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.]
"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.Okay... either this 'scientist' guy Dahl is dumber than a bag of rocks or he's being intentionally deceptive. My money is on the first because:
So dam straight mr 'scientist', in the U.S. Senate Wyoming has just as much "clout" as California - deal with it. Or are you "stuck on stupid"?
Jeff Wankoff just hates the Constitution because it gets in the way of his socialist dreams.
As Yale political scientist Robert Dahl has pointed out, the Constitution is grossly undemocratic.
Intentionally so. The Framers saw democracy for what it was -- two wolves and a sheep voting on the diner menu. I agree with them. Democracy in government is a short cut to dictatorship.
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.
Even a smidgen of history would have told this dolt that definition of "militia" in 1787 was all able-bodied males between the ages of 15 and 50. Even left-wing Constitutional experts like Lawrence Tribe agree that the term "militia" means citizens and not the National Guard.
"...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
I would surely like to see this idiot point to any word in the Constitution that denied the right to vote to anyone. It isn't there and never was.
Really sad. A 6th year student without clue #1. I'd love to see him trying to define Federalism. I bet $100 he would get it entirely backwards.
Don't get stuck on stupid, Jeff.
ROTFLOL... stop it, I cant breathe!
And if we went by population alone, Wyoming would be insignificant, with almost no input to the federal government. I seem to remember the Constitution had a solution for that problem. What was it again? Oh yeah, the Senate.
This is what Yale is putting out for political scientists these days? I learned this in junior high!
He's just mad because Yale has been stripped of much of the mystic awe surrounding it because of fools like him.
As for me and my family (extended too), we chose to defend the US Constitution & the republic of the United States of America, from _all_ attacks, foreign or domestic.
Amendment XVII
The seventeenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Geez...is this clown REALLY this stupid?
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.
Yup..I guess he has his PhD in STUPIDITY with a co-major in Socialist Drivel!
Here's my best response to this Proto-Marxist buffoon!
"I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid.
You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid.
Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know.
I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel."
Hmm. Something like 160,000 men were involved in creating this 'document'. Some of them may have discussed the issues contained in the proposed Constitution with their wives and mistresses, some may have not. 1787 was the year of the Convention. Historical analysis of what actually happened and why began about a century later and is still under discussion.
It appears that young Mr. Mankoff is attempting to gain the favor of the CFR and other members of the ruling elite. They've been subtly pushing this agenda for decades.
His edgumacation has been a gross waste of money.
Democracy is 4 wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu!
DemonRATs, Socialists, and Marxists all delude themselves that they will always be the wolves.
When things change...they are the FIRST to whine that the rules are unfair...and they need to change for them to be represented better (Remember the Jeffords lesson!)
Don't be ridiculous. Who ever heard of a legislative branch with two houses in it? Are you some kind of commie?
Seriously, this is a truly painful thing to read out of pen of a PhD candidate in history. It is simply astonishing to hear a bleat for "wise legislation" that might alter the Constitution - evidently the poor guy hasn't heard of that "Amendment" thingy. Or how the bicameral legislature came about, or why.
It's bad enough that any young person sees fit to quote secondary sources instead of reading the Constitution for himself or herself, a process that takes under an hour even if he's moving his lips; but this is a prospective historian. In his field this level of laziness is a guarantee of failure.
I expect to be hearing from them about how unfair it is that schizophrenics only get one vote next.
Drop him a note anyway Billbob. Maybe you can make him feel a little sheepish that they haven't maintained their standards.
"Jeff Mankoff is a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the History Department."
Dummy has obviously never read the Federalist Papers. Such ignorance in a PhD student is simply staggering. He relies on the reader's ignorance to sound credible.
People like this is why I remain an armed citizen.
After authoring this sterling example of ignorance and idiocy, his advisor should bust him back to pre-bachelorate and make his start over.
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