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A constitutional moment engaging the citizenry is urgently needed with respect to the system of government in the United States. In short, the citizenry should decide, as a people, whether to revert back to a federal system or to make the political consolidation that has ensued official. If the latter, Alexander Hamilton's suggestion that the states be districts of the US Government, whose energy he thought could not directly extend to the outer reaches of the empire (i.e., into the wilderness of states distant from the seat of the U.S. Government). This was Hamilton's view in the U.S. Constitutional Convention; his writings eventually published in The Federalist Papers were meant to sell the proposed constitution rather than to give his own proposal. His own view may have come to pass, though through incremental Congressional encroachment on the turf of the governments of the several states and concurring U.S. Supreme Court assuaging (or enabling) doctrines.  I submit that this process of change over many years has eventuated in a gap between the system of governance as it is and as it is to be constitutionally.  Whereas some people argue that we must revert back to the constitution following a "strict" construction, I believe we the people, as a people, should commence a constitutional moment of heightened attention and debate concerning whether we want centralized consolidation (i.e., no states), decentralized consolidation (i.e., states as districts), or federalism (which entails dual sovereignty and a balance of power between the general government and the governments of the states).  I believe the latter is the best suited for an inherently diverse empire-scale political union, but that the people reach a decision is the imporant point now.  For otherwise, we will continue to live a lie--to claim to be a federal system while actually being consolidated: essentially flying with miscalibrated instruments. 

Actually making a decision on the type of political system is better than having the system inadvertantly change as a byproduct of whatever issue is being legislated at the moment. If the latter habit continues, I suspect that the United States will continue along the trend of consolidation at the expense of the State governments, with Congress, the U.S. President, and the U.S. Supreme Court gaining more and more power without sufficient checks on their abuse of power.  Progressives could look back on Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court allowing President George W. Bush to essentially declare war on Iraq and command the forces, while conservatives could look back on "Obamacare" applying to every state. Being concerned about the government of the Union having too much power is or ought to be an American proclivity. So too, the need for a decision on what type of political system the United States should have bears on every citizen, regardless of party.  This is what a constitutional moment is, after all; the people itself rising to discuss the system of government itself without being distracted by partisan issues of the day. To be sure, such a moment requires self-discipline among the people and responsibility in the media, so to keep on topic.

I find myself wondering why I even make the arguments.  It would take so much energy and agreement just to get to a constitutional moment wherein the citizenry as a whole become engaged in revisiting the governance system itself.  We are so easily distracted, and do we, as a citizenry, really care whether our government is federal or consolidated?   It might be that most of the citizenry is ready to say good riddence to federalism.  If so, then so be it.  Let’s at least make a decision.  If we as a people are incapable of making such a decision, it might be asked whether we are capable of democracy itself. It would be ironic if we were preaching democracy to the Middle East while not embracing popular sovereignty here at home.

Announced in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on February 7, 2011, voters in the oil-producing south overwhelming chose to secede from the Arab north. According to the New York Times, 98.83 percent of the more than 3.8 million registered voters in the south chose to separate from the north. The referendum had been agreed to as part of the peace agreement in 2005, after two long and brutal civil wars between the Arab Muslim north and the mostly animist and Christian south. “Today we received these results and we accept and welcome these results because they represent the will of the southern people,” President Bashir said in a statement on state television, according to Reuters. In Washington, the White House released a statement by President Obama congratulating the people of south Sudan and announcing “the intention of the United States to formally recognize southern Sudan as a sovereign, independent state in July 2011.” The New York Times reported that actual independence would be declared on July 9, when the peace agreement that set the stage for the vote expired. In the meantime, issues regarding citizenship, oil-revenue rights and the contested and volatile region of Abyei would be settled.

