Short form: Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
- The right of appeal (the filing of a minority opinion or report) is the chief defence against an uninformed, misinformed, hasty, or angry majority.
- Even when the minority is wrong, the debate flowing from the filing of a minority opinion or report is healthy and constructive.
- The right of petition for the redress of a personal grievance protects individuals against the improper wielding of power.
- Fear can restrain me from appealing or petitioning and results in collusion with wrongdoing.
- Concept V asks me to stand up for what I believe in, no matter how many others disagree, or how materially or vehemently they disagree.
- The rigorous honesty required by the AA programme also requires me to take a stand and may put me in conflict with a majority of people in the world.
- The test is this: What is God's will for me in this situation?
- The results of asking this are checked out with others before implementation.
- To exercise right of appeal is to listen to the voice within and ask God for direction and strength in pursuing what it asks me to do, in the face of the majority.
- Sometimes the 'majority' is the voice of the ego inside me, and exercising right of appeal means listening to the minority opinion within me, a.k.a. God's will, and asking God to back that voice with His full power, against the majority voice of the ego, in order to overcome it.
- For some, this is how sobriety and freedom from other addictions is achieved.
- Right of petition can be construed not just as a complaint against existing conditions but a petition for future conditions: God is entitled to say 'no' or 'not yet', however.
- Surrender does not mean abandonment of all confrontation: sometimes confrontation is God's will.
- Uncomfortable confrontation becomes comfortable confrontation by applying the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts.
- Practising Concept V with others means:
- Recognising that others may be right.
- Accepting that others have different views.
- Continuing to love them when they have different views.
- Continuing to love them even when they dislike me for having different views.
- Encouraging others' appeals and petitions.
- Hearing out others' appeals and petitions.
- Reconsidering my own position in the light of others' appeals and petitions.
- When I'm in a position of authority, I may need to override a minority opinion (or even a majority opinion), by practising Concept VII (my legal authority overriding traditional authority).
- If a two-thirds majority cannot be achieved, the third-legacy procedure of the hat means that the minority opinion may win out. I can practise this in my life by 'going with' the minority opinion when a conflict or disagreement cannot be resolved satisfactorily by further discussion or debate.
Inventory:
Looking at the above ideas:
Where am I currently falling down?
What can I do differently?