[ I like the idea here but the term "democratic republic" is an oxymoron;
they are two completely different ideas. The US is a limited constitutional republic. Democracy is just mob rule with a shortened name. ]
From:
https://tinyurl.com/p6xnrbzb (americanthinker.com)
===
September 23, 2024
How Pure Democracy Fails
By Paul C. Binotto
Fiddling with the Constitution to limit existing state rights in favor of
pure majority rule should be rejected.
Yet, there's a movement afoot to do just that. It really isn't all that
new. An earlier example of this movement culminated in 1913 with the
ratification of the 17^th Amendment. The primary changes the 17^th
Amendment made to the Constitution was to provide for the direct popular
election of U.S. senators, a function originally reserved only for the
state's legislatures. As a result, the ability of less-populated states
to exercise their co-equal rights was eroded.
Presently, a push is gaining momentum to circumvent the Electoral
College, in favor of a national popular vote. Changing how Senate seats
are assigned to states is also being advocated. A "census-based" system
like the one used for determining the number of seats in the House of
Representatives, thereby, giving more populated states more seats and
votes in the Senate.
Whatever form and approach, the common goal is to replace the democratic
republic form of federal government with pure democracy.
The Supreme Court's recent reversal of Roe has increased calls for
eliminating the Senate filibuster. It's true the filibuster is only a
Senate rule, not law, so its elimination wouldn't directly challenge, or
violate the Constitution. However, it does indirectly affect the
co-equality of states guaranteed by the Constitution.
Bruce Ledewitz, a law professor at the Catholic-affiliated Duquesne
University, gives what he considers four good reasons in his recent
opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
According to Ledewitz, supporters of ending the Senate filibuster believe
that the potential benefits from the filibuster's demise, both for the
Senate and for American democracy, outweigh any potential negative
consequences.
Proponents view one probable consequence of ending the filibuster to also
be a welcomed benefit. Ledewitz enthusiastically anticipates and endorses
that it will permit voters to "[give] control of the government to one
party, that party could enact anything that the Constitution permits."
He glibly dismisses this outcome as, "So what? We have a name for that
situation. It's called democracy... Sounds like a good system. We should
try it." Presumably because voters can always vote out the one party out.
This naively ignores the reality of how difficult it is to remove
one-party rule once in power.
Most Americans would agree that one-party rule does not "sound(s) like"
Democracy. Because it is, in fact, tyranny, only going by the name of
democracy. And it's not at all what the Constitution's framers envisioned
for a democratic republic form of government.
A good argument can be made that one reason for the filibuster rule in the
Senate is to give a tool to senators in the minority for asserting or
forcing senators in the majority to recognize their state's co-equal
rights. The left-leaning non-profit Brennan Center for Justice
acknowledges, "that a group of senators representing a small minority of
the country can use the filibuster to prevent the passage of bills with
broad public support." Predictably, they view this practice unfavorably.
But, in fact, the practice is vital for ensuring equal footing among all
states in the union on the Senate floor.
Without the filibuster, states whose senators are not in the majority risk
losing their co-equal footing with the states in the majority. They will
become more prone to having their Senate voices and rights diminished,
ignored, or abused.
Supporters of pure democracy would do well to first reflect on the
Framer's own reasoning for rejecting it. The Framers chose their words
carefully and precisely. They did so because they knew well that their
words would one day be used against them, or rather, more detrimentally,
against the Constitution which they were setting down as the new law of
the land.
It's important to note that the Framers deliberately chose to open the
Constitution with "We the People." This introduction was not phrased this
way only to show whose authority and behalf they were given the power to
represent and speak. But also, whose rights and interests they were
beholden to defend.
If they intended only to speak for the majority of people, as in a pure
democracy, they would have rightly and precisely written, "We the Majority
of the People..." They did not, because they intended to represent equally
all the people, the people both of the majority, and of the minority. They
intended to create what Abraham Lincoln would later immortalize at
Gettysburg, a national "government of the people, by the people, for the
people" -- all the people.
The Framers didn't reject pure democracy because they instead preferred
minority rule, but because they had a keen understanding and distrust of
human nature. More so, of the tyrannical tendencies of human nature
concentrated anonymously as "The Majority." One party ruling over a
minority is the same as an absolute monarch, as King George. They
absolutely did not want or intend this.
That same precision was used in the careful choice the words when naming
the new country. The name was to describe its true character, The United
States of America. "States," by design, hold a prominent and central
position in the name.
Subsequent nations would choose names familiar to all as much for what
they are, as for what they are not, such as, the People's Republic of
China (PRC), and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), aka
North Korea. These nations, of course, are neither (purely or remotely)
democratic nor protective of individual rights. The American democratic
republic, the United States of America (USA), is both!
Had the Framers intended a pure democracy, pure majority rule, they would
have enshrined it in the nation's name. They would have named it some
variation to those chosen by China and North Korea. And if they had, time
would have proved pure democracy to be no less tyrannical in practice than
the actual systems of these two other countries with free-sounding names.
"States" hold a prominent and central position in the naming of the United
States of America by design because the Framers wanted to clearly
communicate that the new nation was to be a union of individual states,
peopled by individuals with common but also distinct interests.
By experience, from when the states were joined together only by a loose
confederacy, they knew a republican form of government was preferable to a
confederacy. They could also perceive how one day, what's good for a
"California" and a "New York" may not be good for a "Montana" and an
"Ohio." Thus, they also knew that a democratic republic form of government
was preferable to either a pure republic or a pure democracy.
Pure democracy may sound good on paper and may seem a no-brainer to modern
American mind. But for good reason, it does not appear anywhere on the
paper of the U.S. Constitution. The Framers understood well that pure
democracy would ultimately only lead to poor democracy. Pure democracy is
poor democracy because it does not adequately protect the rights and
unique interests of all the people from the dangers of a tyrannical
majority. If pure democracy did not sound good to the Framers, most
assuredly, "one party rule" did not sound to them anything at all like
democracy. We definitely should not try it.
===
-- Sean
... Retirement is the time where there is plenty of it or not enough.
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