Fareed Zakaria: The founding fathers

Undesired Walrus

Penultimate Amazing
Undesired Walrus
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Taken from his last Charlie Rose interview:

Whenever we have a problem, we tend to think that our Constitution is the best ever created in the history of the world. The people who wrote the Constitution were demi-gods, it never needs to be changed. Our political system is the best in the world. The truth is we have a pretty complicated, antiquated system that’s grown pretty dysfunctional.

Do you agree with Zakaria's views here?
 
If it really were the same system, then yeah, it would be antiquated, but in fact it has changed so much over the years that it is hardly recognizable as the same system that the Founding Fathers put together.
 
It was clever in theory -- create a government, give it certain powers and none others, and require any significant changes to its behavior to be done via Constitutional amendment.

If something's a good idea, most people should think so, and should continue to think so ten or twenty years down the road.

This was intended to slow down the dangerous, rapid changes in government that occur with the blowing winds of political passions -- as driven by dangerous demagogues.


Then someone discovered the meme of "living document" that "changes" as peoples' attitudes change. This serves no real purpose other than to eviscerate that iron-clad rule so that politicians could, indeed, make sudden, large changes without having to go through the amendment process.

It shouldn't have happened, but it did. Happy? Look around you at the debt. Look around you at the undeclared wars. Oh, yes, there's something to piss off people of any political persuasion.
 
Beerina said:
It shouldn't have happened, but it did. Happy? Look around you at the debt. Look around you at the undeclared wars. Oh, yes, there's something to piss off people of any political persuasion.
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Seeing as the very first foreign war the US fought was without a formal declaration of war by Thomas Jefferson himelf I can't see how you blame that on modern interpretations of the Constitution.

It's not like the Constitution spells out any specific language for declaring war, it only demands that Congress approve.
 
I tend to agree. Yes there were some great ideas on how to run the newly formed government. But to say that in over 200 years of advancement we have learned nothing that can compete with the U.S. Constitution, well that's just wrong. I have a libertarian friend who lives and dies by what the Constitution says. Nevermind that the thing is nearly as open to interpretation as the bible.

I remember a joke from Dennis Miller (pre-republican schill days) "If the founding fathers somehow were in modern times and you put them on a jet plane that went from one coast to the other in a few hours at 35,000 feet while they were seated comfortably and drank cold beverages and then told them we still run the government based on what they scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin 200 years ago they'd all drop dead on the spot."
 
*Normal disclaimer about not being American, not being born in America, not growing up in..*

I think 'demi-gods' is the correct phrase for the way the founding fathers are seen by a wide section of the political establishment and almost 100% of the tea party. The phrase 'the buck stops here' seems to have been transplanted from Harry Truman's desk to a single mention of what 'the founding fathers intended'. Watching the Republican debates over the course of the last few weeks, all debate seemed to cease as long as 'the founding fathers intended it'. I'm sure if another candidate turned around and said 'but what if they were wrong' it would be the political equivalent of Act 1 in The Crucible.
 
PGH said:
I remember a joke from Dennis Miller (pre-republican schill days) "If the founding fathers somehow were in modern times and you put them on a jet plane that went from one coast to the other in a few hours at 35,000 feet while they were seated comfortably and drank cold beverages and then told them we still run the government based on what they scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin 200 years ago they'd all drop dead on the spot."
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Forget about airplane travel. If they´d hear about the possibilities of telephones, TV, radio or the internet for conducting politics or organizing elections, they´d forget about the electoral college in an instant.
 
WildCat said:
Seeing as the very first foreign war the US fought was without a formal declaration of war by Thomas Jefferson himelf I can't see how you blame that on modern interpretations of the Constitution.

It's not like the Constitution spells out any specific language for declaring war, it only demands that Congress approve.
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Thomas Jefferson still required Congress to authorize any offensive action. Prior to that, he limited US military action to convoy escorts as he didn't feel he had the authority.

In late 1801, the pasha of Tripoli did declare war on the U.S. Jefferson sent a small force to the area to protect American ships and citizens against potential aggression, but insisted that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense"; Congress alone could authorize "measures of offense also."
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Source

It wasn't a declared war like you have stated. But it was still a military action authorized by Congress.
 
Chaos said:
Forget about airplane travel. If they´d hear about the possibilities of telephones, TV, radio or the internet for conducting politics or organizing elections, they´d forget about the electoral college in an instant.
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What do those things have to do with the electoral college?
 
WildCat said:
What do those things have to do with the electoral college?
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They eliminate the problems in trying to keep the electorate informed about policy issues, thus doing away with the necessity for a layer of middlemen.
 
The electoral college wasn't merely a means to adjust to slow communication. Other wise, the electoral college would be proportionate to the population, which it isn't.

