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Drafting the Constitution of the New World
Ladies and Gentlemen of Ricochet, let’s assume as a thought experiment what some of our members already suspect. The Great American Experiment has failed. Our Body Politic is afflicted with a terminal disease. Whether death will come quickly or slowly is not ours to know, but we may safely assume that our best days are behind us, we’re fastened to a dying animal; our children will inherit a morally and economically impoverished land; alea iacta est.
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find …
… another country, obviously. Not for us a bunch of wussy poetry about finding strength in what remains behind. All very nice if you’re Wordsworth, but we are Americans. Time to move to the New World. New America, here we come!
Where is it? I don’t know yet, but large tracts of real estate are out there, waiting to be claimed, and we’re an adaptable people. Here’s a map showing uninhabited land: Where should we move?
(I wonder if Australia would sell us half of that uninhabited land? I bet we could make them an attractive offer.)
Anyway, without worrying overmuch about where, for now, let’s think about the basics. The Federalist Papers, Our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and our Bill of Rights. We’ve got outstanding foundational documents, we’d all agree, but clearly they’re flawed, because it turns out that Franklin’s warning, “We’ve got a Republic, if you can keep it,” was correct. We couldn’t keep it, so now we have to start fresh.
But let’s not make the same mistakes twice. It would be a shame to have to up sticks and leave again in another 239 years. So how shall we rewrite the Constitution to ensure that New America lasts forever, or at least longer than the old one did? I assume the Constitution needs only minor modifications to prevent us from losing our new country, but of course, the modifications are essential: To lose one country may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Clearly, we’re all the descendants of men and women who had the fortitude to leave a dying Old World and undertake the voyage to the New. So let the ancient lands keep the storied pomp, and let’s decamp for New America, where we’ll lift the lamp beside the golden door. Our ancestors did it, so we know we’ve got it in us.
It’ll be great.
But let’s make sure it works. We’ll basically keep the same Constitution, of course. But let’s get it exactly right, and let’s learn from experience, so that we don’t have to do it a third time. Ideas?
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Your Founders were not the pious people you suggest they were. Maybe Adams. But Jefferson? Hamilton? Franklin? Washington?
I’m not sure you should be taking comfort in that–but at least you do not have to fear that impiety will lead you to collapse-
I haven’t read all the comments yet, but I’ll throw out Ben Franklin’s statement that there is no solution. At the conclusion of the constitutional convention he said:
In his view the constitution was as close to perfect as was possible with fallible men creating it. The problem both then, now, and forever more is that fallible men will also enact, uphold, and interpret the thing. No rational human being could read the constitution then agree with Wickard, and yet men as rational as Scalia have left that pile of excrement in place when opportunity presented itself to do away with it. No, the problem is not the tool, it is the operator. Or, in IT terms, PICNIC (problem in chair, not in computer).
__________
So what? So you want to vote, is that supposed to undermine SoS’s argument? Anyone who has been raised on welfare from the crib can feel the same, right? The question that needs to be answered is, how do you end the democratic abuse of power by those who do not pay the bills? Thoughts?
Again, this is exactly the sort of attitude that means, conservatism is doomed electorally. The only way, it would seem, for people on the right to feel like things are coming along reasonably, things are reasonably fair, is if they absolutely tyrannize however many hundreds of millions would not make it.
Democrats don’t take this So what! kindly. If that’s an inducement or a matter of indifference, then, of course, there can be no community. One faction or the other has got to be enslaved!
That’s a terrible conclusion, but how do you avoid it?
Your question proceeds from a number of false premises (accepting that you’re stipulating one arguendo).
I decline to run away. A sergeant in a tank destroyer, retreating during the Battle of the Bulge, spotted an American digging a foxhole. The GI, PFC Martin, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, looked up and asked, “Are you looking for a safe place?” “Yeah” answered the tanker. “Well, buddy,” he drawled, “just pull your vehicle behind me. I’m the 82nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going. I will not betray Martin.
The fault, anyway, as a man was written to have said more or less, is not in the documents of our social compact, but in ourselves.
On what basis do you think a tweaked compact, or a wholly rewritten one, will have any more durability than our current one (which failure I do not agree has occurred)? The thing has the durability men give it, and nothing more.
The correction needs to be in ourselves. Running away cannot achieve that.
Eric Hines
SoS – What to do with active military, whose living wage is paid for by the government?
Well, they’re not productive, but I don’t propose to go tell them-
Sorry, Kate, but believing government exists for any reason other than the protection of liberty is how we got where we are. The Declaration makes this very clear. If you meant to invoke the general welfare of the Constitution’s preamble then perhaps consider placing more emphasis on the word general than on welfare because being general, it is the welfare enjoyed by all citizens, and that is liberty.
Of course, at this point we’re required to say exactly what this liberty is. I go with Locke on this one:
I’m not arguing to remain in a perfect state of nature. I argue for giving up only that amount of liberty which reduces the possibility of entering a state of war to an acceptable level. Society, even at its very best, starts with detente.
