fact that a citizen is penalized, by government or by some non-governmental agency, for something he did...

...A person who makes an unpopular speech or who signs a suspect petition will end up out of a job...

...Few dissenters have the time, energy and money to work their way up the judicial ladder...

...The unwillingness to support civil liberties is a consequence of such fears, and as matters now stand the issue of whether the danger of internal subversion is actually serious cannot be discussed in rational terms...

...The equality that is sought, therefore, has very little in common with the non-conformist expression of dissenters...

...Negroes, Jews, women, homosexuals—all of these simply want equal opportunities with whites, Christians, men, heterosexuals...

...There are important differences between civil rights and civil liberties, but there is a good deal of confusion on the theoretical and practical bases of the distinction...

...This is not simply an exercise in definition, although it is necessary to understand exactly what is a civil right and what is a civil liberty...

...The act that got him into trouble was both conscious and volitional...

...A zealot like Senator James Eastland (D.-Miss...

...Moreover, there is no powerful civil liberties "constituency" standing outside the Court, prepared to come to its political defense when it takes a stand on civil liberties...

...Negroes and Jews, fortunately for themselves, are located in the metropolitan centers of key electoral states...

...A citizen's civil liberties have been abridged when he is punished for an act he has performed...

...There is the trade-union member who does not want money he pays in dues used for partisan purposes...

...Yet the tendency is increasingly for candidates of both parties to make such promises to minority groups —and then, except for a gesture here and there, to forget about them once they are elected...

...Minorities...

...3. Individuals vs...

...on key civil liberties cases...

...and thus candidates for national, state and local office will more often than not pledge themselves to civil rights advances...

...What will they do with their victory...

...The American majority is indifferent to the pleas of those who claim their Constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and equality of opportunity...

...Senator Thomas Dodd (D.-Conn...