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10/13/24: Still here, tomorrow gets a new post, one that I didn't want to write. Many things going on, not enough time in the day. I have a dozen articles that I need to finish. I am working on them. I promise.

Why we aren't a Democracy

This is what happens when you keep calling the United States a Democracy: Think the Constitution Will Save Us? Think Again.

Okay folks, words matter. Words have distinct meanings and must mean the same thing to everybody. Except for Leftists and people fooled by Leftists. In their case, words mean what they want them to mean and the same word at the beginning of a sentence can have a different meaning by the end of it.

Let's go over this. One. More. Time.

THE UNITED STATES IS A FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC.

This country is called the United States and not the United People is because the Constitution was not written by or for the People, it was written by delegates from the thirteen State governments. The Constitution was not ratified by a popular vote, it was done so by the State governments.

Here's what those words mean:

1) FEDERAL - Pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states.

2) CONSTITUTIONAL - A system of fundamental principles according to which a nation, state, corporation, or the like, is governed.

3) REPRESENTATIVE - Each declared district elects one person from their group to represent all of the citizens in that district in the body they are elected to.

4) REPUBLIC - A state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

When I look up Democracy, I get this: 

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

I know I live in a Republic and not a Democracy because of this simple fact: In Memphis, TN, 63% of the population identify as "Black or African-American" and a majority of City Council members, 7 of the 13 are Black. If this were a democracy (direct or indirect), a motion could be introduced to the people as a whole or to the City Council that would read, "Starting September 5th, 2018, any person who is a legal resident of Memphis, TN can bring the head of a White person to the courthouse steps, shall receive a bounty of $50 per head."

In a Democracy, if a majority of the people voted for this (either the citizens as a whole, or their elected representatives), that bounty would be law. There would be no court to overturn it because a Democracy is "the will of the people." And until the "will of the people" changes, it is the law. In a Republic, where the rule of law applies to all and is intentionally hard to change, this would probably never happen.

So when I read the article I posted at the top of this article, my head almost exploded, which is why this is filed under Duct Tape Alert. This is the first paragraph:

Consider a few facts: Donald Trump is in the White House, despite winning almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The Senate, the country’s most powerful legislative chamber, grants the same representation to Wyoming’s 579,315 residents as it does to 39,536,653 Californians. Key voting rights are denied to citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and other United States territories. The American government is structured by an 18th-century text that is almost impossible to change.

The Congress is a bicameral legislative body balancing the interests of the People (House) and the States (Senate). In order for a law to pass, it must advance the well-being (supposedly) of both the States and the Citizens. The House I believe is the most powerful chamber, as it controls the money of government. To balance that great power, the Senate was given many lesser things that have to do with the government itself, internally and externally. These are in the interests of the States, not the People, which is why those powers are invested in the Senate. The Constitution gave equal power in the Senate to each State (two Senators) for the declared purpose of that the larger States could not force their agendas down the throats of the smaller States.

The irony is thick in the second paragraph. First of all, they quote from Federalist #10, The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection:

For James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention” incompatible with the rights of property owners.

I guess it's a normal and expected thing for the New York Times to misquote and take out of context people they don't agree with, especially Dead Rich White Males. Here's the whole sentence that Madison wrote and they misquoted and took out of context:

A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. [emphasis mine]

Democracies are the tyranny of the majority. Because the "rule of the people" is the only measure, there can be no stability. What is the law one day can be changed the next. Republics, through the rule of law and hard processes to change those laws, actually protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Even some liberals like Vox’s Matthew Yglesias rightly worry that the current system of governance is headed toward collapse.

I agree that the current system is headed towards collapse. However, it's through the ballooning federal government, the overspending and a whole lot more rather than the structure provided by the Constitution.

Yet whether or not the president knows it, the Constitution has long been venerated by conservative business elites like himself on the grounds that it hands them the power to fend off attempts to redistribute wealth and create new social guarantees in the interest of working people. There’s a reason we’re the only developed country without guarantees such as universal health care and paid maternity leave.

Yes, there is a reason why we don't have universal health care and paid maternity leave. It's called the #1 economy in the world at $20 Trillion GDP. This derives from  the freedom to choose to do what you want to do with your money, not the government. If we redistribute all of the money from "the rich" to the "not rich," (with the government taking "its' fare share", of course) then we will not have an economy. Because the people who own the businesses lose their money, they can't run companies. No companies, no jobs.

While preserving and expanding the Bill of Rights's incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms, we need to start working toward the establishment of a new political system that truly represents Americans.

There they go again. The Bill of Rights do not "give" Rights from the government to the People, they recognize that Man has these Rights by the nature of his Birth. Thus, the Bill of Rights clearly restrict the government from infringing on those Rights. You might want to read the Preamble for the Bill of Rights, because it says it in there.

So here's the payoff for the article, but only the intermediary objective:

Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum.

So let's break this down:

  • Strong federal government - More power for Washington, less power for States and Citizens.
  • Proportionally elected unicameral legislature - One House, no Senate. A great way for the big bully States to force their agenda on smaller States.
  • Abolishing the filibuster - A senate procedural rule. Filibusters are stopped by a Cloture vote. The number of votes to invoke Cloture started at 2/3's (67 votes), it's now down to 60 votes and several subjects are exempt from it, namely Supreme Court nominees. This rule protects the minority party, which the Democrats are right now.
  • Federal control over elections - Elections are currently run and certified at the county level, all 3,133 of them. Yes, there are corrupt and mismanaged counties. Which would you prefer, several counties that might have "incorrect" vote tallies, or a federally run system where one person could switch a million votes to the candidate they support? Stalin is credited with saying, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
  • Amend the Constitution through National Referendum - Something like California's Proposition process? Too bad the courts have overturned at least 9 of them in recent years. And remember, the Constitution was set up for the States, not the People.

This is what you need to consider. Our system is meant for long periods of deliberation, then a vote to set the direction for the next several years. when you allow for a shorter cycle subject to the transitory will of the People, nothing but chaos will result. Look at how quickly high-heeled Crocs came and went. Do you want a Constitutional Amendment that is the legal equivalent of that?

Of course, I said "intermediary objective" for a reason. I am sure that Leftists want to either abolish elections altogether, or render them moot. As a real world history lesson, if you belonged to the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, you were required to vote. If you didn't belong to the Party, you didn't vote. Each elected office had one person on the ballot you could vote for and no write-ins allowed. If that's the kind of electoral system you want, please go somewhere else.

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