Analysis:

The referendum is in line with the political principle that popular sovereignty (i.e., of the people) transcends the authority of governments. That is to say, people have the right to establish government (rather than vice versa). In this case, the southern Sudanese decided to form a new and separate state. The result of the vote, being almost unanimous, proffers an excellent snapshot of a will of the people.  Typically, this term is abused, such as when a candidate wins reelection by a margin of fifteen or twenty percentage points.  Receiving 65% of the vote does not represent the will of the people; rather, it is the will of a majority of the people. There is a difference. In the case of south Sudan, we can say with confidence that it was the people's will to separate. That is to say, the people spoke with one voice. How rare it is for there to be a will of the people; hence we treat the view of a bare majority as such--essentially over-generalizing.  Politicians typically do the same with mandates.

What is unclear from the referendum is how the people feel about waiting until July for actual independence.  To be sure, there are outstanding issues that need to be worked out, but is it really necessary for independence to wait for everything to be worked out; President Bashir has already announced that his government would recognize the independence of the south. The acceptance of July by the Obama administration is similar to that administration's decision at the time not to push President Mubarak of Egypt to step down before September when elections would be held even had there not been mass protests.  In short, government officials seem to be oriented to time in slow motion.

The Obama administration's announcement that it would recognize south Sudan as a sovereign and independent state might not seem fitting, as the new state would presumably be a new state in the African Union (AU).  However, that union, unlike the EU and US, is a confederation akin to an alliance wherein the states continue to hold all of the governmental sovereignty. In contrast to confederations such as the AU, modern federations divide governmental sovereignty between two systems of government--that of the federation and that of the state governments.  That the AU had not intervened in the internal discord in the Ivory Coast, Egypt and Sudan suggests that that union is simply a league of friendship, merely able to mediate if invited, as in Zimbabwe during the crisis between the President and prime minister. The feckless condition of the AU can also be seen in the fact that it took so long for south Sudan to even vote on independence in spite of the fact that it was the will of the people in south Sudan. Was it really necessary, for example, to wait until 2011 when the peace treaty was signed in 2005? A union with teeth might have been able to expedite things. Unlike the states of the EU and US, the typical state in the AU is run by a dictator rather than being a republic in fact as well as name. The American Founding Fathers believed that a federal system could only have republics as members; dictators would guard their power too much and thus be too inclined to break off. Unlike a dictator, government officials in a republic are used to sharing power, so ceding some sovereignty to an empire-scale federation is not so hard. However, it can be in the political or economic interest of even a Leviathan dictator to transfer some governmental sovereignty to a federal union. Specifically, a dictator may be expected to benefit from the economic and political gains that come from a united political front and a common market. Twenty percent of 100 is more than 100% of 10. A federation of non-republic states is thus possible.

In terms of south Sudan, the cost of a weak AU was having to suffer a snail's pace on the road to independence. To be sure, such a pace was in the interest of Sudan's government. However, issues are only intractable if they are seen as such, and the people in the south could have voted on a date as well as on whether to secede. The dissolution of the Soviet Union attests to how quickly polities can change.Just as it was not clear in Febrauary, 2011 that President Mubarak had to stay in office in Egypt for seven months in order for there to be order, it should not have been presumed that south Sudan had to wait until July. Even if top government officials are typically old people, governments need not move in slow motion. The dragged-out pace evinced by south Sudan's independence even after the overwhelming 99% voting to secede suggests that governmental time is not our time and that we, the people, can move the old clocks an hour ahead in keeping with the increasing daylight. Whereas the progress of the twentieth century was largely technoligical, in the twenty-first century the human race may reach a threshold of perception wherein the dogmatic or arbitrary nature of governments is finally seen for what it is, and exercise greater popular sovereignty to make our governments more responsive. As of 2011, a critical mass of perception had not yet occurred; hence it could not yet be said that the human race itself had reached a new sense of its power over its governments.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/world/africa/08sudan.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

