Posted on 09/23/2005 10:22:35 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
GUEST COLUMN | JEFF MANKOFF
Published Thursday, September 22, 2005
Putting an end to Constitution worship
This past Saturday was something called "Constitution Day," though, except for some obnoxious fliers around campus put up by the Orwellian-sounding Committee for Freedom, you can be forgiven for not knowing that.
Constitution Day is a new quasi-holiday foisted upon us by Congress at the behest of Sen. Robert Byrd to force schools receiving public money -- including Yale -- to set aside time on the anniversary of the document's adoption in 1787 to teach about the Constitution.
This holiday is another ridiculous example of the "sanctimonious reverence," as Thomas Jefferson termed it, in which many Americans hold the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Both documents no doubt played important roles in the American colonies' struggle to free themselves from British rule and establish a new nation. Recognizing them as crucial pieces of American history is one thing, but worshiping them like sacred texts goes too far.
The Constitution in particular needs to be stripped of much of the mystic awe surrounding it, since it continues to shape American political life, yet suffers from serious flaws. Many of these flaws could be corrected by wise legislation, if only legislators, and the public, were not so deeply attached to the Constitution that they cringe before any attempt to substantively alter it.
The Constitution, while laying the foundation for the creation of a great American nation, was also very much a product of its time. Though it has mostly aged well, the Constitution has also given us a rigid 18th-century political system not always well suited to the modern world. Even with its amendments, the document is fraught with problems too rarely acknowledged by politicians or the public.
As Yale political scientist Robert Dahl has pointed out, the Constitution is grossly undemocratic. Since Wyoming, with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, has the same clout in the Senate as California, with almost 34 million, each Wyomingite counts 68 times as much as each Californian. The Constitution is also responsible for burdening us with the Electoral College, a body designed to purposely undermine popular sovereignty. The 2000 election, when Al Gore outpolled George Bush but was denied the presidency by the Electoral College (with an assist by the Supreme Court), is the most recent example of 18th-century oligarchy trampling 21st-century democracy.
Besides being undemocratic, the Constitution is also, in places, just poorly written. Take the Second Amendment, which mentions the need for a well-regulated militia and conferring the right to bear arms. Because of the Framers' unclear wording, no one has been able to establish definitively whether this right belongs only to the militia or to individuals. The easiest and fairest solution would be to just rewrite the Second Amendment, but because the Constitution has taken on the aura of sanctity in our political culture, there is little likelihood of that happening.
Adhering to the Framers' "original intent," as many conservatives would have us do, is a recipe for oligarchy (which was, after all, what the Framers wanted). Creating the Electoral College and denying the vote to women, blacks and poor people were both part of the Framers' desire to keep power in the hands of people like themselves (and I have a sneaking suspicion many "strict constructionalists" would prefer things that way). The main alternative -- seeing the Constitution as a "living document" subject to constant reinterpretation -- is also anti-democratic, since it allows the judiciary to usurp power from the elected legislative branch. The Constitution needs changing, but it should not be up to the courts to change it.
Some of the Constitution's worst features have, it is true, been corrected by amendment -- though in the case of ending slavery and giving blacks the vote, the price was civil war. The Framers deliberately made changing the Constitution difficult, but at the price of a rigidity that has made the U.S. political system ossified and anachronistic. Jefferson argued that each generation should modify the Constitution to fit its own times, since "each generation has the same right of self-government [as] the past one." Jefferson's modest regard of the Constitution as an edifice in need of constant repair is a much better way of think of our nation's most important document than the sanctimony that has given us "Constitution Day."
[Jeff Mankoff is a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the History Department.]
"the Constitution is grossly undemocratic. Since Wyoming, with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, has the same clout in the Senate as California, with almost 34 million, each Wyomingite counts 68 times as much as each Californian"
Guess the dweeb missed high school civics. The fact that the House of Reps is based on representation by population. The framers recognized the discrepancy and that's why we have the US Senate where every state has equal representation regardless of population.
Heh. You beat me to the correction.
Maybe you could .cc his PhD adviser on this correspondence. The advisor may want to address some of this candidate's notions with some pointed questions when it becomes time to defend his thesis.
Mr. Mankoff if the USA were indeed a Democracy then I would wholeheartedly agree with your assessment but being that we are (and always have been) a Constitutional REPUBLIC well lets just say you are full of feces.
Dear God, this guy doesn't understand thing one about the Constitution.
How did this guy get a degree? He knows not one whit about the Constitution or why it exists.
Some of the dumbest sumbitches I ever met had a Ph. D.
And they're always the ones that want you to address them as "doctor."
Granted. But if you can't or don't want to do it, don't sign up, and don't whine when you do.
Just imagine - landing your jet on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier your first week in the squadron. F*ck it up and you and others die.
Just imagine, in your first six months in the squadron, having your every waking hour consumed by caring for an HIV-positive miscreant who you'd rather just shoot. This is a good argument for suicide.
Just imagine proofreading and correcting the evaluations of 250+ personnel, all written by high-school graduates and proofed by college 'graduates' who don't know how to write a correct sentence, never mind construct a paragraph. See comment above.
I get your drift, but there IS life outside of academia, FRiend.
His mother may be proud of Jeff, but anybody else associated with Yale should be hanging their head in shame. His ignorance is simply breathtaking!
If this is the best six years at Yale can produce - and a history Ph.D no less - then one and all should save their big bucks and apply forthwith to South Swampy Community College instead.
They would get a far better (and cheaper) education in two years than this fool has acquired in six!
Not only that, but he probably doesn't understand why the founding fathers didn't create a democracy!
In the case of this particular student, it would appear that the answer to your rhetorical question is "quite a bit."
Being a kook is apparently not a deterrence to getting a PhD. The Constitution had a few problems, like the 3/5 of a person thing, but its body pertaining to government is relevant and powerful. Only one thing wrong with the Constitution, it begins with "electoral" and ends with "college".
The electoral college is undemocratic. So Republicans in Hawaii and Massachusetts deserve to be essentially disenfranchised in Presidential elections? Anyone thinking the electoral college is democratic is outright wrong, it's a sham that the Founding Fathers made because they thought people were too stupid to vote. Whether they are or not, they should get the chance. How ironic that a site called FreeRepublic would have so many people who oppose actual direct elections.
After reading his first line, his name should be Meff Jankoff.
Amazing that a Yale history Ph.d candidate doesn't know what the word 'militia' meant to the framers and tries to substitute a totally incorrect definition. The militia ain't the National Guard, sonny.
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