<< The Constitution is a text imbued with mystical power and authority
by most Americans. My major beef with it, aside from that unthinking
reverence, is the kind of governmental structure it gave us -
designed quite consciously to frustrate popular will - three
branches, the abomination of the Senate, states rights, all that. I
think free speech, free assembly, and fair trials are good things,
very good things in fact. We could use more of them in practice and
not just on paper. "Paper" - reverence for the constitutional text
rather than actual democratic practice - is one reason we don't have
more of them.
>>
I'll go along with you on the Senate with its guarantee of unproportional representation--think about it, Wroming and Rhode Islkand, whose populations are each about the size of Denver, have equal representation in the Senate to California or New York. And the federal system with all the states rights stuff is a total mess, much amusement as it provides to us federal jurisdiction types who love puzzles.
But what's wrong with a tripartite government? Shouldn't we have a more or less independent judiciary? Isn''t it just as well that the legislature doesn't enforce the laws directly, but leaves enforcement to an executive that has the resources to call on agency expertise somewhat isolated from day to day political pressures, while accountable, more or less, through a rulemaking and administraive adjudication procedure that is arguably far more democratic than the indirect input we get through electing representatives?
Anyway, Wojtek has a point aboiut the supposedly reverential attitude Americas are alleged to have about the Constutution. When it runs up agaist popular feeling, it's "technicalities" (in criminal lprocedure) or encourages "government by judiciary" (in civil rights or free speech or nonreligiosity). I think the reverse is pretty thin and abstract. I would like to see more reverence towards the Bill of Rights and the 14A, but what do I know. I am just an elitist snob wine-and-brie ACLU type.
I was arguing with my judge's minute clerk, who is smart but not a political or reflective person; he's sympathetic to left economic policies but he is leaning towards voting Republican because of family values and prayer in schools, which he wants. I pointed out that enforced school prayer is unconstitutional, and it's not a reason, as far as I can see, to vote for a legislative candidate, that he wants to violate the Constitution.
--jks