Electoral college

[Piker]

@Whack-a-Mole

You can frame your arguments any way you like.

My point is you are, despite your earlier claim to not want to, arguing for a complete overhaul of the US Constitution. Making it so different as to essentially be an entirely new document. Toss the EC, toss the Senate, toss checks-and-balances and so on.

When advocating for that I believe it takes more than, “Majority rule is just more fair.” As if that goal, in and of itself, is all that is at issue. Perhaps it is more fair but you need to make the case that “more fair” results in a better world (and not just a better world for you but all citizens). Remember any system will be gamed by the participants. “More fair” in business one might argue would be to get rid of things like anti-trust laws. It is not fair to penalize a business that does so well it can dominate an industry right?

The US has one of the oldest governments on the planet today. Certainly it has seen its fits and starts and upsets and setbacks and so on but ultimately has prevailed and been a benchmark of freedom.

If you want to change that wholesale I want details that answer Madison’s worries about an unfettered democracy.

His worries about unfettered democracy were two fold:

1. Legislators would trample on personal rights. I mentioned above that Madison wrote at a time when we did not yet have a conception of the federal government protecting enumerated rights granted in the Constitution. It’s for this reason the Congress cannot regulate a corporation’s political expenditures, forbid handgun ownership in Washington D.C., detain people at Guantanamo without any measure of legal review of that detention, etc. etc.

2. Legislators would work, not in the Greater Public Interest, but rather in their own. Madison expected elected officials to be more like magistrates, working for the public good regardless of private interests. The 220 years of democracy that have followed have seen the rise of professional politicians and openly contested elections, where different parties propose different policies and are either rewarded or punished by the electorate. This, of course, lets people like you and me, not in government, have some influence on what policies our government pursue. Madison did not want that; he wanted the people to elect Great Men who would make Great Decisions. His conception of democracy, in other words, was outdated within five years, and we shouldn’t be citing him to support our current institutions.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Piker

1. Legislators would trample on personal rights. I mentioned above that Madison wrote at a time when we did not yet have a conception of the federal government protecting enumerated rights granted in the Constitution. It’s for this reason the Congress cannot regulate a corporation’s political expenditures, forbid handgun ownership in Washington D.C., detain people at Guantanamo without any measure of legal review of that detention, etc. etc.

All of these cases, I believe, were upended by the courts. Essentially the courts thwarting the legislature which, I believe in your view, is wholly undemocratic. Our elected officials said “X” and the un-elected courts said “not-X”.

2. Legislators would work, not in the Greater Public Interest, but rather in their own. Madison expected elected officials to be more like magistrates, working for the public good regardless of private interests. The 220 years of democracy that have followed have seen the rise of professional politicians and openly contested elections, where different parties propose different policies and are either rewarded or punished by the electorate. This, of course, lets people like you and me, not in government, have some influence on what policies our government pursue. Madison did not want that; he wanted the people to elect Great Men who would make Great Decisions. His conception of democracy, in other words, was outdated within five years, and we shouldn’t be citing him to support our current institutions.

Perhaps he wanted legislators to work for the public good but from Federalist #10 he clearly was not so foolish as to expect that to always be the case:

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

SOURCE: Federalist #10

Sounds like a pretty pragmatic guy to me.

[Piker]

@Whack-a-Mole

All of these cases, I believe, were upended by the courts. Essentially the courts thwarting the legislature which, I believe in your view, is wholly undemocratic. Our elected officials said “X” and the un-elected courts said “not-X”.

Right. That’s exactly my argument. At the framing, there was a concern about the tyranny of the majority, and therefore a number of institutional roadblocks were set up to curb the power of majoritarianism. Bicameralism, staggered elections, the veto, the electoral college. That same spirit is what has motivated newer institutional roadblocks, like the filibuster.

I’m saying: we’ve come up with better ways to protect minority rights in the past 225 years. Judicial review and enforcement of substantive individual rights. This is a much more precise tool to protect minority rights than simply designing institutions that paralyze government and preserve the status quo.