If We’re Just A Pure Democracy, Why Do We Need A Constitution?
June 29, 2012 11 Comments
Some of the smarmy commentary from both sides takes the form of saying: You should have known that if you don’t want the government to wield some power via tax, you have the remedy of voting in elections.
True enough. But this makes me wonder: Why the fuck even bother having a Constitution? ‘If we don’t like what the government is doing, we can vote them out’ is one conceivable way to arrange government. But it doesn’t need, or even make use of, a written Constitution. So let’s toss it out, and all the ring-kissing ‘constitutional lawyers’ who make their swank upper-class livings ‘interpreting’ it (to rubber-stamp whatever the current fascists want to do) while we’re at it. What the hell is there to ‘interpret’? The government wanted to do it and so now they are. Enjoy your fascism.
>all the ring-kissing ‘constitutional lawyers’ who make their swank upper-class livings ‘interpreting’ it
All nine of them?
I’m talking about lawyers in general. The establishment ones who have been chirping away that the commerce clause means the government can do anything and now welcome a decision saying taxes mean the government can do anything.(but are chafing at the Roberts opinion saying the commerce clause might not mean the government can do anything). Since the government can do anything, we don’t need a Constitution and we sure as hell don’t need lawyers to study and interpret it.
I feel like at some point you’re kind of throwing the word fascist around a little much here.
In fact people are generally overreacting to this law and this ruling- both those opposed and those in favor. At worst its expensive public policy and sets a bad precedent, but that’s happened quite often in American legislation+judiciary.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we’ve reached a tipping point and “let’s throw out the constitution” since it’s been trampled all because of an interpretation you disagree with.
People who don’t want me to throw around the word fascist should stop being fucking fascists
Moldbug has made the point far more eloquently than I, that the Constitution is at most a symbolic document, that the Sovereign Power will do whatever the Sovereign Power wills to do, and that the Sovereign Power is law. This is really simple: He who has the power to force a Sovereign (so-called) to obey him is he who is the Actual Sovereign. Written constitutions are for girls. The question should not be whether the Sovereign may force everyone in America to buy health insurance… of course he may… he is limited only by the power (and loyalty) of his police and military forces; the question should be whether he ought to do so. And of course he ought not… because it is idiotic… and that means we have an idiotic sovereign. So we just need a new one–one that is less idiotic.
A constitution represents the core believes of a sovereigns decision makers at a point in time. They have decided these core believes require super majorities rather then simple majorities. However, if the sovereigns decision makers core believes change, say over 200+ years, they its only a matter of time before a document not representing the core believes is ignored.
Whatever one might say of Jefferson, Washington et al, I don’t think they were “girls”.
“Written constitutions are for girls” is for girls.
Yes, I’ve read Moldbug. I’ve also read science fiction. Escapism is no escape.
Sonic, you’re good, but you don’t have 1/100th the midichlorian count of the Dark Sith Lord Moldbug. If the sovereign isn’t the sovereign, then he ain’t the sovereign… and someone else is. It really IS that simple.
Sokay, Jefferson and Washington weren’t girls, per se… but they were caught up in one the greatest seminal myth-making epochs the world had ever seen. Before the Beatles, before Elvis… hell… before Sinatra… all the girls were screaming for The Enlightenment. And it was damn hard not to scream along. Of course we’ll forgive them their youthful indiscretions…
I was about to propose a tax on not purchasing a copy of the Constitution (just on the off-chance that our fascists might actually read the fucking thing to see what’s actually in there), but now I realize there’s really no point. Once again the Founders are proved right — representative government doesn’t work without a) a franchise based on skin in the game, and b) active, ever-vigilant civic virtue. Otherwise, you get Alexander Tytler: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.”*
*double irony alert, in that 1) Wiki (and others) claim that Tytler never wrote this, but it’s too useful to fact-check, and 2) wiki claims that it started circulating as a meme after the 2000 election. You know, the one where we elected that “conservative” guy. So was it a bunch of libertarians bashing Bush, or the left gnashing their teeth over a missed opportunity?
Yeah, Moldbug called this years ago, back in 2007 IIRC, when he said that there are real constitutions and there are paper constitutions. The real constitution is the actual structure of power with the checks, balances, w/e that actually exist. These may often be quite informal or just a matter of mutual assent. Then there is the Constitution, which is supposed to provide a check on government power, but get real dude, why does the government care about a piece of paper? They’ll find a way around it or just blow it off entirely.
Of course, we’re not a pure democracy either, because the government is not really constrained by the voters. The voters don’t support gay marriage or Obamacare, but screw them; they can’t find a party that would carry out their wishes. And what’s really creepy is that in a few more decades, those won’t even BE their wishes, because the government has both motive and opportunity (the schools, the quasi-official media, etc.) for moving discourse in a more congenial direction over time. Polite opinion is subject to a one-way ratchet, and whatever was the radical/Harvard view 50 years ago evolves into the radical Democrat view of 30 years ago and the mainstream view of today.
I agree. The establishment laywyers who have been chirping away that the commerce clause means the government can do anything and now welcome a decision saying taxes mean the government can do anything.