Somewhere along the way our schools must have stopped teaching civics. After all, how else can one explain the fundamental lack of understanding of our American principles of government? On pretty much a daily basis I read an article or hear an interview in which a person demonstrates unbelievable ignorance of our Constitution and workings of the government.
As a perfect case in point, I refer you to an article entitled “What Ever Happened To Candidate Obama?” by Katha Pollitt. The article is little more than a rant about the President’s inability to get health care reform passed in a timely manner, but the most telling passage reads as follows:
“Thank you, founding fathers, for setting up the Senate so that white, rural, conservative states with the population of Staten Island get the same two senators each as multiethnic urban powerhouses like California and New York. That little gift to the slave states of 1788 continues its antidemocratic work today.”
After I read that I immediately rubbed my eyes and began to read it again. Surely I had either misread or misunderstood the intended meaning of the author’s words. But no, she had said just what I thought she had said, and I just sat there for a few seconds in wonder and disbelief. Was the author absent from Civics class on the day they covered the “balance of power” and the reason why the House and Senate were set up the way they were, or were those topics simply not taught? In either case, the result is shocking as evidenced by the passage quoted above.
In an effort to clear things up for Ms. Pollit and anyone else who might be confused about the reasoning behind the makeup of our federal government, here is a little remedial lesson in Civics…
The founding fathers realized that a pure democracy where every piece of legislation was voted either up or down by all of the country’s citizens would be no more effective at ensuring the equality and freedom of every citizen than a dictatorship. After all, the desire of the majority would always trump the rights of the minority, regardless of how ill advised or unfair the legislation might be. Don’t want blacks having equal access to public education or good jobs? Under a system of pure democracy, the white majority could simply vote to deny blacks access to those things. Problem solved!
The wise gentlemen who set up our great nation’s federal government realized that while democracy is a noble and worthy goal, a pure democracy would be devastating to the rights of those who aren’t in the majority. The same goes for rural states. Our founders also realized that legislation that benefits the citizens of large urban population centers can sometimes be quite unfair to those living out in the boonies. In a pure democracy, the wishes of the voters in the cities of New York or Houston alone could easily trump those of folks living in one of several sparsely populated states.
In order to add balance to government and protect the rights of the minority, power was divided equally among three separate entities: the President, the House of Representatives and the Senate. In order to give the more populated areas the extra clout they need to represent their interests in governing, the House of Representatives consists of a number of members from each state according to population. The more people that live in a given state, the more representatives (votes) that state has when the House gets ready to cast a vote. More people, more votes.
The makeup of the Senate however gives each and every state the same number of representatives (votes), regardless of population. The House and Senate balance each other out, ensuring that the more heavily populated states have a stronger voice in the lower chamber while their less populated rural counterparts have an equal voice in the Senate. Is this system perfect? Of course not. But the alternative of pure democracy would be worse by far.
So there you go Ms. Pollit. I don’t claim to be a scholar on government and politics, but I did attend my high school Civics classes. They do still offer those, right?
I thought everyone knew thiw. I guess not.