#901 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday April 16)
Good morning,
FRIENDS “EDUCATING” US
We are all the victims of friends from all sides of the political spectrum, sending us articles or videos from hyper-biased sources that attempt to convey the “facts” regarding an issue. One place that is most disconcerting is the attempt of many either to discredit the founding principles of America and the Founders (often due to “presentism,” by dismissing anything that might seem rough or unacceptable to present thinking), or which try to redefine what the Founders were trying to accomplish to further a desired political or religious objective (e.g., the broadening of the Second Amendment to a place no rational person can believe it was intended to go, or moving the government into people’s bedrooms because certain sexual acts are deemed either not procreative, an abomination, or “murder” of a fully formed human being in utero in the first four months of pregnancy).
The fact is that the founders gave us a road map and a template to address challenges as they arise. Their words have meaning in the context in which they were written. But their world did not confront the technologies and issues our current world faces and, therefore, the intent to continue the society they envisioned, one that offers maximal personal freedom and potential for fulfilment, must be interpreted from time to time within the context of the moment. History and the intent of authors from 2+ centuries ago must be embraced as core principles that can be flexible to enough to evolve with the times.
TWISTING THE FOUNDERS
The Left and the Right manipulate the founding of America for their own political purposes. To many on the Left, Thomas Jefferson, notwithstanding his penning of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Rights of Man, is dismissed as a slave holder. Anything he had to say on any topic must be poisoned by that perspective of the furtherance of human servitude (one that was held by many peoples around the world at the time and throughout human history until that time). Similarly, the Constitution is dismissed as an ancient document that does not speak to the modern world.
Many Republicans, on the other hand, seize upon the Constitution as practically god-given. The words are to be parsed and analyzed for the precise meaning that existed in the 1780s. That attempt for originalism or textualism has been bastardized as the words are manipulated to achieve desired results (much as the words often are viewed by the Left as merely suggestions). The Supreme Court is on a mission to interpret the words and the intent of the Constitution through a reading of the history prior to the Constitution and the customs and practices at the time of the Constitution (seriously misreading and misinterpreting each). Sometimes, they will look to the nineteenth century practices in order to justify readings of the eighteenth century Constitution.
Two places where custom and practice should be furthered is in expanding the states to include the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and to increase in the size of the House with the addition of states. Up until the early twentieth century, the addition of states of anticipated and welcomed. And when they were admitted and the population grew larger, the House of Representatives also grew larger. Then the number of House members was frozen at 435, with reallocations for the admission of Alaska and Hawaii and population movement at each census.
Most Republicans claim that admitting the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are mere power grabs by the Democrats. Never mind that these two potential new states are comprised largely of unrepresented minorities or that they have every claim to statehood as the small dependably Republican states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Gaslighting the expansion of states as a power grab is saying that the Constitution has embedded bias toward the Republicans and they just like it fine that way—even if both D.C. and Puerto Rico have larger populations.
Continuing the practice of granting statehood to territories and increasing the number of Representatives in the House would make America more representative. But to do so might weaken the ability of the Republican party to take advantage of the electoral college and Senate bias toward small population states. Both of these practices would reduce the risk of continued minority rule. Each also would force the Republican party to appeal more toward more moderate policies, in order to attract more voters and win elections.
WHAT WERE THE FOUNDERS SEEKING?
Back to the “information” being disseminated on the Internet. One idea currently making the rounds is articles and videos whose message basically is “Hey, dummy, we’re not supposed to be a democracy. We’re a Republic. That’s what the Founders intended.” Well, yes, but the intent of a “representative democracy” to reduce the tyranny of the majority ought not be used to further minority rule. The idea of representative democracy has been twisted to justify the expansion of minority rule, allegedly as consistent with our founding myth. But it is not. Here is the response of the ever-thoughtful Peter Bain to one such forwarded video produced in the middle of the 20th century:
“[The video you forwarded] presents a picture of the Founders that depicts them as entirely focused on constraining the risk of mob rule and consequent dictatorship that can stem from pure (Athenian) democracy.”
“The Founders were actually engaged in a much more complex exercise. While the video quotes Adams, Hamilton, Randolph and others, it does so selectively. The real issue at the Constitutional Convention was to find a remedy to the myriad failures of the Articles of Confederation. They had to create a federal government strong enough to govern a multi-state union while respecting the historical sovereignty of the various states. A republic was that government, and the Founders turned to it because it was the only way to secure the participation of all the States in the new nation.”
“All subsequent debate revolved around where to land on the continuum that had monarchy at one end and pure (Athenian) democracy on the other. Undoubtedly, the Founders were concerned about the risk of placing too much power directly in the hands of the people. They were equally concerned with preventing the emergence of any single leader with the ability to claim dictatorial control, hence the extensive debate about what the office of the Presidency and its enumerated powers would be.”
“I would add that this video is also an interesting and, I suspect, accidental confirmation of the inversion that has happened in American politics during the decades since this video was made. The argument of the dangers of unconstrained democracy was traditionally advanced by conservatives during the McCarthy era, which came with dire warnings of (communist) mobs and violence and dictatorship. Ironically, it is now those same conservative republicans who have explicitly worked to create fear, hate, and unrest, unruly at best and violent at worst, in an effort to advance policies that have been empirically rejected by the majority of the American people (see, e.g., the recent overwhelming vote on Ohio Prop 1).”
“This inversion has found its culmination, of course, in Donald Trump. His behavior is backed by those who two generations ago would have recoiled at his attempts to create precisely the dictatorship Presidency that the Founders warned against so vigorously. He seeks to amass popular support grounded in grievance, fear, and bigotry and drive that support so that it will not accept any outcome other than his victory. He is a serial and incorrigible liar in doing so. We have seen it for years and he is explicit about using the same tactics this time around. And like every aspiring dictator, Trump is at core entirely uninterested in the welfare of our fellow Americans. He seeks power for his own purposes and his own gratification. For the Republican Party (and here I will limit it to MAGA folks, but am deeply disappointed by those who has acquiesced), to have become the party of mob action and violence is exactly what the video is warning us about. It’s ironic that the warning now applies to the very same party that was sounding the alarm a half-century ago.”
I could not have said it better myself.
Have a great day,
Glenn