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Posted on 06/01/2003 12:05:12 PM PDT by SWake
CONSTITUTIONAL Do-over
Why a 1789 guide for a 2003 nation?
By Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue
Special to the Star-Telegram
After invading an impoverished, almost defenseless country and slaughtering its military with a barbarity that would've shocked earlier generations (almost 100 Iraqi defenders killed to every one American), the Bush administration -- seemingly without irony -- now places democracy as the centerpiece of its postwar Iraqi policy.
Time will tell if such talk is mere window dressing, camouflage for imperial designs, but I can think of nothing more important to our collective future than to critically examine our own democracy, warts and all.
Despite strong evidence to the contrary, many Americans believe that their government -- under a Constitution adopted in 1789 -- is the perfect system, "the most democratic country in the world." But self-delusion is not patriotism.
In reality, our system is not all it's cracked up to be. Consider our most recent war, in which a rigorous debate in the British House of Commons before the war was matched by a nonexistent debate here.
Or compare our representatives' fawning obsequiousness during our annual State of the Union address with the catcalls and real debate in the House of Commons when the prime minister stands to answer questions.
The fact is, as compared to other Western democracies, we are deficient in more than debating skills. We have astronomical rates of crime, incarceration, poverty and infant mortality. In almost any meaningful index of quality of life, we lag far behind other Western democracies.
And it should come as no surprise that, according to a study by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the United States "ranks 139th in the world in average voter turnout in national elections since 1945." This widespread voter apathy is in reality an index of citizen frustration and alienation from a political system that just doesn't work.
As Daniel Lazare has pointed out in The Frozen Republic, we have suffered for too long "under the terrible Republican-Democratic duopoly" that has "a record of political stagnation without parallel in virtually any other country."
Regardless of what most Americans believe, our Constitution has not been a model for the rest of the democratic world.
In fact, as Yale University professor Robert A. Dahl has written in How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, "It would be fair to say that without a single exception they have all rejected it." Largely because, as Dahl makes clear, our governmental system "is among the most opaque, complex, confusing and difficult to understand."
Our Constitution is the oldest constitution in the Western world, and it's beginning to show its age.
Consider the past 10 years: legislative gridlock and impeachment during one administration and then the (s)election of another president under questionable circumstances -- and all of the above clearly the fault of our 18th-century Constitution.
With its balance of powers, legislative gridlock is stamped into our governmental system like DNA.
Government in America doesn't work, Lazare points out, because it's not supposed to work. In their infinite wisdom, the Founders created a deliberately unresponsive system.
As for impeachment, we borrowed it from the British, who had the good sense to abandon it in the late 18th century because it was a clumsy and inefficient instrument for getting rid of the executive.
Modern democracies don't impeach. If there is a conflict between the executive and legislative branches that cannot be worked out, new elections are called -- not a cumbersome, quasi-judicial proceeding but a political solution to a political problem.
As for our last presidential election, regardless of whom you were for, it revealed clearly that we are not a modern democracy.
Modern democracies do not have elections that remain in doubt for weeks, using ballots that are difficult to read, while at the same time allowing some votes to count more than others because of an arcane method of tabulating votes adopted because of a political compromise more than 200 years ago.
In modern democracies, the first-place vote-getter wins. Period. It is straightforward, transparent and clear, as every good government is and ours is not.
The fact is that our Constitution is not even particularly democratic. Consider the U.S. Senate, the least representative governing body in the Western world.
The practice of having two senators per state is an outrage. In the Senate, less than 1 million Wyomingites have the same amount of representation as 35 million Californians.
As Alexander Hamilton put it, "the practice of parsing out two senators per state shocks too much the ideas of justice and every human feeling." And he said that when the ratio between the most populous state and the least was near 10-to-1, not the obscene 69-to-1 that it is now.
We have put up with the patented absurdities of an unrepresentative Senate and the Electoral College for far too long. A constitution is only a plan of government. There is nothing sacred about it.
