CONSTITUTIONAL Do-over

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?

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.

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.

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.

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"You need to be reminded that there is far more to analysis than simply accepting statistics at face value."

"Those above nations have low infant mortality
rates most likely because sickly fetuses simply do not survive gestation or the birthing process."

Agreed. You make some very interesting points in your response, and granted, it does take away much of the credibility of infant mortality statistics. But you have not replaced the data whose credibility you reduced with any facts and data of your own. Your ideas are good, and you may be correct in your assumptions but we don't know that yet, because you haven't presented any facts.

So, Teacher, I will remind you that reasoned arguments are no substitute for facts. Your arguments are good, and if you choose to believe them in the absence of data, that's fine, but you can't expect others to accept them blindly without data.

Here's some relevant data on longevity that you might find interesting w.r.t. U.S. healthcare. This is more significant IMHO than the infant mortality rates, because even though we are only 4.1 years behind Japan, that represents a significant number of deaths. Also, if you take out Japan's suicide rate (one of the highest in the world) then the gap between us and Japan is even larger.

"The United States ranks 17th in average life expectancy on a list of 33 developed nations, while Japan holds the lead, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported yesterday.
The average U.S. life expectancy of 75 years trails Japan's life expectancy by 4.1 years, but beats the lowest of the group, Hungary, by more than five years. The average Hungarian lives 69.7 years, the CDC said.

"The United States also ranked near the middle of the 32 nations in death rates from all causes; 828.4 deaths are reported in the United States for each 100,000 people each year. Japan was best at 628.8, and Romania was worst at 1,242.

"The leading cause of death in the United States, heart disease, hits harder here than in other countries. The U.S. mortality rate from heart disease was 382 per 100,000 per year for men and 214 for women, compared with 339 and 206 in the other 32 developed countries.

"Throughout the 33 countries, heart disease accounted for 30 percent of all deaths, with cancer causing 21 percent and stroke causing 14 percent."

The Ft. Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram printed my letter on this! Mine is the third in line

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/opinion/local2/6010373.htm

Posted on Wed, Jun. 04, 2003

Constitutional questions
Star-Telegram

After reading "Constitutional Do-over" in Sunday's Weekly Review and noting at the end of the commentary that the author is a Fort Worth teacher, I fear for the students he teaches.

Even without the anti-Republican, anti-administration vitriol that dripped from each paragraph, his labeling of our form of government as a "democracy" illustrated his ignorance. Our government is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, and anyone who teaches our youth should know the difference.

He claimed that we have "no reason to govern ourselves with an 18th-century document" and cited other countries that have "new constitutions" more to his liking.

I submit that none of the countries he named have the level of freedom we have here. Case in point: the excerpt from the constitution of Denmark, which read in part, "The police shall be entitled to be present at public meetings. Open-air meetings may be prohibited."

That "18th-century document" he would so quickly discard protects us from such oppressive behavior by the government and has allowed our country to grow into a superpower in a very short time, considering our tender age of just over 200.

Our form of government isn't perfect, but judging from the desire of millions all over the world to come here, it's better than anything else.

If Wheatcroft-Pardue doesn't agree, I invite him to travel to any other country he might admire -- and stay there!

Randal Bowen, Watauga

•

Many excellent editorials and commentaries have been written to awaken the people of this country to the alarming loss of civil liberties and of democracy itself. One of the most perceptive analyses of this tragedy was by Wheatcroft-Pardue.

Wheatcroft-Pardue deserves many thanks for bringing attention to an oft-overlooked need and also the Star-Telegram for printing it so prominently.

Now let's discuss how and who will begin the process of rewriting what could be as revolutionary in its effect as the original.

Dick Trice, Fort Worth

•

If Wheatcroft-Pardue is concerned that the Constitution "is not even particularly democratic," perhaps he should take a high school senior-level U.S. government course. In it, he would learn that the United States is a republic, not a democracy.

The Founding Fathers realized that there were many good reasons to establish a republic, the first and foremost being that a democracy does not protect the rights of the minority from the whims of the majority. Stated another way, democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what's for supper.

Strangely enough, much of Wheatcroft-Pardue's column concerned issues that aren't addressed by the Constitution. Where does the Constitution say that important issues must be debated for a certain length of time? Where does it state that the State of the Union Address should be met with catcalls?

Where does it address rates of crime, incarceration, poverty or infant mortality? What about voter apathy? The number of political parties?

None of this has anything to do with the Constitution.

Even when he got around to issues that are addressed by the Constitution, he showed an appalling lack of understanding. The Electoral College and the selection of two senators for each state also were intended to avert the tyranny of the majority.

A society that selects its representatives in a purely democratic way would be ruled by the populace of a relatively few metropolitan centers. That may work out well for folks who live in Fort Worth, but Fort Worth isn't representative of all Americans.

Wheatcroft-Pardue did get one thing right. The Constitution is not a sacred document that can't be changed.

If he wants to make the United States a democracy, he's more than welcome to try. That outdated document that he seems to despise so much provides an avenue for change. He should take it up with his legislators.

Stephen L. Wakefield, Bedford

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