You are confusing the Promise of the Constitution with its implementation. The Promise - Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness - is amazing, but the government that is meant to defend that promise has to be strong enough to do the job. The problem is that there have always been those people who look at everything as an opportunity to manipulate for their own gain.
Things like gerrymandering, the Electoral College, lobbying, campaign financing, etc., are all “improvements” to our system that were never meant to strengthen it, they were meant to build in advantages for one agenda or another.
So once again, the primary problem isn’t the Constitution, nor the foundation of Liberty that America was founded on, the primary problem is that most American citizens are too polite to ruthlessly slap down evil people who have been trying to game our system from the very beginning.
You don’t reject the Promise of Freedom/Liberty because it is being destroyed by bad people, that will just allow the bad people to win. The obvious move is to reject the bad people who are destroying Democracy.
The promise of the constitution literally was to limit democracy, the Founders explicitly said it! John Adams is the one who coined the term “tyranny of the majority” and it was used as the basis for the existence of a mixed government which combines some elements of democracy with other non-democratic elements in different branches. James Madison warned of the destabilizing effects of a “an interested and overbearing majority” on the government and warned that constraints had to be placed on democracy.
The first time the US actually ever experimented with democracy was during the Reconstruction Period, which was then quickly defeated. We never had a democracy since then. The rot is at the core of the system and we need an entirely new constitution.
The only people who complain about the “tryranny of the majority” are those who support some ridiculous governmental system that would be terrible for everyone but a lucky few, usually the richest, but sometimes just the most ruthless, who then go on to become the richest. They need to demonize the majority, so they can implement their oppressive system.
When Adams was talking about the “tyranny of the majority,” he was talking about the fact that while the majority would rule this nation, they had to do it benevolently, and remember that an elected representative represents ALL of his constituents, not just those who voted for him. Those who are in the minority deserve proper representation and support from their government just as much as those in the majority, perhaps more. He was warning against those in power abusing those out of power. He wasn’t saying that he didn’t want the majority to rule, otherwise they wouldn’t have put ELECTIONS into the Constitution.
He was saying that the majority can’t be trusted to rule on their own and they need to be controlled, otherwise they wouldn’t have put non-electoral branches into the Constitution.
The Senate wasn’t even elected until 1913! The Supreme Court still is an unelected body, and we still have an Electoral College. Even if we ignore the fact that slaves couldn’t vote (we shouldn’t ignore it, but even if we do) women couldn’t vote and they’re half the fucking country! In most states you had to own property to vote, which was only 6% of the fucking population! These mechanisms were put in by the Founders because they wanted to restrain democracy and you only deny this because you were trained this way by your own government-run schools. Try reading something that wasn’t assigned by the government. I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me, The American Counterrevolution of 1776, and Black Reconstruction.
The only reason elections are in the Constitution is because they needed popular support for their independence from England. People wouldn’t have picked up guns to fight for independence unless they got something out of it, and so they promised rich land owners that they could have a say in the government. That’s it.
Face facts, the US is not a democracy and it never was and it wasn’t intended to be.
You are confusing the Promise of the Constitution with its implementation. The Promise - Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness - is amazing, but the government that is meant to defend that promise has to be strong enough to do the job. The problem is that there have always been those people who look at everything as an opportunity to manipulate for their own gain.
Things like gerrymandering, the Electoral College, lobbying, campaign financing, etc., are all “improvements” to our system that were never meant to strengthen it, they were meant to build in advantages for one agenda or another.
So once again, the primary problem isn’t the Constitution, nor the foundation of Liberty that America was founded on, the primary problem is that most American citizens are too polite to ruthlessly slap down evil people who have been trying to game our system from the very beginning.
You don’t reject the Promise of Freedom/Liberty because it is being destroyed by bad people, that will just allow the bad people to win. The obvious move is to reject the bad people who are destroying Democracy.
The promise of the constitution literally was to limit democracy, the Founders explicitly said it! John Adams is the one who coined the term “tyranny of the majority” and it was used as the basis for the existence of a mixed government which combines some elements of democracy with other non-democratic elements in different branches. James Madison warned of the destabilizing effects of a “an interested and overbearing majority” on the government and warned that constraints had to be placed on democracy.
The first time the US actually ever experimented with democracy was during the Reconstruction Period, which was then quickly defeated. We never had a democracy since then. The rot is at the core of the system and we need an entirely new constitution.
The only people who complain about the “tryranny of the majority” are those who support some ridiculous governmental system that would be terrible for everyone but a lucky few, usually the richest, but sometimes just the most ruthless, who then go on to become the richest. They need to demonize the majority, so they can implement their oppressive system.
When Adams was talking about the “tyranny of the majority,” he was talking about the fact that while the majority would rule this nation, they had to do it benevolently, and remember that an elected representative represents ALL of his constituents, not just those who voted for him. Those who are in the minority deserve proper representation and support from their government just as much as those in the majority, perhaps more. He was warning against those in power abusing those out of power. He wasn’t saying that he didn’t want the majority to rule, otherwise they wouldn’t have put ELECTIONS into the Constitution.
He was saying that the majority can’t be trusted to rule on their own and they need to be controlled, otherwise they wouldn’t have put non-electoral branches into the Constitution.
The Senate wasn’t even elected until 1913! The Supreme Court still is an unelected body, and we still have an Electoral College. Even if we ignore the fact that slaves couldn’t vote (we shouldn’t ignore it, but even if we do) women couldn’t vote and they’re half the fucking country! In most states you had to own property to vote, which was only 6% of the fucking population! These mechanisms were put in by the Founders because they wanted to restrain democracy and you only deny this because you were trained this way by your own government-run schools. Try reading something that wasn’t assigned by the government. I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me, The American Counterrevolution of 1776, and Black Reconstruction.
The only reason elections are in the Constitution is because they needed popular support for their independence from England. People wouldn’t have picked up guns to fight for independence unless they got something out of it, and so they promised rich land owners that they could have a say in the government. That’s it.
Face facts, the US is not a democracy and it never was and it wasn’t intended to be.