Vincent told me to write a 3 page essay about how democratic the Constitution is for his government class. I told Sophie that was his prompt and she told me to make it into a blog post. So I will now compromise between those two ideas and ignore Vincent entirely to obey Sophie.
So this is something I complain about constantly. People insist that democracy is great and that the United States is a beacon of democratic hope. However, a little known fact is that these people are complete idiots.
Our nation was founded on checks and balances. One of these checks concerns the realization that people are assholes. This thought is actually furthered by a second realization that people are also idiots. So with these two facts given, what system of government works best? The Founders figured a mix between a monarchy, oligarchy and polity would function best. Polity being a system governed by the people (democracy as we understand it today). Ironically, democracy referred to the corrupt form of polity in the Classical sense, when the people abused their power to oppress minorities.
The monarchy would be the executive headed by the president, the oligarchy by the Supreme Court, and the polity by the House of Representatives. The Senate is sort of a mix of oligarchy and polity in my opinion because it is local and closer to the people but the senate was originally appointed by the locally elected leaders, one step away from a direct election.
Probably the most democratic part of the constitution is the House of Representatives. The House is elected directly by the members of their districts. Furthermore, it gives more power to the states with greater population, thus making power proportional to population and not completely equal between all the states as the Senate functions.
The Founders were to a great extent, elitist lawyers who didn't want stupid assholes voting to elect other stupid assholes who would attempt to satisfy a very dumb populous who wants things that would surely doom the nation. For example, I am not a fan of Andrew Jackson as president. Sure, he was super badass and killed for fun, but he did not know shit about being president. Although I agree with laissez-faire economics (hands-off capitalism), a centralized bank was necessary for the survival of the American economy in the global environment. Yet he stuck to principles instead of using reason to determine what was best for the nation. Only after he defeated the Second National bank, causing the panic of 1837, did everyone realize that having like 80 economic systems in the same country with no centralization was a bad call. Also, Andrew Jackson expanded suffrage to the "common man" which allowed for uneducated, poor people to vote, as long as they were white. (He made it so the states did not require land-ownership to vote... it sounds a lot nicer that way, I guess).
So am I an elitist bastard for thinking that I do not want homeless people voting? Am I elitist for wanting to make sure that people are literate and are slightly competent before giving them the power to vote for the legislators and laws that compose our government? Am I a selfish arrogant asshole for wanting to vote for what actually WILL benefit the citizens of America instead of letting the poorer middle America vote for the Republicans who will take advantage of them economically in exchange for continuing to oppress gays and stop abortion, which they probably won't even do? Technically, yes.
In conclusion, I am an elitist bastard.
I suppose there isn't much one can do to convince you otherwise if you already admit you are an elitist bastard. The problem is you use your elitist bastard status as justification for oppressing those less fortunate than you. Realize Don Juan, that America was founded on beliefs in the correct means to an end, not the end itself. If the problem is that a shit retarded citizenry dooms our nation, the solution is not to take power out of those shit retarded people, but to educate them so they are no longer shit retarded. You are the result of a strong education with liberal leanings and I applaud you for your deep understanding about the history of our government, but to side-step entirely our Founder's intentions would be ill advised. I would suggest you devote your extreme passion (you have a way with words, there is not arguing that) to fighting a just cause and educating our populous is a just cause. Many times I have been in your shoes (when California passed Prop. 8) and decided to give up on this country. But when I see someone like President Obama reiterate his faith in the American people, it makes me wonder if I couldn't be more like him. And maybe, just maybe, we can save this nation.
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