A republic is characterized by the citizenry electing representatives, who in turn legislate (i.e., make law). As an alternative, the citizenry itself could vote directly on legislative proposals. The latter is called direct democracy. Ancient Athens, for example, practiced it. In the United States, the republic form is the prevalent form of government.  In spite of Wilson’s comment made in the constitutional convention that representation “is made necessary only because it is impossible for the people to act collectively,” direct democracy has typically limited to an occasional “referendum” question even though more vital questions could be put to the body politic directly. Typically, referendums have to do with elections (and thus with representative rather than direct democracy) or with general taxing or spending limits for a government. The rationale for putting general taxing or spending limits up for referendum is that they apply to a government as a whole—this perspective being from that of popular sovereignty (i.e., the citizenry, whose electoral power transcends their government). Rarely, an “issue” is put up to be decided directly by the voters. In 2010, for example, Californians decided on whether to legalize pot in California. I contend that many more matters of policy could be decided directly by the voters. Since the elected representatives represent the citizenry, the former should not be presumed as having the definitive right of such decision. Deciding on matters of general policy are primarily value-judgements, rather than requiring expertise.  Issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could—and I would argue should—be decided by the voters directly. Beyond issues, the voters could decide more general governance questions, such as whether federalism should be continued. Such a question could lead to more specific proposals at the next election. For example, if the majority of American voters want the US to be of federalism, representatives could work on not only constitutional amendments, but also proposals for the voters on which broad areas of power would be transferred back to the states (or the voters could be asked—assuming a majority still want federalism—whether X or Y areas of power should be transferred back to the States). Should elected representatives counter that we should not trust the people to make such decisions, I would argue that it is nonsensical for an agent to contend that his principal is somehow inferior to himself. In a representative democracy, the representatives are the agents of the people; it is not the other way around.

In short, I contend that popular sovereignty ought to be strengthened rather than vitiated. Elected representatives are best suited to working out the technical details rather than deciding broad questions of policy.  An election campaign is a bricollage of factors; it is rare for a victor to be able to claim a mandate on a particular issue. In fact, a representative may be elected for reasons having nothing to do with his or her positions on “the issues.” The midterm election of 2010, for example, could be informed by a mix of factors; it was not even clear whether people voting Republican, for example, were saying yes to that party’s platform or no to the previous two years of legislation (which was informed by both Democratic and Republican law-makers—neither party being able to enact its platform as given).  Even voters blaming the Democratic Party for the resulting legislation is not strictly speaking accurate, as compromises had to be made with Republicans.  So an election of representatives is a broad brush that cannot be divined as a mandate on particular issues.  Regarding particular policies—even foreign policy, such as whether the US Government should continue to support Israel—the only way to know if there is a mandate is to put the matters up for decision by the voters. Political parties could have a say on how the questions are worded so they are objective (or two versions could be provided). Courts would still be able to declare the resulting law unconstitutional, but even here constitutional amendment is possible.  Even in terms of amendments, the voters, rather than their constitutional delegates or state or federal representatives, could decide directly.  For example, the voters could decide whether US Senators should continue to be elected, or whether they should be appointed by the state governments or be the governors themselves (the US Senate being like the European Council of the E.U.). The voters could also decide whether abortion should be decided by the state or US courts, or directly by the voters—by state or US—as an amendment.

At the very least, basic decisions would be made that have been mired in disputes between governmental institutions and/or government officials. We are depending much too much on elected and appointed government officials to “make” policy. Ultimately, the will of the people should be freed up and exercised beyond the confines of simply electing representatives—being subject only to the judiciary protecting individual rights (which can be overruled by constitutional amendment, which can be of the people).  Sadly, those in power—the elected representatives—will naturally and ironically resist efforts to expand the will of the people. Because the election of a representative involves many elements, an elected representative could easily get around interpreting his or her victory as a mandate to expand the will of the people.  This is precisely part of the problem, and it maintains the monopoly of power that our elected representatives enjoy.  I suspect this is no accident. Hence I am not optimistic on any expansion of popular sovereignty any time soon.  Even so, I hope my thoughts here are thought-provoking. Although not the best person to cite, Richard Nixon pointed in one of his books to the need for political development: “In terms of material progress, the twentieth century has been the best in history, but in terms of political progress the record has been disappointing.”  (See Richard Nixon, 1999 Victory Without War, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, p. 16). What I am suggesting is that our political system is so antiquated that were it to develop as technology has, our use of elections could make quite a leap forward.  In spite of all the technological change, we tend to hold very rigidly to the way things have “always been done” in politics.  It is time for politics to catch up. In fact, the technological progress could facilitate the expansion of popular sovereignty.  For example, voters could surf the internet for information before voting on general policy areas. The challenge may well be in how to enable illiterate voters to be able to take part.  As one possibility, voters could vote at desks (as in a classroom) while a reader reads through the questions on the ballot. My point is that we can begin to think outside the box and shake loose our assumptions.

