Speaking of John Edwards, I don't think you should consider this a series criticism of Edwards or his campaign, but Sanford Levinson is right to say that the problems with our "broken system" actually run considerably deeper than Edwards' money-and-lobbyists rhetoric would suggest.
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Our Broken System
13 Dec 2007 01:17 pm
Comments (8)
That's absolutely correct, but I think that (a) his campaign stumping gives the simple, easy to speak version, and (b) he is not quite yet running for President on the platform of revolutionary participatory democracy. Might be nice, but he's just a fairly populist Democrat.
serial criticism, maybe.
As Levinson acknowledges, Edwards identifies the problem, but Levinson disputes his cure. Well, a constitutional convention, which is what Levinson suggests, is a road that leads straight real trouble. For all its flaws, the constitution has kept the dictators, monarchists and authoritarian know nothings pretty much at bay. Edwards sees that money has corrupted the process, but the cure is not to ban lobbyists, or tell them how to spend the money, but to elect people who are swayed by lobbyists' ideas not their money. Easier said than done.
Amending the constitution is not practical. What we could do right away is change Senate rules to make it a more majoritarian institution. Also, Congress has to do a better job of insisting on its prerogatives vs. the executive. Of course, that still leaves the veto issue.
Levinson wants a strong legislature operating on robust majoritarian principles, and a weak executive. I am sure that it is just a coincidence that he wants this system at a time when the Republicans control the executive and the Democrats have a razor-thin majority in the legislature. I am also sure that systems along these lines have been tried in other countries and they don't work very well. Generally, in order to function, they have to be subverted, as in Great Britain, by abolishing separation of powers, so that the executive and the legislature are one.
Levinson again, with his "broken" constitution. I think it's been said best: "The Constitution may have it's problems, but it's better than what we have now."
It's folly to blame our problems on a Constitution which is largely unenforced, instead of the political culture which makes sure it's unenforced, and which would just as gladly circumvent the provisions of any new constitution.
The sad thing is that Levinson actually thinks democracy made us great. No, being a constitutional republic with a working system of checks and balances made us great. Democracy in the absence of those safeguards is nothing but a way of chosing your oppressor.
I'm not sure that I agree with everything Levinson says, but there is something to be said about questioning the near-religious reverence that we hold for the Founding Fathers & Constitution.
Levinson misses the point. The purpose of government is not to give everyone a voice so much as to ensure everyone's liberties. A government that can easily pass laws is a threat to our liberties. Something progressives would do well to remember in their eagerness to pass law after law restricting this or that behavior they disapprove of.
Comments closed December 27, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
serious criticism, not series
Posted by Mark E. | December 13, 2007 1:32 PM