There's Too Much Democracy In America - Granite Grok

There’s Too Much Democracy In America

You’re thinking: “What does he mean? Does he agree with O’Bummer that the Chinese model of governing (no opposition) is more ‘convenient’?”
Hunter Dan’s thinking: “Damn – I knew the arrogant Brit wanted to be King!”

Who controls our Government? Do the states have a voice?
Who controls our Government?
Do the states have a voice?
You’d all be wrong. What I mean is that pure Democracy, a bit like undiluted Democrats, is pure poison for a nation. Our founders knew it, having studied human nature, history, and government in great depth. The Greeks and Romans knew it, too, until they forgot their origins and gave up their temporary veneer of civilization.
Winston Churchill came close to the truth when he said, on November 11th 1947:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.


But the great man missed something important: Democracy, messy as it is, is indeed superior to Monarchy, Dictatorship, Feudalism, and various forms of Socialism (Liberal Fascism), BUT, as a variety of sayings attributed to the founding era remind us, when….

“[T]he voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury……. a Democracy will collapse over loose fiscal policy……. followed by a dictatorship”.

Our founders knew all this, and more. They understood why the Roman republic stood for so long, and how it collapsed. They gave us a Constitutional Republic (if you can keep it) with carefully separated powers, a degree of vertical integration (state control of the Senate), and a Bill of Rights, all deliberately designed to prevent pure majority rule.

Why is pure majority rule a bad idea? Aside from the “largesse from the public treasury”, or in Roman terms “Bread and Circuses”, pure majority rule leads to the trampling of the rights of the minority. It is no accident that it takes 3/4 of the states to ratify an amendment, that it takes 2/3 of the Senate to ratify a treaty, that it took 2/3 of the senate originally to bring a bill to the floor (now 3/5), that the States used to control the Senate, and that the fights over rules for filibusters are so vehement.

Upper houses of parliaments are intended to act as a moderating influence, or to represent constituencies which would be at risk from pure mob rule. For instance, the British House of Lords originally represented the Church and the landed gentry, whereas more recently it consists primarily of appointed “life peers”, who are nominated by the Prime Minister, making it a kind of cross between the Senate and the Supreme court (it also hears appeals). The most important task is to delay, and force reconsideration of, flawed legislation, EG temporary insanities of the public or their directly elected representatives, outbreaks of populism, etc.

Our Senate was created for a similar purpose: To prevent a temporarily popular idea doing too much damage to the country, or to a particular class of citizens, AND to protect the rights of the Sovereign States which joined voluntarily into our ‘more perfect union’. To these ends, the Senate had both a staggered schedule for replacement of senators, AND direct appointment of senators by state legislatures.

It is the nature of tyrants that they wish to remove checks and balances which get in the way of their (always) urgent plans. Whether it was Oliver Cromwell (temporarily) abolishing the House of Lords in the 17th century, or Woodrow Wilson removing state control of the Senate in the early 20th century, or Adolf Hitler’s elimination of the upper house, or Reichsrat, in 1934 (the purpose of the Reichsrat was to represent the states), or even FDR’s threat to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. (Or Obama attempting to legislate via Executive Orders)

So, after the history lesson, what’s your point, Mike?

Was the 17th Amendment a Good Thing? (Graphic-Salon.com)
Was the 17th Amendment a Good Thing?
(Graphic-Salon.com)
My point is that we do, indeed have too much democracy in one critical area, and that is the US senate. The design of the Senate was to explicitly represent the interests of the Sovereign states, and not to act like 100 extra members of the house of representatives.

Democrats and Socialists will tell you that their vision of “the people’s government” is direct election of all parts of it, and that more democracy is a good thing, and that simple majority votes are sufficient for the party temporarily in power to cram their version of “what’s good for us” down our throats. Therefore, to a Democrat/Progressive/Socialist, the 17th Amendment is an unfettered good thing, whereas I contend that for the states, and the people, it has been the grandest of grand larcenies of money and power from the ‘States, respectively, and the People’.

The Seventeenth Amendment was sold to the country as the cure for bribery and corruption, the buying of some Senate seats, and the occasional failure of states to select a Senator, thus leaving themselves unrepresented. Here, Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon makes a typical argument in favor of the 17th:

[D]emocracy wasn’t the main motivation behind the amendment at all; corruption was. If you think campaign finance is bad now, image how much easier it is to buy an election when you only have to reach a handful of state legislators instead of an entire state’s electorate.