Source of Wilson quote: James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 74.

In the European singing contest/show in which Susan Boyle competed, she lost the top spot to a rap group of teenagers.  The general public could text in to vote.  The choice was not made by the three judges.  That one of the judges explicitly advocated for her after her final performance (just before the voting) was not sufficient to sway the majority of the votes cast by the public.  To be sure, there were non-music-related reasons to vote against her. For instance, the suggestive comments she made on stage just before her first performance, including, “I’m 48, and that’s not my other half” (accompanied by swinging her hips), were downright emetic, if not strange.  So it is possible that the voters put her personality above her excellent singing.  It is also possible that most of the callers (or most of votes, as people could text more than once) could have preferred rap music.

What I am getting to is this: a tension or outright contradiction can exist between meritocracy and democracy.  Plato and Aristotle both claim that there is a dark side to each system.  Meritocracy can slide into aristocracy and democracy into government by selfish and uninformed mob.  What struck me about the results of the singing contest was that the rap singing wasn’t good singing. The teenagers seemed to be playing around, their performance being more about dancing than singing.   It was not a dancing contest.  The voters could use any reason (or none) in deciding who to vote for.  Furthermore, it can be safely assumed that most voters were not experts on what makes good singing.  They were not trained to separate their own tastes from a critical perspective focusing on the voice.  The judges presumably could do that, but they were relegated to making their views known—views that the voters could ignore without any imprecation.
In a representative democracy, popular election is held to be the best political decision-making device regarding choosing representatives because the government is supposed to be for the people.  It is not that the people will necessarily make the best decisions, even where their own interest is concerned.  The US and EU relish popular election, yet both governmental systems contain safeguards, or checks, on it by having various lengths of terms and some officials appointed rather than elected.  Yet popular election is generally regarded as sacred in both Unions and in their respective states.    But not so fast.  This is not absolute.
In the case of Susan Boyle, a good case could be made that the three judges should have decided who won because they had greater expertise concerning singing.  Or take movies: I would wager that the Oscars, whose awards are determined by members (i.e., people who have expertise in the various fields of filmmaking), is more esteemed than are the People’s Choice Awards.  I would argue that the results of the Oscars are more credible and accurate because expertise is not chucked for a flavor of the month.  For instance, in the 2010 Oscars, Hurt Locker beat Avitar for Best Director and Best Picture.  Hurt Locker was largely an Indie (i.e., on the fringes) film, whereas Avitar broke box office records and was no doubt more popular with the general public.  The Academy members were able to weight improved 3D effects, story and direction without allowing the technical dazzle to overshadow the latter two, which are very important to an excellent picture.  The most popular film is not necessarily the best.  Of course, Academy voting is not perfect.  The 5000 plus membership may be sufficiently small that cronyism or, its opposite, grudges, may play a role.  Avitar’s Cameron is apparently not the most-liked man in Hollywood, but on the other hand so many techies worked on his movie that he had his own voting bloc.  I suspect that both of these were factors, but were not determinative.  I must admit that I saw a television clip a few months before the 2010 Oscars showing Cameron being very rude to a fan who simply wanted an autograph at LAX. So I was rooting for his ex-wife and her movie.  No selection process, or person for that matter, is perfect.