The electoral college is weighted to give preference sparsely populated states over densely populated states. That way, no President could be elected with the support of a handful of large states. The Presidency generally requires a geographically broad base of support. It's also why a President can be elected with less than 50% of the popular vote -- the founders believed it was better to have a President supported by 40% of the electorate spread across the country, than to have a President supported by 90% of the electorate in one half of the country and only 15% of the other half.

The electoral college exists not because of bad communication, but because the founders anticipated that America would be a geographically diverse nation.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
*Normal disclaimer about not being American, not being born in America, not growing up in..*

I think 'demi-gods' is the correct phrase for the way the founding fathers are seen by a wide section of the political establishment and almost 100% of the tea party. The phrase 'the buck stops here' seems to have been transplanted from Harry Truman's desk to a single mention of what 'the founding fathers intended'. Watching the Republican debates over the course of the last few weeks, all debate seemed to cease as long as 'the founding fathers intended it'. I'm sure if another candidate turned around and said 'but what if they were wrong' it would be the political equivalent of Act 1 in The Crucible.
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That is the question I so want to put to the Tea Party people.

They act like all change is bad. Thus their constant refrains to go back to the original document.

The one without voter protection?

The one that allowed gross gender discrimination?

The one that allowed slavery?

That one?

WHY?
 
marksman said:
The electoral college wasn't merely a means to adjust to slow communication. Other wise, the electoral college would be proportionate to the population, which it isn't.

The electoral college is weighted to give preference sparsely populated states over densely populated states. That way, no President could be elected with the support of a handful of large states. The Presidency generally requires a geographically broad base of support. It's also why a President can be elected with less than 50% of the popular vote -- the founders believed it was better to have a President supported by 40% of the electorate spread across the country, than to have a President supported by 90% of the electorate in one half of the country and only 15% of the other half.

The electoral college exists not because of bad communication, but because the founders anticipated that America would be a geographically diverse nation.
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You don´t need an Electoral College for that. Just give people in less populous states four or five votes each, so it becomes even more blindingly obvious that some people are more equal than others.
 
marksman said:
The electoral college wasn't merely a means to adjust to slow communication. Other wise, the electoral college would be proportionate to the population, which it isn't.

The electoral college is weighted to give preference sparsely populated states over densely populated states. That way, no President could be elected with the support of a handful of large states. The Presidency generally requires a geographically broad base of support. It's also why a President can be elected with less than 50% of the popular vote -- the founders believed it was better to have a President supported by 40% of the electorate spread across the country, than to have a President supported by 90% of the electorate in one half of the country and only 15% of the other half.

The electoral college exists not because of bad communication, but because the founders anticipated that America would be a geographically diverse nation.
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Err, no. The weight in electoral votes was like that. The electoral college itself was made the way it was so that the will of the people could be overruled by representatives. The Founding Fathers were deathly afraid demagoguery and did stuff to make it so that the people couldn't have a direct voice. Seems pretty crazy now.

Frankly, I also disagree that people who don't live in cities should get a disproportionately larger share of the vote. Unsurprisingly, we have a lot of laws weighted against people in cities for no good reason.

BobTheCoward said:
These words intrigue me. The alternative to our style of government is parliament style government. But isn't that more antiquated?

It is hard to critique without specifics.
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I don't think he's talking about the gross structure of the government (3 branches, bicameral legislature), though that might be part of it. Rather, the limitations in the Constitution can make it hard to fix things and do things better. It does slow things down and make many things harder like electoral reform (which we desperately need).

A ton of work in the Constitution went towards limiting the voice of the people and other things that honestly look rather bizarre even today. While some of this has been changed, there are still odd influences to the basic design remaining. Among other things.
 
Drachasor said:
Err, no. The weight in electoral votes was like that.
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Right, which is one of the features of the electoral college -- how many electors each State receives.

The electoral college itself was made the way it was so that the will of the people could be overruled by representatives. The Founding Fathers were deathly afraid demagoguery and did stuff to make it so that the people couldn't have a direct voice.
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That too.

Seems pretty crazy now.
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Not really. The House of Representatives is as dysfunctional as it is because it is still the branch most closely tied to the will of the electorate, and the will of electorate is often mercurial. The federal system is designed to have representatives successively distanced from the will of the people, so you have one element that is focused on the voters' immediate needs (the House), one element on the less immediate needs (the Senate), one element focused on the needs of the nation as a whole (President), and one element that is only tangentially beholden to the will of the people (the Supreme Court). And except for some rejiggering on the way Presidents and Senators are selected, that's pretty much what we still have.

I also disagree that people who don't live in cities should get a disproportionately larger share of the vote.
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I think that's something that reasonable people can disagree about. I do, however, like the idea that the President needs a geographically broad base of support. I don't like the idea that California and Texas as the most populous States would get to essentially choose the President, marginalizing the northeast and midwest. Right now, nine states have half the nation's population. With the electoral college, these states don't come close to electing a president alone.

If the electoral college were to be replaced, I would like it to be replaced with something that continues to preserve this feature.
 
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