The Constitution is the crisis, writes Osita Nwanevu.
The American left should work toward abolishing the Constitution someday—either for a new document or a new democratic order without a written constitution....
This and this alone was the genius of the Founders and Framers: not a special capacity for principled compromise and not extraordinary foresight or a collective wisdom sure to endure through the ages, but rather the force of their will...
It is beyond debate that we are their moral superiors... it is certain that we will do better—securing for truly all Americans not only a framework of now familiar political freedoms but a framework of economic rights rooted in the notion that democratic values and a revulsion for arbitrary, unchallenged authority should shape more than just our system of government. Until then, a half-measure: If it is given the opportunity, the Democratic Party—without hesitation, guilt, or apology—should pack the Supreme Court to its advantage.That's clear enough, at least. "It is beyond debate that we are their moral superiors," he says, meaning that he thinks it is not just beyond doubt but beyond any sort of devil's-advocate discussion of any theoretical possibility he might be wrong about that. He is twenty-six years old.
15 comments:
So the political science is settled....
Straight out of The Promise of American Life and the modern progressive movement is this utter contempt for ordinary Americans. At least our Founders recognized the fact of their own moral imperfection along with that of the rest of us--which is why our Constitution structures our federal republic and our Federal government the way they did.
The New Republic isn't even original.
Eric Hines
So clear, even the internet's Anti Ymars can't rationalize it any more.
The Divine has decreed that America is due for a death and rebirth. 2021-2022.
There is no "human vote" for this, except perhaps to determine whether America is rebuilt as Satan or not.
"It is beyond debate that we are their moral superiors..."
The words of an arrogant, callow child.
Do they not understand that packing can work both ways? They add 5, we add 10, they add 20, we add ...
Or, they add 5, then we remove them. Then they add 5 again, and we remove them again.
It's just not a viable strategy in the long run.
It is if they change the rules enough that their opponents never regain power. Stacking the court is supposed to coincide with stacking the Senate (admit DC as a state, admit Puerto Rico, at the Transition Integrity Project they floated breaking California into 5 states with 10 Senators). It's also to coincide with a massive amnesty with path to citizenship, so they can add tens of millions of new voters they expect to vote their way reliably. The Senate change will affect the Electoral College as well, but they ultimately hope to do away with that through the Popular Vote Initiative.
Then the packed court can stand forever, as all power will be consolidated into single party rule.
The words of an arrogant, callow child.
It's definitely easier to see yourself as George Washington's moral superior if you aren't very old yet. The youth think they're better because they oppose slavery and racism; but they never had the temptation of living in a world in which they could engage in slavery, let alone having been born into a world in which they were expected to do so because their family owned slaves and farms they were expected to support. These same youth readily engage in abortion, which involves a similar denial of the humanity of someone in order to dispose of them for one's own advantage, but they are sure they are better than their ancestors. They assert their superiority without acknowledging either their moral luck in time of birth, nor their own culpability in a very similar moral crime.
Meanwhile, George Washington not only displayed courage and fortitude, moderation and wisdom, he also turned down being made into a king when he had the very real opportunity to accept being made into the king. I've never accepted a crown either, but there's a very big difference between me and Washington: I've never been offered one. Hopefully I'd do as well as he did, but who knows until it happens?
Also, Washington freed his slaves in his will, and left them some of his fortune as well. Martha did not free hers, but we aren't talking about her.
... So, Wikipedia has the following 2 paragraphs about it:
"On July 9, 1799, Washington finished making his last will; the longest provision concerned slavery. All his slaves were to be freed after the death of his wife Martha. Washington said he did not free them immediately because his slaves intermarried with his wife's dower slaves. He forbade their sale or transportation out of Virginia. His will provided that old and young freed people be taken care of indefinitely; younger ones were to be taught to read and write and placed in suitable occupations.[438] Washington freed more than 160 slaves, including 25 he had acquired from his wife's brother in payment of a debt freed by graduation.[439] He was among the few large slave-holding Virginians during the Revolutionary Era who emancipated their slaves.[440]
"On January 1, 1801, one year after George Washington's death, Martha Washington signed an order freeing his slaves. Many of them, having never strayed far from Mount Vernon, were naturally reluctant to try their luck elsewhere; others refused to abandon spouses or children still held as dower slaves (the Custis estate)[441] and also stayed with or near Martha. Following George Washington's instructions in his will, funds were used to feed and clothe the young, aged, and sickly slaves until the early 1830s.[442]"
It would be an interesting survey to ask young progressive Democrats something like this:
"If you could, would you own white Republicans to work for you as slaves?"
Pride is considered such a great and powerful sin for a good reason.
There's that "beyond debate" idea again which, like obviously, unquestionably and the like seems to be a very accurate warning flag for something that is easily debatable, not obvious, quite questionable. The speaker simply wants to shut off debate to make true what in practice what is not true in fact.
You could be right; perhaps its defensive. Yet I wonder if he doesn't really believe that it's beyond question. He's just out of college, was probably taught that for four years, and hasn't had time to realize what a bill of goods he's been sold.
Some people, privileged enough to be protected from real challenges, never learn. Virtue is hard, and only gets developed at all in challenging environments.
Splitting large states and "stacking the Senate" is not a one-sided proposition. The GOP should take a look and make a case seriously, pro AND con.
California's cities are solid Blue, but there are Red areas as well. Ditto New York. It might take some complicated gerrymandering but dividing each in two (not five) might net out to zero advantage to either faction, while still diluting the stakes in controlling such population centers. Texas and Florida also could be considered for division. And there seems no intrinsic reason to prefer a 50 state / 100 senator system to a 57 State / 114 Senator system -- provided that the new Senators are not all, or overwhelmingly, of the same faction. This is the same set question leading to the "Bleeding Kansas" / Kansas Nebraska debates of the 1850s, with the advantage of better understanding just how ugly things can get if reasonable people fail to make reasonable accommodations.
As far as "abolishing" the Constitution, haven't several of us around here discussed the merits of a constitutional convention? Repeal the 17th amendment; firmly fix the size of the supreme court; impose the "cube root" rule (US population ^"1/3" approx 600 seats) for the House of Representatives, increasing or decreasing as needed; set term limits for legislators or even judges; firm up budgeting rules or the line-item veto; restrict the number of cabinet-level executive officers ... I'd prefer each such proposed amendment be offered separately but I can imagine a wholesale revision, omnibus style. Not the worst debate to have...
Constitutional conventions are not quite the same thing as abolishing the Constitution. Yet even abolishing the Constitution is imagined by the Declaration of Independence; that idea by itself is not a problem, though some of us are sworn to defend the Constitution.
I am bemused by the suggestion that it is beyond debate that we -- any of us -- are the moral superiors of the Founding Fathers. At least according to my understanding of virtue and morality, that's more likely the opposite of true.
USA Phoenix in 2021. A phoenix has to die to be reborn however.
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