The Dangers of Democracy, Majority Rule, and Public Opinion

How dangerous is public opinion and majority rule in American history. Consider this scary example: Nazi Germany modeled America in many ways as follows: • Germany justified World War II as an expansion of territory similar to how America moved West and conquered Native-Americans. • The Nazi’s modeled American anti-miscegenation laws. While American laws generally targeted African-Americans most Nazi laws targeted Jews. • The Germans modeled American laws to treat minorities as second-class citizens. For example, segregation laws against African-Americans made it more difficult for them to travel, vote, or partake in the political process. The Insular Cases decided by the Court in 1901 basically provided that persons living in recently acquired territories from the Spanish American War did not possess full citizenship privileges. People living in Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines took a backseat to naturalized citizens. While some justices correctly felt citizenship followed the American Flag, others felt it was okay to deny territory inhabitants certain rights. Similarly, German naturalization laws provided that only pure-blooded Germans can be citizens similar to how the United States dealt with territories. • American laws regarding eugenics where followed very closely by Nazi’s to maintain a pure race free from “foreign pollution”. • Both Americans and Nazi’s used abortion as a key element to eliminate racial impurities. • Germans closely followed American laws regarding immigration. The Exclusion Act of 1882 denied Chinese immigrants entrance into the United States. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921, Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, and the Immigration Act of 1924 denied certain persons from immigrating into the United States. In particular, persons from Asia, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe were denied access to the United States. Germany followed the same types of laws to deny or discourage Jews from entering their country. For instance, the Cable Act of 1922 stripped German women of citizen rights when they married non-citizens Asians. It was not just how Americans treated African-Americans and Asians that caught the attention of Nazis. They also admired American policy toward Native-Americans by placing them on reservations isolated from the main population. American hate organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) where equivalent to Nazi fascists. But it was not just the American South that discriminated, all of America was guilty of some sort of discrimination towards minorities and certain immigrants in the name of public opinion.