He also included this helpful (to his case) piece from the Senate’s Historical Office:

Intimidation and bribery marked some of the states’ selection of senators. Nine bribery cases were brought before the Senate between 1866 and 1906. In addition, forty-five deadlocks occurred in twenty states between 1891 and 1905, resulting in numerous delays in seating senators. In 1899, problems in electing a senator in Delaware were so acute that the state legislature did not send a senator to Washington for four years.

Sounds great doesn’t it? Solve bribery and corruption issues, and move the control of the Senate closer to the people. What could possibly go wrong?

First let us remember that the British parliamentary system has only exceeded the average 200 year lifespan of a pure democracy, because it is NOT a pure democracy – the House of Lords provides an essential check on the House of Commons, AND the Prime Minister is NOT directly elected by a simple majority.

Second, let us remember that our founders designed the Electoral College and the selection of Senators to provide similar, nay, BETTER checks and balances, than the British system.

Third, bribery and corruption are endemic to politics, and the best way to prevent that is to keep the legislators close to the people- don’t like the way your state legislature conducts business on your behalf? Confront your state representative, and vote the bum out!

Now, let us look at how the 17th Amendment damages the Republic:

It makes These United States more closely approach a pure democracy, thus hastening its demise from loose fiscal policy (Bread and Circuses).
If you think your congressman doesn’t pay much attention to his 500,000+ constituents, imagine how much attention a Senator from a large state will pay his/her millions of constituents – Actually, no need to imagine – I offer you Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California!
Do you think that, if 25 state legislatures passed resolutions demanding that their Senators vote against Obamacare (for example), more than a few of them would even care? After all, it’s for the greater good!
If you thought bribery in the state house was bad, can you imagine how easily Senators, and even control of the Senate are purchased by special interests under this ‘improved’ method of direct election? Let me lay it out for you…

  • Thirty-three senators are elected every two years; of those, perhaps 10-12 races are easily swung under the current conditions.
  • Senate races are hugely expensive, especially in large states, and they attract national money.
  • Individual constituents are limited in their contributions, but PACs can pull in huge amounts of money, and provide massive assistance to the candidate (or re-election effort).
  • Senior senators provide moral and financial support to get the newcomer on board with their philosophy (and elected).
  • DNC, Soros, and their subsidiaries and supporters pile on for Democrats; RNC, NRSC(National RINO Support Committee), SuperPACs, Club For Growth, Senate Conservative Fund, and others pile on for Republicans.
  • The Senate is an exclusive ‘club’ – the power and influence is addictive, and NOBODY leaves the Senate poorer than they arrived.
  • Under these circumstances, is it any surprise that most senators reflect the interests of their paymasters first, their own view of national interest second, their constituents third, and their home states dead last?

To sum up:
For the Seventeenth Amendment – You have the illusion of selecting your senators; it seems more democratic; you don’t see the bribery and corruption (thanks LameStream Media).
Against the Seventeenth – Big money actually elects the senators; most of them ARE corrupt; they know what’s best for you; they don’t listen to their states because the states have no influence in their (s)election.

But don’t just take my word for it – one would hardly call the National Review ‘Extremist’, and yet, only last week, Charles C W Cooke wrote an excellent critique of the 17th, and urged its repeal. He quoted C. H. Hoebeke, who, In a brilliant Humanitas essay from 1996, rendered this judgment:

In retrospect, the amendment failed to accomplish what was expected of it, and in most cases failed dismally. Exorbitant expenditures, alliances with well-financed lobby groups, and electioneering sleights-of-hand have continued to characterize Senate campaigns long after the constitutional nostrum was implemented. In fact, such tendencies have grown increasingly problematic.

Then Cooke concluded with:

Americans purchased this dismal failure at the cost of their federal system’s integrity. Like the other two Progressive Era amendments that sit either side, the 17th is a testament to hubris — a parchment admonition of those who would tinker with the permanent in the name of the temporary. Nonetheless, it benefits those who would be required to amend it, which, alas, is a recipe for eternal life in Washington. Repeal is thus almost certainly a dead end; interest in such things is limited. And so the federal titan lumbers on, the states shrinking inexorably in stature. One cheer for democracy, Mr. [Woodrow] Wilson.

(Repeat with Skip: “The bigger the government, the smaller the Citizen!” (and the state).

Repealing the Seventeenth is a herculean task, but it is one of very few steps which could help to preserve this Republic (if we can keep it). Who would you trust? Ben Franklin and the Founders, or Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama?

I offer this suggestion for the Constitutional scholars to pick apart: Since the States set “The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives”, what if the Sovereign States were to prescribe that the majority, say 75%, of campaign cash be raised inside the state, and further that certification of the winner would require proof that funding was local.

Go Ahead, pick me apart 🙂

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