slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

OUR DAMAGED DEMOCRACY by Joseph A. Califano Jr.

KIRKUS REVIEW

A Washington insider draws on decades of experience to deliver a blistering critique of the state of American government.

"I've never been so concerned about the destiny of our democracy," writes Califano Jr. (The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years, 2015, etc.), who has served in a wide variety of roles in the federal government. In simple, clear language, he sets out a catalog of readily recognizable woes that he contends have caused all three branches of government to lose their constitutional bearings and their capacity to provide coherent and unifying leadership. Among these are a relentless concentration of power in the presidency and an abandonment of responsibility by a "crippled and cowardly" Congress; the politicization of the federal courts, particularly the Supreme Court; the extent to which fundraising has usurped the energy of legislators; a loss of independence in the states; and a take-no-prisoners partisanship that has made cooperation and compromise all but impossible. Califano is doggedly bipartisan in his criticism, leaving no doubt that there is ample blame to go around for what are ultimately systemic faults that have been building for half a century. The author's concerns about the executive and legislative branches are particularly well-informed, persuasive, discouraging, and sometimes frightening; his discussions of the courts and such issues as gerrymandering and various political and cultural "fault lines" are less so. The situation Califano describes is so dire that his conclusion is disappointing. It appears that what "we the people”—a phrase he tiresomely overuses—must do is form ourselves into a better informed and thoughtful e*****rate, elect a better class of statesmen, and hold them firmly accountable. If he is right about that, then perhaps we are only getting the government we deserve.

A blunt diagnosis of how our federal government has run so badly off the rails that offers little realistic hope of reform.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Morgan

This sounds like a book worth reading. It is time for the people to step up and be more active, not allow an overstep of the president or congress. To stop this unbalance of power and elect people who are willing to work with people on the other side of the fence and put our country first, and get money the hell out of politics once and for all, stop greasing palms. Make it a bribery and illegal, let us get it done.

boofhead

First thing is to realize that this country is NOT a democracy. It is a Republic. A Democracy is Mobocracy and this system of government has never worked. When the takers can v**e themselves the productivity of those who do the work there is only one way we can go.

Getting back to the Constitution would be a great start to getting the bums thrown out and the country on the road to recovery.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Since I hear/read the argument all the time over whether the U.S. is a democracy or a republic, I offer this explanation...

By Eugene Volokh May 13, 2015

I often hear people argue that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. But that’s a false dichotomy. A common definition of “republic” is, to quote the American Heritage Dictionary, “A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to v**e for officers and representatives responsible to them” — we are that. A common definition of “democracy” is, “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives” — we are that, too.

The United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority v**e. Some lawmaking is done this way, on the state and local levels, but it’s only a tiny fraction of all lawmaking. But we are a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy.

And indeed the American form of government has been called a “democracy” by leading American statesmen and legal commentators from the Framing on. It’s true that some Framing-era commentators made arguments that distinguished “democracy” and “republic”; see, for instance, The Federalist (No. 10), though even that first draws the distinction between “pure democracy” and a “republic,” only later just saying “democracy.” But even in that era, “representative democracy” was understood as a form of democracy, alongside “pure democracy”: John Adams used the term “representative democracy” in 1794; so did Noah Webster in 1785; so did St. George Tucker in his 1803 edition of B****stone; so did Thomas Jefferson in 1815. Tucker’s B****stone likewise uses “democracy” to describe a representative democracy, even when the qualifier “representative” is omitted.

Likewise, James Wilson, one of the main drafters of the Constitution and one of the first Supreme Court Justices, defended the Constitution in 1787 by speaking of the three forms of government being the “monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical,” and said that in a democracy the sovereign power is “inherent in the people, and is either exercised by themselves or by their representatives.” And Chief Justice John Marshall — who helped lead the fight in the 1788 Virginia Convention for ratifying the U.S. Constitution — likewise defended the Constitution in that convention by describing it as implementing “democracy” (as opposed to “despotism”), and without the need to even add the qualifier “representative.”