Look at the Declaration again–the safety & happiness phrase stands out, does it not?
I hope you understand that the state of nature is terrifying?
Look at the title of this post, will you. We are drafting a New constitution, right? Of a New World, right? The existing one has a birth defect (the Tyranny of the Majority, or excess democratic power of the subsidized class – whatever you want to call it) and the order of the day, or at least this post, is to devise a ‘fix’.
I don’t advocate ‘tyrannize however many hundreds of millions would not make it‘. BTW. are you suggesting’hundreds of millions’ not being net taxpayers is a viable society?
Safety and happiness = liberty = natural rights. It would have been poor writing to not use a few synonyms in a document more than a paragraph in length.
A Hobbesian state of nature is indeed terrifying. However, Hobbes was, I hope, wrong. Please read my last paragraph again. I am not for a “perfect state of nature” but for as much liberty as possible, giving up only that amount as is necessary to guard against a state of war.
PSS. I advocated in an earlier comment that there be two house of Congress, in the new world we are positing, one of which would enfranchise everyone; it would be the second house in which ‘net taxpayers’ would hold sway. The first house could have disposition over much of the legislative agenda. The second house would be there to veto any excesses of the first.
I think the way you think about majority tyranny is woefully deficient: You seem to believe there can be a society without majority tyranny without minority tyranny. But all societies have a majority & a minority, the many & the few, & if they cannot come to an agreement–perishable rather than eternal at that–tyranny is the only way.
If you were to design a new regime, could you in some way avoid the emergence of a new majority that would seek to tyrannize when confronted with people who take their well-being as a sign of their virtue & their virtue as an indisputable title to rule?
If you think this is possible, please let me know how. If you think, too, that such a regime could defend itself from others, without the enormous numbers America can summon, then I especially desire you to let me know how.
As for your question, I do not know whether it is possible, but I am skeptical. Presumably, most people would have to be taxpayers–but could most people pay more to gov’t than they take in benefits? I’m skeptical of that, too. I am not sure I can see the workings of a free regime where the rich do not pay more into government than the poor as a percentage of wealth or income or both…
I agree. Government salaries should not be lumped in with transfer payments in this dichotomy over ‘net-recipients’ vs ‘net-contributors’, even if said workers might be disposed to aggrandizement of the State. The example of military servicemen made here is a good one to buttress this conviction, I think.
I have found no evidence in my studies that the Declaration is written with your views of unpoor writing in mind rather than a careful understanding of political philosophy or political science.
The way you equate safety & happiness with liberty seems almost Aristotelian. Of course, safety & happiness were taken from Aristotle.
But the Declaration leaves no doubt that natural rights include, but are not limited to liberty, & that liberty & the pursuit of happiness are not the same thing–so you really need to do more serious reading of the document. These differences are declared or asserted within the bounds of one paragraph–the famous one–so that should meet even your criteria for unpoor writing.
The state of nature is as horrible in Locke & Rousseau as Hobbes. They mean to teach you, there was no garden of Eden–but only a jungle.
You cannot be serious, can you?
“I am not sure I can see the workings of a free regime where the rich do not pay more into government than the poor as a percentage of wealth or income or both…”
How does that in anyway bear on the subject at hand? Whatever the degree of progressiveness one builds into the tax code is largely irrelevant to whether most people are net contributors or not.
Rules typically have exceptions. Good sense and honor are necessary to prevent exceptions from being too frequent or too powerful.
Most would probably agree that soldiers and police should be able to vote despite living off taxpayers. Defense of persons and property is the primary purpose of any government.
The other essential function is management of shared resources, like water. Suffrage could reflect this necessity.
Most other civil service jobs should not even exist. If Congress was denied the authority to delegate its powers to committees and agencies, then perhaps that would prevent its endless expansion of activities.
I considered the old requirement of property ownership for suffrage, but innovations such as apartment complexes seem to have complicated the issue.
Except that there might be improvements still that mitigate the tendency to corruption. Our Bill of Rights has proven effective at times in regulating the overreach of government, wouldn’t you agree?
I have a suggestion for how you might solve the demographic problem in the planned Conservative Paradise.
With Ferguson and Baltimore as fresh evidence that things are still badly awry in too much of black America, and with a republican governor in South Carolina voluntarily and gracefully leading the movement to take down the Confederate flag, this is a golden opportunity for a Republican candidate to take a conservative message into the heart of the Democratic stronghold.
There is an excellent conservative (even Biblical) case to be made that conservatives care more about poor people than liberals do. That welfare as it was designed by liberals and as it is presently practiced is trapping people (and not exclusively black people) in lives of stupefying boredom, dissatisfaction and despair. It isn’t good for them, and it’s not good for America. (Or Texas.) Conservatives consider the situation cruel and unacceptable; they should say this often and sincerely, and present their alternatives not just about black and poor people but to black and poor people. (Who can—sorry S of S—for the time being, vote).