The legitimacy of the constitution, Dahl points out, ought to derive solely from its utility as an instrument of democratic government -- nothing more, nothing less.
At the very least, before we attempt to export democracy to the cradle of civilization, we should begin talking about the real deficiencies in our Constitution.
No one still wears white wigs and satin breeches, and no reason exists for us to continue to govern ourselves with an 18th-century document. Other countries with people no more capable than us have recently written new constitutions: Denmark in 1953, the Dutch in 1972 and 1983, and Portugal and Sweden in 1976. What stops us?
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End of article. The following is contained in a sidebar.
Excerpts from modern constitutions:
Netherlands
No one shall require prior permission to publish thoughts or opinions through the press, without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law.
No one shall be required to submit thoughts or opinions for prior approval in order to disseminate them by means other than those mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law. The holding of performances open to persons younger than sixteen years of age may be regulated by Act of Parliament in order to protect good morals.
Adopted in 1983
Portugal
Everyone has the right to express and make known his or her thoughts freely by words, images, or any other means, and also the right to inform, obtain information, and be informed without hindrance or discrimination.
The exercise of these rights may not be prevented or restricted by any type or form of censorship.
Adopted in 1976
Denmark
Any person shall be entitled to publish his thoughts in printing, in writing, and in speech, provided that he may be held answerable in a court of justice. Censorship and other preventive measures shall never again be introduced.
The citizens shall without previous permission be entitled to assemble unarmed. The police shall be entitled to be present at public meetings. Open-air meetings may be prohibited when it is feared that they may constitute a danger to the public peace.
Adopted in 1953
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Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is a Fort Worth teacher and free-lance writer.
On the contrary, voter apathy is a reflection on a political system that works extraordinarily well. When people get their daily needs, and even their daily wants, fully taken care of, they feel no need to make changes to the political system. If it's working don't mess with it. Would you rather have a highly agitated populace marching in the streets forcing the mob's will on the minority?
When you have a new state, you need a new Constitution.
And the next one won't have a Bill of Rights.
This whole article is on big lie, but this is one of the most juiciest. America is in fact the most advanced country in the history of human civilization and there is a reason that every one in the world wants to come here, even during a down economy. I need this guy's email so I can tell what a piece of "hate-America" filth he is.
Robert A. Dahl has written in How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, "It would be fair to say that without a single exception they have all rejected it." Largely because, as Dahl makes clear, our governmental system "is among the most opaque, complex, confusing and difficult to understand."
Only half would vote for Constitution
Memo to dildo: the US is not a democracy.
Apparently, this 'teacher' never bothered to read the Constitution he so disdains. Try Article IV, Section 4, chump. And go suck on your hyphen while you're looking it up.
But I thought it was a quagmire. As a member of the military, I'm glad Bush is the president and this idiot isn't.
Other countries with people no more capable than us have recently written new constitutions: Denmark in 1953, the Dutch in 1972 and 1983, and Portugal and Sweden in 1976.
That's at least four destinations where Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is welcome to move.
What stops us?
We don't want a girly-man like Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue writing a constitution for us.
We aim to please.
Or the UNamerican-statesman (Austin rag)similar to the Atlanta urinal unconstitutional,ect,ect...
This is another topper in this steaming pile of offal. This is all you need to know and to dismiss this guy as a hate-America leftist. He is clearly referring to Klinton. Sure, if a president wants to commit crimes in office, we can't impeach him. Commit perjury and attempt to rig the courts in the justice system? Not a problem in this guy's leftist world.
I use only un-hyphenated words.
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Has anyone here ever met a man with a hyphenated last name who wasn't a complete and total, pretentious retard?
You can't possibly expect a rational thought from such a man.
Not true. In Canada, Senators are appointed. The Prime Minister "advises" (tells) the Governor General who to select. Same with the Canadian Supreme Court. In addition, the Federal Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister and composed of the ruling party, has the sole power to introduce spending and tax bills in Parliament.
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