To be sure, in addition to being a representative democracy, the United States is also a constitutional democracy, in which courts restrain in some measure the democratic will. And the United States is therefore also a constitutional republic. Indeed, the United States might be labeled a constitutional federal representative democracy. But where one word is used, with all the oversimplification that this necessary entails, “democracy” and “republic” both work. Indeed, since direct democracy — again, a government in which all or most laws are made by direct popular v**e — would be impractical given the number and complexity of laws that pretty much any state or national government is expected to enact, it’s unsurprising that the qualifier “representative” would often be omitted. Practically speaking, representative democracy is the only democracy that’s around at any state or national level.

Now one can certainly argue that some aspects of U.S. government should become less direct, and filtered through more layers of representation. One can argue, for instance, that the 17th Amendment should be repealed, and that U.S. senators should no longer be elected directly by the people, but should return to being elected by state legislators who are elected by the people. Or one can argue for repealing state- and local-level initiative and referendum schemes. Or one can argue for making the E*******l College into a deliberative body, in which the e*****rs are supposed to discuss the candidates and make various political deals, rather than being elected solely to v**e for particular candidates. And of course one can equally argue for making some aspects of U.S. government more direct, for instance by shifting to truly direct e******n of the president, or by institute a federal-level initiative and referendum.

But there is no basis for saying that the United States is somehow “not a democracy, but a republic.” “Democracy” and “republic” aren’t just words that a speaker can arbitrarily define to mean something (e.g., defining democracy as “a form of government in which all laws are made directly by the people”). They are terms that have been given meaning by English speakers more broadly. And both today and in the Framing era, “democracy” has been generally understood to include representative democracy as well as direct democracy.
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Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, copyright law, the law of government and religion, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy at UCLA Law School. Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Volokh is commonly described as politically conservative or libertarian. In 2012, one commentator described Volokh's politics as "soft libertarian," and Volokh as an "unpredictable libertarian-leaning" writer.

Morgan

Please spare me this old rhetoric, first off, am I the one who titled the book? Democracy is a broad term(tree) under which many forms(branches) of governments fall under, for example, a Federal Republic, sound familiar?

Another form of tyranny, is a one-party system which we are now under and the wants of the people can be completely ignored and overridden, for example, more than 70% of the people wanted to keep the ACA intact but make adjustments, they were ignored and the representatives whose pockets were lined by the insurance companies... WON and won big...for themselves. One most prevalent was Mitch Mc Donald who works for them.

I'm all for getting money grabbers(bums) thrown out and back onto the road of recovery.

Morgan

Well stated post and point my friend, you got this in while I was writing mine, yours more thorough with many good points. What the founders created is a great frame, it is our duty as citizens to keep it from being corrupted, that should be where our diligence lies, and it is in great need of it now. A one-party system I believe was the furthest from their mind and what they jointly would try and prevent if they were here to speak...JMO. A balanced congress should make attempts to create amendments to prevent the overreach of power from the president, which Trump has been finding ways to do.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Yes, it is a Republic and apparently we have no longer kept it, have we?

boofhead

In a Republic nobody can take away my rights. In a Democracy my rights are dependent on the majority and can be taken away any time.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

A Democracy is mob rule, rule by the majority. The founding fathers said it was a Republic and carefully designed it that way. Unfortunately in the Alice in Wonderland "a word shall mean what I say it means, nothing more, nothing less", and conservatives are N**is, and Islam is a religion of peace, and A****a and Black L***s M****r is a peace organization, anything goes. Right?

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

The following link provides the text from which the excerpt below is extracted. The last paragraph/quote from Justice Antonin Scalia is notable.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-many-virtues-of-scalias-speeches/article/2009931

"As for how judges should interpret the Constitution’s terms, Judge Antonin Scalia’s explanation of originalism makes the historical case that judges formerly interpreted the document in accordance with its original meaning, until the post-World War II era, when they unabashedly began to make new constitutional law un-moored from actual constitutional text. (True, there had always been judges willing to 'bend a text to their wishes,' Scalia concedes, 'but in earlier times they at least had the decency to lie about it, to pretend that they were saying what the unchanging Constitution required.')

One speech in the book is of special historical importance: a June 14, 1986, address to a Justice Department conference organized by Attorney General Edwin Meese. Two days after that speech, Scalia would meet privately with President Ronald Reagan to interview for a Supreme Court seat that (unbeknownst to the public) was about to be opened by the retirement of Chief Justice Warren Burger. The interview evidently went well: Reagan offered the job to Scalia on the spot and announced it the next day.

