Today is yet another election day. We’ll hear plenty about “our Democracy” and the founders are cringing every time. We’ll also hear a lot about voter unrest and anger, just like we have for the past 6-8 years. I’ve been saying for some time that we are “ripe for a new party” since most poeple feel very disconnected from the governing process.
And on that point of citizen disconnect, the Founders would be very sad. The Founders realized that they had fought for the concept of being able to self-govern. At the time no where else in the world was anyone remotely trying what we were putting into practice. It really was a grand experiment. Today, of course, many places have copied the USA, so our work doesn’t look as special (which is another fact that would make our Founders very sad–they knew what they were doing was unique and they wanted future citizens to know it too).
The Founders held a generally unified view that too much power in a central government was to be avoided. They didn’t agree on what was “too much power” and when the second revolution occurred with the creation of the Constitution, some of our key founders were horrified. But, even as some like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams were strongly opposed to the new government because it had too much power, clearly all of the Founders agreed that the current power of King and Parliament would be the standard of “too much power.” So, since the government of the USA in 2010 has so much more power inherent over our lives, I think we can see what the Founders would think about the situation today.
With today’s election, many in the Tea Party movement are probably really happy. Hard to say if they’ll still be happy a year from now because DC has a way of changing people. The “moveon.org” crowd was equally happy after the 2006 and 2008 election, assuming they would finally get some real change. Two years later, they have seen the DC machine destroy most of their hopes. And this fact is why the Founders were determined to create protection against too much power in the central government.
Their answer was pretty simple. Keep government very close to the people. If you could watch it closely, and keep the ability to continously change who was in power, you could keep government from becoming tyrannical. They had several ways of trying this in both of our government efforts–the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution. I won’t get into it all now, but suffice it to say, in the past 90 years, “reformers” have moved us AWAY from the founders on this point. Rather than keeping the power local, these reformers and progressives have erred in trusting Democracy far too much.
Of course I have already told you that we are not a Democracy, that the Founders were vehemently opposed to it. But the Founders did believe in keeping control local, close, near-by. What do I mean? For them, when they did something like put selection of the Senators into the hands of the State Legislatures (just as the Articles had placed selection of that Congress into the hands of the state), they saw that as bringing the Senators closer to home. Look at it this way–in Florida today, there are close to 20 million people living here. That means that my two Senators have to listen to 20 million people, have to somehow hear my voice amid that crowd.
But, my State Legislator represents about 130,000 of my local residents. I know, I know–that is still a huge number, but think about this. Which of the two–my state legislator or my state US Senator is going to hear my voice better—the person listening to 130,000+ or the one listening to 18,000,000+? Right–you know the answer. And, in case you are wondering, each US House of Representatives rep covers almost 700,000.
The Founders’ point was that if we could control part of the national government through tight control locally, they (the US Senators in this case) would be more likely to respond to our concerns. With our current mess of a government, a problem that has been growing since the 1960s at least, there is no oversight and little concern by those in DC. And, the people are increasingly separated and distant from the process.
Jut this past month, I started another class online dealing with the only true Democracy in world history–the Athenians of Greece, circa 510 BC. In that conversation, I once again helped my students understand why the Founders did something different in our country. Their replies through the discussion were enlightening, and sad–take a read:
- I feel like we were taught that the founding fathers of this country all had similar views of what they wanted this country to be. History has painted the illusion that they were unified to creating a strong government and maintaining our freedom. I guess in a way I sort of feel tricked into believing that the early days of establishing the United States went more smoothly than today’s election processes.
- My eyes have been opened in so many ways.
- Wow. I think for the first time, after I just read [your replies to other students], our government actually makes sense to me now! (If you can believe that.) I somehow always thought that we were a democracy. I guess I misinterpreted what “democracy” really meant. Ha, I feel kinda dumb now. lol! But, I have been enlightened to say the least!
- So, I guess my next question is why does society, teachers, media etc continue to impose these thought upon us. Why, if we were never meant to be a democracy, do we keep hearing that we are??
- I think I can speak for almost everyone in this class and say that we had no idea that we aren’t a democracy.
What is next, then? I don’t know for sure, but I do know this–the Founders would generally be sad to see where we are. They would hate that we have lost so much connection with government. They would be stunned to see that we have created a “Governing class” of leaders who seem to believe that they can stay in power forever. They would hate to find out that so many, like my students, think we live in a Democracy.
If this new group of elected officials doesn’t really changed, doesn’t really follow through on their pre-election promises, we will continue to see greater and greater antagonism among the electorate. And, maybe, just maybe, some of the Founders’ values and vision might be returned to us. We’ll see.