I was going to post this as a comment at Tam's blog in response to this post but I put it here instead.
Lately I have come to realize that the Founders set up a system that only runs as intended when it is filled with people who hate that very system.
In other words, you staff a curdled poop factory with people who really love curdled poop, and pretty soon it's running three shifts and buying up the land next door for another building.
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4 comments:
The system we have today is not the system the Founders set up--which was pretty much what I got out of Tam's post.
We've "democratized" what they established, to our eventual regret.
They made not a single mention of any citizen casting a vote for president. In Art II, Sec I, they establish an Electoral College which would be organized by the individual states--but no mention of voting by citizens.
They set up a Senate appointed by the state legislatures--insuring some level of professional experience and reducing the need for gross campaigning and the eventual dispensing of public largesse.
Only the short term House was popularly elected. And, that was viewed as a temporary duty of good citizens not a lifetime tenure. They would be elected by property owning white males.
While not politically correct, a return to such a system might surely give us a much more effective government than the current populism-cum-socialist experience.
Hmm, I'd have to re-read the Constitution and the Papers to engage directly on the voting/not voting part, but I was thinking more generally, not just about the electoral process. IMO the FFs set up a system of government that, in order to "do no harm", needs to be staffed by those who hate government as much as most of them did.
In my view the genius of the system is that it is, in its essence, oppositional. The Executive will try to amass as much power as possible, the legislators will steal the silver, and the Judicial will interfere with everyone to the extent they can. Ideally, they all keep eachother busy and the rest of us can live our lives with as little interference from government as possible.
“I vote for the candidate that I believe will paralyze the government the most. The last thing we need is a fully functional government looking for something to do.”
-Spotted on a blog
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