But the June 14 speech was more than an audition before the Justice Department. It offered an argument in favor of fundamentally refocusing originalism, to de-emphasize the “intent” of individual Founders and to emphasize instead the objective meaning of constitutional terms as they would have been best understood by the American people at the time that the particular constitutional provision became law. As the editors observe, the latter approach “soon became the dominant school of originalism—thanks in large part to Scalia’s indefatigable advocacy and to the powerful example of his opinions as a justice.”

Throughout his career, Scalia stressed that judges’ proper role in our constitutional system is crucial but limited: Courts should interpret the meaning of laws but the vast bulk of governance should be left to the people’s elected representatives. 'The American republic is a democracy,' Scalia says in a 2012 address, 'and the background rule of democracy is that the majority rules.' "
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And, IMO, as the above article by Mr. Volokh states, "...there is no basis for saying that the United States is somehow “not a democracy, but a republic.” “Democracy” and “republic” aren’t just words that a speaker can arbitrarily define to mean something (e.g., defining democracy as “a form of government in which all laws are made directly by the people”). They are terms that have been given meaning by English speakers more broadly. And both today and in the Framing era, “democracy” has been generally understood to include representative democracy as well as direct democracy."

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Also.....'Democracy' and 'Republic' Are Not Mutually Exclusive Terms

By Ilya Somin on October 28, 2013 http://volokh.com/2013/10/28/democracy-republic-mutually-exclusive-terms/

If you write about democratic theory, as I do, you will periodically get complaints that it is inaccurate to refer to the United States as a “democracy” because it is actually a “republic.” For example, several Facebook commenters and others have suggested that I should have titled my book Democracy and Political Ignorance (which focuses primarily on political ignorance in the United States) “The Republic and Political Ignorance” or something to that effect.

In the 18th century, “democracy” and “republic” were relatively distinct terms, with the former referring mainly to what we would today call “direct democracy,” of the sort practiced by the ancient Athenians. But today, the word “democracy” is routinely used to describe any government where all or most political leaders are chosen by popular e******n. Moreover, governments are regularly described as “democratic” even if they have a variety of constraints on the powers of elected officials, such as federalism, separation of powers, judicial review, and so on. By this definition, the United States surely qualifies as a democracy, even if it can also be called a “republic.” The two terms have become largely interchangeable, with the exception of the fact that a democracy that has a figurehead constitutional monarch as head of state will usually not be called a republic.

This is not a recent innovation. The terms were often used interchangeably, including in reference to the United States, by the mid-19th century. For example, Abraham Lincoln described the United States as “a constitutional republic, or a democracy—a government of the people, by the same people” in this 1861 message to Congress.

People who insist on a sharp distinction between “republic” and “democracy” may simply dislike modern usage and prefer a return to that of two hundred years ago. But if so, they should not claim – as they often do – that those who use the words in their modern sense are ignorant or incorrect. In this case, as in most others, correctness is determined primarily by usage rather than some “objective” definition of linguistic propriety. As used by most English-speakers today, “republic” and “democracy” are largely interchangeable terms.

Moreover, the whole republic vs. democracy debate is a rhetorical distraction from the substantive point that should really concern us: what constraints should there be on the power of v**ers and the officials they elect? That issue cannot be resolved by claiming that we are a “republic” rather than a “democracy.” Even if there is a substantive distinction between the two and the United States is clearly a republic and not a democracy, that says nothing about whether the constraints we currently impose on majoritarian institutions are too strong, too weak, or roughly correct.

Crayons Loc: St Jo, Texas

Well I'm gonna go simpleton on those who say this is a democracy.
There is not one democracy in the world that Stands for "God and Country";
Nor is there any country in the world that would allow you to say...and you can quote me.

Now Repeat after Me... ""I Pledge Allegiance To The F**g of the United States of America,
And To "THE REPUBLIC" For Which it Stands, ONE Nation Under GOD, Indivisible,
With Liberty n' Justice For ALL.""

Morgan

Excellent example slatt, how many presidents speeches can we find references to us being a democracy? With some reactions I've read on here against this point I now wonder if people are registered as Republicans in their sense of loyalty to the country? That's blowing my hair back right now LOL

Morgan

No? How else did Trump win?