An excellent case can also be made that black lives matter to conservatives. The liberal failure to effectively address the problem of inner-city violence is resulting in a tragic waste of human life and human potential that America cannot afford. The message can’t be “young black men killing other young black men is costing us too much in prison beds and execution drugs,” but “young black men killing other young black men is costing us valuable human life —think “this could have been the next Thomas Sowell, the next Clarence Thomas…”)
Black (and poor) lives matter is a message that is entirely consistent with Jewish and Christian teachings, and thus the SoCons can rally around it. It could, if done well, resonate with young, female and minority voters. Remember, these are the people y’all will need if you want to fix America, but you’ll also need to bring them with you (if only for reproductive purposes) when y’all bail.
Are you aware of any regime where most of the citizens are net contributors in terms of taxes & benefits?
So far as I understand, the tax burden in America is mostly shouldered by a rather small percentage of the most productive people. Do you have reason to believe this is not so? Do you know any place where this is not so?
You know, the more I read your posts, the more clear it is that you, a non-American, does not really have a clue about the good old US of A. “tyranny is the only way”? You evidently have no idea how nauseating that sentiment is to the general Ricochetti here, I wager. Maybe take your ‘tyranny’ to some other blog page, Ok? Please. Pretty please.
Titus Techera:
So what? That is 90 degrees orthogonal to the issue of whether the rest of the public “has skin in the game”, whether they are ‘net-contributors’ or not.
Is there a language barrier at play here? Your arguments are time and time again against a very literal reading of what what others have written, forsaking all nuance and style, drawing from the written words only the mere skeletal structure they produce and never the spirit and soul which inhabits them. It is the only explanation that makes sense to me. If there is another please enlighten me.
Should anyone in government actually abide by them, yes. In reality, meh.
Perry’s speech at the National Press Club.
Mr. Arcane,
I may be a foreigner, but that need not impair my mind. Hamilton was a foreigner. I doubt, for your sake, that you tell your acquaintance on Ricochet how much you are his superior.
Further, I hope you are capable of feeling ashamed: You have not only behaved shamefully–if you are capable of shame–but you have behaved foolishly. Let me put in front of your eyes the phrase I wrote, you quoted, & seem to blinded by anger to be able to read. Others may help you, if you are in need of help:
My suggestion, of course, has been that America is far from a situation in which this agreement has perished–I am far less depressed than many here on Ricochet. But even if you did not know that, you could have read the simple phrase–it is either agreement or tyranny, not ‘tyranny is the only way’. I suggest you go back to read it again.
I expect your apologies, of course, as soon as you become aware of your former &, no doubt, unintended & impermanent boorishness. I am of course going to be available here & elsewhere on Ricochet to receive them, with every intention of turning our recent acquaintance into something less bellicose.
It’s important to note that the central genius of the founders was to diminish the authority of national lawmakers while empowering more local authorities. Whatever a national constitution prohibits as a national option may yet be an option for state, county, and city governments.
Ray and Linda are correct that effective sharing of national freedoms, means, and goals requires a common cultural foundation (including acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty). As various as the original colonies were, they would not have long remained united without shared expectations and standards.
American ideals are available to persons of all backgrounds. But “American exceptionalism” is not possible without excepting (excluding) contrary ideals. Without some basic measure of conformity, no nation can long prosper.
This is ad hominem, of course.
If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that while I don’t take from the government, I am not a sizable contributor either.
The Constitution isn’t the problem. Yes, it could be improved, but what’s important is to have a balance of power among all the factions to keep any one from getting its way. That’s what made our system great in the first place – the Hamiltons and the Jeffersonians were at each others’ throats and kept the others from having their way. Industry vs agriculture, rrban vs rural, coastal vs inland, landowners vs factory workers, states vs nationalists, etc. The Constitution didn’t do so well for Native Americans and for African-American slaves because those people didn’t have any institutions by which to look out for their own interests. By the time the Indians learned about how they could use the courts to protect their paper rights, it was mostly too late for them.
Right now we can do more good by helping local governments and state governments to be strong and independent. (Having the feds give them block grants or other funding does just the opposite. It destroys state and local governments, just as federal subsidies destroy families and schools.) So on the one hand we need to cut spending at the federal level, on the other we sometimes need to let state and local governments spend more of their own money (aka our money).
I am not sure I am able to ensoul your speeches. I am, however, fairly confident that I am able & have been trained with some success in natural rights teachings & the political science of your Founders. On the face of things–without the subtlety & nuance which you seem to possess–your argument is lacking in both subtlety & nuance: You seem not able to consider that it was not a fear of repetition that led your Founders to say that the ends of government are safety & happiness after having said that governments are instituted to secure certain natural rights.
There is reason to believe that the document was written carefully, as a thinker might, not frivolously, as you suggest. Similarly, the references to divinity as legislative, executive, & judicial are also not accidents born of frivolity.