Posted on 05/30/2012 1:03:10 AM PDT by CharlesThe Hammer
Advocating the adoption of the new Constitution drafted in Philadelphia, the authors of “The Federalist Papers” mocked the “imbecility” of the weak central government created by the Articles of Confederation.
Nearly 225 years later, critics across the spectrum call the American political system dysfunctional, even pathological. What they don’t mention, though, is the role of the Constitution itself in generating the pathology.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com ...
The author is right, though not for the reasons he states.
In most countries, when a party or coalition wins an election by significant margin, it controls all branches of government, with possible exception of the judiciary, and can efficiently implement its program. For a party to do so in our system requires the party to win at least two elections in a row, and possibly win elections for 20 years or more. As the article says, you have to get control over four branches of government: two houses of Congress, President and Supreme court.
IOW, if the American people in the next election were to elect a supermajority of conservatives, we still could have little significant change in policy away from our present disastrous course for at least two years, and possibly 20 or so.
This is because the Constitution was designed for a government of strictly limited powers and functions. It is entirely adequate for this purpose.
It is entirely INadequate for running a welfare state that “runs the country,” which is what 50% or more of the population wants. It can only do so by just ignoring large chunks of the Constitution.
Oddly, I happen to agree with the author’s claim that one of the biggest problems is how difficult it is to amend the Constitution. The present system does not in practice inhibit change, in a truly constitutional manner, it rather promotes the ignoring of the plain meaning of the Constitution and especially judicial reinterpretation of the Constitution to promote favored liberal causes. I favor instead an easier amendment process so such issues can be addressed through political means.
I believe we have two options. We can gradually make our way back to a government of limited powers and functions, returning to truly constitutional government, which I favor.
Or we can change our Constitution so that it works more efficiently to provide the welfare state many if not most Americans seem to want.
What I think we can’t do is keep limping along indefinitely trying to provide B with a system that is only suited for providing A.
Good grief. Painful idiocy.
Right, just like Caesar filling the Senate with Gauls and Celts to force his insanities on the Roman Republic. I gather this professor doesn't teach history if he doesn't know how that idea turned out. Sic Semper Tyrannus, nitwit.
Can you just imagine the new President calling on sixty fat cat campaign bundlers to be his personal toadies in Congress, delivering the votes for his sweeping new programs?: "Hi there, how would you like to come to Washington and instantly become one of the most loathed people in the country?". Yet, two paragraphs later the author bemoans nine unaccountable Supreme Court judges having undue influence on the nation?!
Oh, and hey: maybe these 60 empowered and unelected Presidentially-appointed congressmen could wear special snappy uniforms and stand directly behind the President at public appearances, cheering him on as he rants and raves about his designs for the Thousand Year Plan.
This NYT opinion piece was written under the influence of marijuana, I suspect. Just ghastly. Thank God in heaven for bestowing wisdom on the Constitutional Convention to write Article V into our Constitution.
Excellent analysis.
I concur.
Thanks. The most common response to my suggestion that the Constitution should be amended to make it easier to amend is outrage.
BTW, the author states the last truly substantive amendment was the 22nd, in 51. I disagree, as the “limiting the president to two terms” was strong custom prior to FDR’s breaking it, and IMO was unlikely to be successfully broken again. IOW, the 22nd codified something that was pretty much the case anyway.
Which leaves the 21st, in 1933, as the last “real” amendment.
I get a kick out of those who propose to overturn congressional or court action by amendment. They can’t win an election for a majority of Congress, but they think they can pass an amendment, which is at least 20x harder!
This was not the problem. The Republic had been comprehensively broken for many decades. The question was not whether it would survive or revive. It was what would replace it.
Caesar did not force "insanities" on the Republic. Pretty much all his reforms made a great deal of sense and were desparately needed. Few if any of his eventual assassins claimed they killed him because of his policies. They killed him because he was tyrannical, which he was, and was shutting them out of power.
Lots of his eventual successors did insane things, but not Julius.
When the Congress passes and the President signs a 2,000 page law that no one has read, I don’t see gridlock as a problem.
If one sees the passing of such legislation as “progress’, then one must be a Progressive.
“I favor instead an easier amendment process so such issues can be addressed through political means.”
What is your proposed “easier amendment process”? As it is, liberal “living and breathing” constitutional interpretation is about as easy as it gets. Under that aegis, the constitution means whatever they say it means in the moment. Why bother to write it down at all?
The answer is to staunchly engage in the political process to make the elected branches adhere to the Constitution and reshape the judicial and administrative state.
Jonah has a mole writing editorials on West 41st Street.
The initial concept was that the People would be most directly represented by the House, the Senate would represent the interests of the several States, and the Executive branch would represent the interests of the Federal Government while providing a check to the power of the Congress via the veto. The States have been reduced to implementers of Federal Policy, bribed with the taxpayer's money.
I believe the intent was for the Federal Government to provide for the common defense, settle differences between the States, establish standard weights and measures, coin a unifying currency, and maintain a system of transferring information (the Post Office).
It really doesn't take much to update those concepts without stripping the states of power if the Federal Government does not exceed its duties.
Our current mess comes from the constant expansion in size and scope of the Federal Government, as does most of our crippling debt.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”Generally speaking, we are no longer a moral and religious people.-- John Adams
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can read the constitution and understand what it says and does not say. But over the years politicians, lawyers and other greedy, power hungry people have pretended not to understand the clear meaning of the constitution. They have magically found words and meaning that isn't there and have redefined much of what is there to suit their purpose and further their agenda.
A moral and religious people would not debase the constitution for their own profit or political gain.
The usurper now sitting in the White House is the best living example of those who have no resppect for the constitution and view it as a hurdle to clear rather than a guide to govern by.
Florida made it easier to amend our State Constitution. We ended up with an amendment which made it illegal to keep a pig in a cage. Not a law, but a Constitutional Amendment.
American blood will be shed on American soil by Americans if this crap DOES NOT STOP! Not one person alive today can lick the boots of any one of our Founders.
LLS
From the latest Soros talking points. The NYT is just filled with good little Nazis.
Can you just imagine the new President calling on sixty fat cat campaign bundlers to be his personal toadies in Congress, delivering the votes for his sweeping new programs?
&&&
NYT just prepping the way for Obamarxist’s lifetime dictatorship.
I guess the Presidents ability to appoint un-vetted and un-confirmed “Czars” is not good enough for this Lib.
Repeal that dastardly 17th amendment and see how fast the whole Republic goes into auto-correct mode.
Sanford Levinson- Constitutional Faith Princeton U. Press 1988
I suspected when reading it that he was numbered with those on the other side of the House divided against itself.To borrow from Abraham Lincoln ,1858 -as he borrowed from the Sacred Writ. This editorial has served to affirm that first impression.IMO the Constitution would be ok if only the mere politicians -the men governed by ambition more than Reason would only understand it according to the meaning of the terms used as understood when the supreme law of the land was adopted by the people. Problem is we are now decades and more into “progressive” decline generated in large part by Dewey-eyed educators. Beguilers who have addicted the people to to the “promise” of a bright and shining LIE.
Agreed. An incredibly stupid amendment essentially doing away with the power of the States over the central government which was an irreplaceable part of the original checks and balances.
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