My point is that in watching Susan Boyle as well as the Oscars, I would not be surprised if there were not a general recognition in society that there are drawbacks to popular election, such that it is not necessarily the best method in every case (even in terms of selecting government officials).  I am not arguing for a society ruled by philsopher kings or judges, or, moreover, by an elite (even though I suspect this is already the case).  Rather, I am arguing that maybe we don’t esteem popular election as much as we think. Ignoring our reservations has caused problems in the past.

Most notably, we have eviscerated the check that was to have been made by the Electoral College in the selection of a US President.  A charismatic, though vastly inferior, candidate can be elected if he appeals to the passions of the moment being enjoyed by the general public.  We can’t even be sure that winner was elected on the basis of one of his positions.  For example, we can’t assume that Barak Obama was elected US President because he was advocating government subsidies on the uninsured (health).   The President of the EU is selected by a body comparable to what the US Senate was until 1913 (i.e., before its members were popularly elected).  When the first EU President was appointed (or elected) in 2009, some Europeans criticized the lack of democracy in the process.  “The people had no voice!” one person claimed.  Well, the people did have a voice because they elected all of the people who made the decision.  In fact, electing a state-level official is closer to the people because the electorate is smaller.   The cases of Susan Boyle losing at the European “Idol” show and Avitar losing at the Oscars suggests that having a buffer on a popular election is perhaps not a bad idea.  Too much democracy by popular election in a system of government has its downside.  To be sure, popular election does have value. It can be used to hold officials accountable when unelected officials would let them remain in office.

Perhaps a good solution would be  to look back at the Electoral College and understand why the Founders wanted a such a buffer.  It wasn’t until after the 1860s that in every state the people elected their respective state’s electors.  Andrew Jackson has urged that the people choose the US President back in 1828, and the contagion spread so much that the people of the American republics felt entitled to directly determine the President of the Union.   In 1913, a constitutional amendment was ratified whereby US Senators had to be directly elected by the people (at the cost of directly representing their state governments in the General Government). Today, the US Supreme Court is the only branch of the US Government not directly choosen by the American people. Originally, the US House was the only body in the US Government designed for popular election because it was supposed to reflect the immediate passions of the people (hence the short term of two years).   The US Senate was meant to be a buffer on the passions of the moment, as well as to protect the turf of the state governments against usurption by the General Government of the Union.  The US President was meant to protect the long-term viability of the Union (which hardly best served by polls).
It is perhaps no accident, kein Zufall, that the long-term viability of the Union gets short-changed for what is expedient—and that this game is now played mostly in Washington.  Blinded by the allure of popular election, we can’t have enough of it and we have adjusted our institutions accordingly.  Yet at the same time, we take the Oscars as the default and hardly pay attention to the People’s Choice Awards.  In short, we have one hell of a blindspot going on here.

So I suggest that we have annual elections for the US House (as had been suggested in the convention, but for the hardships of travel in 1786).  Further, as the appointment of US Senators was rift with corruption when the state governments did it, why not fashion the Senate on the example of the European Council?  The sitting governors themselves would periodically meet (regular summits, as they do represent semi-sovereign governments…just like the US Government itself is semi-sovereign).   That leaves the US President and the people’s entitlement.  A continent-wide election puts the candidates very far from their electors, which means a very imperfect selection (more of a popularity contest, actually).  We must bite the bullet and buffer ourselves from ourselves.  This is perhaps the hardest thing for the American people to do—we are really so arrogant concerning ourselves.  We think we can’t be wrong.  How squalid that is!  How ugly!   I would rather see Susan Boyle fully displayed in Playboy than gaze upon this attitude.  Yes, I am a native (American)—no, not an Indian. I was born and bread in the heartland, yet I can smell the air and look around me—the human pollution being palpable.   Concerning selecting a President for the Union, the trouble in creating a buffer from excessive democracy is in avoiding corruption.  I was going to suggest having both the state governments vote in one body and the people in another and where the same candidate is not chosen through the election to the US House (each state having one vote).  But this is too complicated.   As we are  Union of States and the latter have been marginalized, perhaps the US President ought to be selected by the state governments.   Perhaps the governors could nominate a candidate and the senates confirm.  The states’ executives would begin the process whereby the Union’s executive is selected, and the confirmation would be a check against corruption between a candidate and a governor.   It would give the people an added reason to pay attention to their senate races. That the people elect their governor and state senators means there would be a link to democracy.   Contrary to a continental popular election, the governors and even the state senators could have a greater opportunity to meet the candidates and thus make a better judgment, at least in removing any real losers whose marketing could nonetheless say the people.   Considering that some candidates come out of nowhere, getting to know them is important.  Consider Carter in 1976 (virtually unknown nationwide before the primaries), or Obama in 2008.  It is risky to elect people we have just met on the basis of televised debates and commercials.

