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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan the Right Wing Pundits Stop with the Founding Fathers were Infalliable?
First off, I have great respect for the founding fathers. They were true renaissance men who believed in freedom. But that freedom was limited to them and people who looked like them and believed as they did. I don't want to judge them by today's contemporary standards. They should all, individually and collectively, be judged by the standards of their time.
That being said, this "originalist" bullshit has to be called out for what it is, bullshit. Slavery, which is an abomination, and was fast becoming that in the world, was written into our constitution. The right to vote and hold office was restricted to white men, and, in many cases, white men who owned property. The same men who signed the constitution referred to "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence which obviously meant "men" and not women, and white men and not men of color.
The fucking electoral college is as anti-democratic a political concoction as exists in the free world. 5 times the person with the most votes didn't become President and it was the Democratic candidate each time. The system that conceived of winner take all has morphed into a Democracy in which the minority party controls every lever of government, the President, the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court.
The system for change obstructs change. In order to change the Constitution we need two thirds of the House and Senate and a majority vote in three fourths of the states. How are we going to be able to ask small population states to reduce their influence?
How did the second amendment which has "well regulated" right in it, become interpreted that no citizen can be deprived of any weapon for any reason?
In a parliamentary system, smaller voices can be heard, but especially, a party that receives 48% of the popular vote should not be shut out of the government, completely.
This country is going through a test. Can we possibly survive as a Democracy when the majority of voters have no say at any level? We can't bring a bill to the floor for a vote. We have no appointments to any position in government, and we are the majority.
How is it that a "generic" house of representative ballot must be 5% in our favor just to break even. How is it that our Presidential candidate wins by 3 million votes, and we don't even have a chance to moderate the other side? How is it that a majority of the Senate represents only 18% of our voters?
How much longer can this go on?
Hekate
(90,202 posts)louis c
(8,652 posts)My posts are rarely ever posted to be aimed at only DUers.
And certainly this one isn't. When I refer to "we" as the minority, I certainly mean Democrats. I assume we're all Democrats here, so that should be the dead give away.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)They were very concerned about foreign states and foreign powers influencing our democracy and taking over our government
And gee, lookit us now
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)louis c
(8,652 posts)NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)... makes more sense.
BannonsLiver
(16,162 posts)After the last 2 years, Ive come to realize not only were the founders not infallible, they may have been a little overrated.
louis c
(8,652 posts)malchickiwick
(1,474 posts)Not sure if that term refers to the signers of the DoI, the crafters of the AoC, the signers of the USC, or something else altogether, but these were all individual men, holding very different views. For instance, Jefferson, who largely wrote the DoI but had no connection to the USC, was a definite racist who grew rich by forcing other people to labor for him. Ben Franklin, on the other hand, was vociferously opposed to the institution of chattel slavery, but nevertheless supported the USC, which did, as you say, embed slavery into the national mission from the start.
louis c
(8,652 posts)First off, I have great respect for the founding fathers. They were true renaissance men who believed in freedom. But that freedom was limited to them and people who looked like them and believed as they did. I don't want to judge them by today's contemporary standards. They should all, individually and collectively, be judged by the standards of their time.
malchickiwick
(1,474 posts)... also, women played a really important role in the founding, so I bristle at the phrase.
louis c
(8,652 posts)White men with privilege wrote the DOI and the USC. If women had a hand in the writing of the documents, they really did not have much influence, since they could not vote or hold any office.
My point of the OP is that the Constitution has made if difficult for a majority to gain any influence in our government, even though we vote in higher numbers than our opposition. This can't be healthy for any Democracy.
It's almost like political apartheid. People of our political opinion make up a majority of the population (and the votes), yet we have no influence or power in the government.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)struck me was the gist of your message and that is how a majority of voters seems to be frozen out of the political decision making process entirely. A lot of that has to do with the Constitution the way it was written, but that is where we are now and something needs to be done about it. More than half of us have no say over things that are going to greatly affect our lives. Whatever the "founders" thought and wrote may have worked back then but we live in a very different world.
Maybe we need to put more controversial matters to state referendums or something like that instead of letting a minority population (old, rich, white, christian, men) make laws that favor only them and end up screwing the rest of us over. Obviously, the political system in this country as it stands is not really working for most of us and change is needed to ensure fairness.
brooklynite
(93,879 posts)Allowing slavery was wrong, and we changed it. Denying votes to women was wrong and we changed it. Having a non-elected Senate was wrong and we changed it. If you want to change the Electoral College or the Second Amendment, you'll need to first convince the bulk of the population that they need to change.
louis c
(8,652 posts)and taking power from small population states, and have them vote for it, when they make up half the states, may make it really difficult.
The 3/4 of state legislature's part may take more than a century. Have your great grandchild leave a note on my headstone when it happens.
brooklynite
(93,879 posts)You have the choice of incremental Constitutional Amendments or a Constitutional Convention -- which would of course allow other people to bring up the changes THEY want. Or you can continue to complain without purpose.
louis c
(8,652 posts)I deal with reality every day. I work in as a union political official, registering and GOTV.
So, here's my solution. We need to overwhelmingly win elections. If we need to spot 5 points in a generic ballot, we need 16 points in the national election. If we can't leave primary divisiveness behind in a Presidential election, we don't deserve the White House.
We need to win the state legislatures and Governor's races, so we can set the congressional boundaries and have overwhelming strength in the off years. And by winning the state legislatures and Governors, we can put an end to voter suppression, which is done at the state level.
When we gain control of the Senate, we should work to expand the number of justices to 11. There is no law that prohibits that. We need to be bold and assertive, but it all starts with winning elections. I'm living in Massachusetts, where every Senator and Congressperson is a Democrat. We control both branches of the legislature and although we have an anti-Trump, moderate Republican Governor, our numbers in both legislative branches can override any veto.
We need numbers like that, nationally. I've participated in making my state one of the bluest in America. What's your solution.
ProfessorGAC
(64,427 posts)Strict construction, and especially originalism, requires that belief or everything is open to interpretation.
In the latter case, it requires such confidence in their infallibility that they can read their minds 200 years after they died.
Everything they believe requires that infallibility.