Roger Duronio
New Jersey
The real thieves of Democracy are the 'Founding fathers': we don't vote directly on laws, we don't vote directly for the president, no one votes for the Federal Judges. Why?
Because the 'Founding Fathers' did not want us to: they firmly believed that 'man is not wise enough to govern himself'.
Consequently elected Representatives make the laws under which we live and not, We The People, because we are not wise enough to do so. We vote for members of the Electoral College to chose our President, because we, The People, are not wise enough to do so. And Federal Judges are not voted on by us; because, you guessed it, we are not wise enough to do so. The only Founding Father who stood against this position, embedded in the Constitution, was the, arguably, brightest of the group, Jefferson. Jefferson said, in his first inaugural address, "It is often said man is not wise enough to govern himself, then he should govern others?"
Actual Democracy is people voting directly on the laws under which they live, directly on the Executive officers, and directly on the Judges. Everything else is being governed by what Rousseau called the "Elected Aristocracy".
4 REPLIES
joe parrott commented 5 hours ago
joe parrott
syracuse, ny
Roger,
Calm down, Dude. There was never a direct democracy in a large nation in the history of the world. Greece, the birthplace of Democracy, had an elected Senate. We are a nation of over 300million people. You can't run a government with that many people directly involved. Sorry, not. even. close.
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Roger Duronio
New Jersey | Pending Approval
@joe parrott
200 million people vote for the president in one day. They can just as easily vote for a law. The "rich and greedy" don't want us to vote for the laws. We don't want the responsibility. There are millions of reasons why we should be ruled like the sheep we are. But no other form of government than people voting on laws, voting for executive officers, and voting for judges (making hem responsible to the people) is a democracy. We couldn't get rid of slavery and women could never be allowed to vote, and... the Earth is flat. They were all wrong. Because something has never been done is not, not, a reason to rule out doing it.
jaco commented 5 hours ago
jaco
Nevada
@Roger Duronio
Given that voters elected AOC I can understand the idea that "We the People" are not wise enough...
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Roger Duronio
New Jersey | Pending Approval
@jaco
The people will error, but Congress does too. A new idea came out a few years ago: group think, groups working together to solve problems. And gee, two heads were better than one, and 2,000,000 were better than 538.
Lisa commented 4 hours ago
Lisa
Expat In Brisbane
Idaho has elected judges, even to the state Supreme Court. When right-wingers didn’t like a judgement a few years ago, a man who’d lost his job as a veterinary assistant ran for Chief Justice.
He got a lot of votes, too.
I am most certainly NOT in favour of elected judges — provided, of course, that the executive branch and the senate actually do their respective jobs and don’t nominate, and approve, unqualified Thomases and Kavanaughs.
I live in hope.
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Roger Duronio
New Jersey | Pending Approval
@Lisa
The Federal Judiciary is the most corrupt group of people in the U.S. Corrupt in the sense that they freely pick and choose when to apply the laws for the benefit of the country, and when to apply them to maintain a status quo (and law be damned), and when to apply them to favor a political party. They meet each year to give themselves new "paths to follow" without being answrable to anyone. Jefferson said "..it's as if they are not even a part of the country."
marybeth commented 3 hours ago
marybeth
MA
@Roger Duronio: Not quite, although I understand the argument you are trying to make. The fact is that you can't apply 20th and 21st century values and mores to the 18th century men who wrote the Constitution. At that time, only men who owned a certain amount of property (meaning real property, not chattel) could vote. This excluded all women (because women by definition were chattel, the moveable property of husbands, fathers, and other male relatives), most blacks, Indians, and white men who didn't own property at all or who didn't own enough property. The Founders didn't trust the unwashed masses, hence the property requirement to vote. This ensured that only men wealthy enough would have a say in government. It also reassured white Southern slave owners that power would remain with a small group.
Slowly, those ideas about voting rights changed. Property requirements were chipped away, and eventually abolished, opening the franchise to poorer people who didn't own property (renters, etc.). The post Civil War Amendments not only abolished slavery but extending the franchise to former male slaves. Women were still denied the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920. The voting age was lowered to 18 during the Vietnam War. We've had a history of gradually expanding the franchise, not restricting it.
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Roger Duronio
New Jersey | Pending Approval
@marybeth
The next evolutionary step in government is to end the Representative Republic and install an Actual Democracy where thepeople don't ask someone to make the laws under which they live but make the laws themselves. Nothing else is democracy. Nothing else is justice. It does away with bought and paid for Representatives and all the corruption and stupidity that comes with it. 30 million Californians have two Senators and 500 thousand Montanans have 2 Senators. That is not justice. The Constitution needs to be Amended so people keep their power and everybody has the same amount of power. 1 person 1 vote: for laws, executives and judges.
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