If we ignore the problem of excess democracy in the presumption that we can’t be wrong, we will risk repeating on a grander scale the sort of election outcome that went against Susan Boyle.   She may not be the best looking woman, but is that really relevant to listening to her voice?  The most votes is not necessarily indicative of the best.  Ironically, in proffering an alternative that moderates the popular election element, I am asking us to rise to our best.

For the drawbacks in the Oscars voting, pls see: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1970502-1,00.html

A republic is characterized by the citizenry electing representatives, who in turn legislate (i.e., make law). As an alternative, the citizenry itself could vote directly on legislative proposals. The latter is called direct democracy. Ancient Athens, for example, practiced it. In the United States, the republic form is the prevalent form of government.  In spite of Wilson’s comment made in the constitutional convention that representation “is made necessary only because it is impossible for the people to act collectively,” direct democracy has typically limited to an occasional “referendum” question even though more vital questions could be put to the body politic directly. Typically, referendums have to do with elections (and thus with representative rather than direct democracy) or with general taxing or spending limits for a government. The rationale for putting general taxing or spending limits up for referendum is that they apply to a government as a whole—this perspective being from that of popular sovereignty (i.e., the citizenry, whose electoral power transcends their government). Rarely, an “issue” is put up to be decided directly by the voters. In 2010, for example, Californians decided on whether to legalize pot in California. I contend that many more matters of policy could be decided directly by the voters. Since the elected representatives represent the citizenry, the former should not be presumed as having the definitive right of such decision. Deciding on matters of general policy are primarily value-judgements, rather than requiring expertise.  Issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could—and I would argue should—be decided by the voters directly. Beyond issues, the voters could decide more general governance questions, such as whether federalism should be continued. Such a question could lead to more specific proposals at the next election. For example, if the majority of American voters want the US to be of federalism, representatives could work on not only constitutional amendments, but also proposals for the voters on which broad areas of power would be transferred back to the states (or the voters could be asked—assuming a majority still want federalism—whether X or Y areas of power should be transferred back to the States). Should elected representatives counter that we should not trust the people to make such decisions, I would argue that it is nonsensical for an agent to contend that his principal is somehow inferior to himself. In a representative democracy, the representatives are the agents of the people; it is not the other way around.

In short, I contend that popular sovereignty ought to be strengthened rather than vitiated. Elected representatives are best suited to working out the technical details rather than deciding broad questions of policy.  An election campaign is a bricollage of factors; it is rare for a victor to be able to claim a mandate on a particular issue. In fact, a representative may be elected for reasons having nothing to do with his or her positions on “the issues.” The midterm election of 2010, for example, could be informed by a mix of factors; it was not even clear whether people voting Republican, for example, were saying yes to that party’s platform or no to the previous two years of legislation (which was informed by both Democratic and Republican law-makers—neither party being able to enact its platform as given).  Even voters blaming the Democratic Party for the resulting legislation is not strictly speaking accurate, as compromises had to be made with Republicans.  So an election of representatives is a broad brush that cannot be divined as a mandate on particular issues.  Regarding particular policies—even foreign policy, such as whether the US Government should continue to support Israel—the only way to know if there is a mandate is to put the matters up for decision by the voters. Political parties could have a say on how the questions are worded so they are objective (or two versions could be provided). Courts would still be able to declare the resulting law unconstitutional, but even here constitutional amendment is possible.  Even in terms of amendments, the voters, rather than their constitutional delegates or state or federal representatives, could decide directly.  For example, the voters could decide whether US Senators should continue to be elected, or whether they should be appointed by the state governments or be the governors themselves (the US Senate being like the European Council of the E.U.). The voters could also decide whether abortion should be decided by the state or US courts, or directly by the voters—by state or US—as an amendment.

At the very least, basic decisions would be made that have been mired in disputes between governmental institutions and/or government officials. We are depending much too much on elected and appointed government officials to “make” policy. Ultimately, the will of the people should be freed up and exercised beyond the confines of simply electing representatives—being subject only to the judiciary protecting individual rights (which can be overruled by constitutional amendment, which can be of the people).  Sadly, those in power—the elected representatives—will naturally and ironically resist efforts to expand the will of the people. Because the election of a representative involves many elements, an elected representative could easily get around interpreting his or her victory as a mandate to expand the will of the people.  This is precisely part of the problem, and it maintains the monopoly of power that our elected representatives enjoy.  I suspect this is no accident. Hence I am not optimistic on any expansion of popular sovereignty any time soon.  Even so, I hope my thoughts here are thought-provoking. Although not the best person to cite, Richard Nixon pointed in one of his books to the need for political development: “In terms of material progress, the twentieth century has been the best in history, but in terms of political progress the record has been disappointing.”  (See Richard Nixon, 1999 Victory Without War, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, p. 16). What I am suggesting is that our political system is so antiquated that were it to develop as technology has, our use of elections could make quite a leap forward.  In spite of all the technological change, we tend to hold very rigidly to the way things have “always been done” in politics.  It is time for politics to catch up. In fact, the technological progress could facilitate the expansion of popular sovereignty.  For example, voters could surf the internet for information before voting on general policy areas. The challenge may well be in how to enable illiterate voters to be able to take part.  As one possibility, voters could vote at desks (as in a classroom) while a reader reads through the questions on the ballot. My point is that we can begin to think outside the box and shake loose our assumptions.

Source of Wilson quote: James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 74.

On January 12, 2011, President Obama spoke at the memorial service for the fallen victims of the assasination attempt on Rep. Giffords. “What we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other,” the President said. “That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility.” Had we really been turning on each other? It is as though a bystander had pointed out to two people arguing that they were indeed shouting.  "Were we really shouting?" one might ask the observer in astonishment--to which the observer would nod and add, "You guys might try a bit of humility," rather than, as the President observed, "pointing fingers or assigning blame.”  The night after the President's speech, I watched Karen Armstrong, the former nun and author of <i></i>History of God<i></i> and other books, on <i></i>Charlie Rose<i></i>. She pointed out that discussion in which others' motives are presumed and impugned involve a certain arrogance.  Each of us is a mystery to ourselves, she added.  How can we be so sure of the other partisan's motives?  Along a line similar to Armstrong's point, President Obama continued in his speech, “let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Empathy and humility are attributes antipodal to anger and pride. How often are the former two invoked in political discourse? How often are two partisans reminded that they have been turning on each other, in effect?  Are Americans really turning on each other?  Is the house so divided and so acrimonious?  It could indeed be that we, the American people, have allowed ourselves to be unwittingly drawn into a fight in which the pundits on television and radio benefit attentionwise and financially from the escalation. I do not believe that we are a warring people intrinsically, though we do seem to be vulnerable to artful and manipulatory public figures.  Perhaps we are too readily inclined to engage in hero worship.  Indeed, there could have been some of that involved in the 2008 Presidential election. We do tend not always to rise to the occasion in managing or resolving real differences, whether in campaigns or in voting. Popular sovereignty, our Founders averred, relies on a virtuous and informed electorate. This involves the citizens feeling a sufficient civic duty to take a serious look at real differences and make a solid decision on election day that reflects their own respective political and moral ideologies. To be sure, fundamental differences do exist.

Paul Krugman, for example, points to a "deep divide in American political morality," in which he believes there is "no middle ground." He takes the health reform law passed in 2010 as a case in point. "One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose." This difference can perhaps be characterized as pitting a moral imperative of a right to life in terms of survival (and the immorality of selfishness) against the moral imperative of property rights (and the immorality of theft via high taxes).  It is no wonder that tempers flaired in the debate amid such emotionally-charged language. Politics involves conflict over things that people hold dear--their values and beliefs. Representative democracy has the beneficial feature whereby relatively cool representatives debate and decide such policy. How quickly the Rights of Man became savage mobs in Paris in 1792. Does liberty translate into a mass of people, out of control and rushing into a prison to disembowel priests and slice limbs off aristocrats? Political discourse can be much worse than that to which President Obama had in mind when he characterized the American people as having been turning on each other. The extent of the "deep divide" in America can, with the aid of human nature, issue in violence, but this need not be, and I contend that we are a too peaceful a people to be led so astray by our passions abetted by media personalities and demogogues.  We may be making it more difficult on ourselves by willowing practically all public policy through the federal government.

We do have fifty republics we can draw on to have the sort of diversity of policy that could reduce the pressure on us to resolve the deep divide into one size as if one way could fit all. However, this solution would require tolerance. Burgess avers that there "is an important moral dimension to federalism, as it is all about toleration, mutual respect, and equality of partnership, amongst other principles." (Burgess, p. 70) For example, people in Idaho who not want government mandated health-care coverage must be willing to tolerate Massachusetts's mandate (and subsidies), and vice versa. With empathy and humility can come tolerance. We are doing pretty well with religious tolerance, at least relative to historical instances of persecutions. In the seventeenth century, for example, four Quakers were burnt in New England--ostensibly for refusing to pay a church-tax that would go to a church they did not support. In the case of the contemporary uncivil public discourse, perhaps it would help to recognize that one size does not fit all in an empire-scale union--that ironically unum is strengthened precisely by tolerating more pluribus. I suspect this point has been lost on Americans since the founding. We should not be surprised that there are substantial differences in a country that stretches across a continent and then some. In European terms, we are a union of nations--our states are equivalent in scale and political type (i.e., semi-sovereign political units of a union) to their countries. Accordingly, I contend that the U.S. Government ought to start dealing with those countries at the E.U. level.

In short, perhaps we have turned on each other because we have forgotten what we--the United States--are. Having lost sight of our polities, we have unwittingly suffered our differences to fit into the narrow funnel of uniformity, which we assume is requisite for unity. According to Burgess, “the formal organization of human relations [undergirding federal systems] must be founded upon ‘diversity’ as its cardinal principle. Consequently, we require unity but not uniformity.” (Burgess, p. 68)  This is especially applicable where the federal system is on an empire-level. In effect, we have forgotten the meaning of e pluribus unum; we have lost touch with what we are. Perhaps our angry public discourse is in part an eruption of our own subterranean angst, whose existential source is simply a hazy sense of being lost or adrift in some way. One cannot but be lost if one has forgotten what one is. We have forgotten that we, the U.S., are a union of republics that are commensurate to European countries.  Sandra Day O'Conner once remarked at a small group setting, "Congress is acting like a state legislature." Evidently, Congress had forgotten what it is. If a person or group of people lose touch with what they intrinsically are, it likely won't be long before the unsteered ship runs up against a reef. So it is only natural to feel a sense of angst while adrift without a sense of what one is. The tenor of our public discourse is merely a symptom. The question is whether we will treat it as such and dive deeper to get at the real problem, which lies in our own lack of understanding of what we are.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1&hp
Burgess, Michael, “Federalism and federation,” in European Union Politics, Michelle Cini, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 65-79.