Monday, September 9, 2019

Crazy and Improper

Every day I think that the Democrats must have reached their limit on crazy ideas.

However, another day passes and it just gets crazier.

As I have written before, one of the favorite targets of the Democrats is the electoral college. It just frustrates them to no end that they have to convince voters in states beyond California and New York to support their agenda in order to be elected President.

A majority of the Democrats in the Presidential field are on record as favoring the abolition of the electoral college. This includes Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro. Predictably, Kamala Harris has straddled the issue as has Amy Klobuchar. No one seems to know where Joe Biden is on the issue. That is also no surprise.

The Left's criticism of the electoral college reached new levels of craziness recently when Chris Hayes argued on MSNBC that the electoral college would be unconstitutional if it was not in the Constitution.

Yes, you would read that right. This is the direct quote from his show.




"The weirdest thing about the Electoral College is the fact that if it wasn't specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional."

No doubt that is the same way the Democrats feel about the right to free speech, religion and the right to bear arms.

Why did those darn Founders have to be so specific? 

Of course, there was one right the Founders were naive about and must have thought they did not have to be so specific about----"the right to life".

They must have assumed that no one would ever question that most basic right. How wrong they were.

Bernie Sanders was also at it last week in declaring that (beyond forgiving all student loan debt) he also wants to abolish all existing medical debt.

Sen. Bernie Sanders announced late Friday that he plans to eliminate billions in medical debt, hinting at a proposal the 2020 presidential Democratic candidate's campaign has yet to release in full. 
The plan, which the Sanders campaign says would cancel $81 billion in existing past-due medical debt and make changes to the 2005 bankruptcy bill, is not expected to be released in its entirety for another month.

You have to ask what is next? What else can we forgive? Mortgages, credit card or auto loan debt?

 Of course, as always, left unsaid is who is going to pay for all of this?

Seeing all of this craziness I could not help but think again about our Founders and what their reaction would be to all of this.

Trust me, they would not be calling it crazy.

They would be calling it "Wicked" and "Improper".

How do I know?

The Federalist Papers were written to explain the theories, rationale and reasoning behind the Constitution.

What is truly amazing in reading the Federalist Papers is how well our Founders understood human nature and the efforts they took to provide safeguards in the Constitution against human fallibilities and foibles.

One of the bedrock principles underlying the drafting of the U.S. Constitution was to do everything possible to safeguard the union against possible domestic division and rebellion.

The Founders understood that opposing political factions were the greatest potential threat to any government and that in many governments the only redress was violence.  They wanted to insure that factions could not wield power that would be dangerous to either the rights of other citizens or the common good.

They also knew that there was little they could do to prevent factions from occurring.  That could only be done by limiting liberties or insuring every citizen has the same opinions, feelings and the same interests. Neither was acceptable to the Founders.

They had no interest in preventing the causes, which is what Communist and Totalitarian governments do. They focused on controlling the effects of factions. Thus, they constructed a republican governmental framework with an ultimate goal of securing both the public good and private rights against the dangers of an oppressive majority faction. Everything in the Constitution was built on this foundational principle.

This is one of the reasons we have an electoral college. It is also why the Constitution originally did not provide for the direct election of Senators. Our Founders were wary of a pure democracy which could trample the rights of minorities.

James Madison in Federalist Paper #10 also enumerated those things that were most likely to result in the development of dangerous factions that government (and the people) should be protected against.

Madison called them "Improper or Wicked Projects". It could not be much clearer what the Founders thought of these potential risks and the need to avoid them at all costs because of the danger they posed to the nation at large.

What were some of these these Improper or Wicked Projects?

1. A rage for paper money (exactly what the Federal Reserve did with Quantitative Easing and is being done again around the world with low (and negative interest rates) engineered by Central Bankers.

Notice that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and many Democrats now are also arguing that we can just print all the money that is needed for the Green New Deal or other proposals they favor.


2. A rage for the abolition of debts (what was done to the detriment of secured creditors of automakers in favor of the unions under the Obama administration)

Notice that Bernie Sanders and many Democrats think student loans should be forgiven. Sanders now wants to do the same with medical debts.


3. A rage for an equal division of property (the foundational principle of socialism that includes redistribution of wealth from rich to poor).

Notice that many Democrats support a 70% top income tax rate and increase in the estate tax. Warren has proposed a wealth tax as well.

These are the actual words in Federalist #10 regarding those improper and wicked projects and why the Founders designed the republican government they did rather than a pure democracy.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.

There is no mistaking what the Founders would think about these crazy ideas.

In fact, their words are stronger than mine. Consider the words they used.

RAGE.

WICKED.

IMPROPER.

Is that specific enough to know exactly what the people who wrote the Constitution would think about what the Democrats are selling?

Notice as well that the Founders fully understood we could have some factious leaders and crazy ideas in particular states (California? New York?). They also understood that we might see religious sects degenerate into a political faction in some places (Ilhan Omar in Minnesota? Rashida Tlaib in Michigan?). However, the electoral college and the republican form or government was designed to insure that these factions could not control the whole.

Is it any wonder that the Democrats seek to diminish the Founders and denigrate the Constitution every chance they get?

The Founders had their number before they even existed.

5 comments:

  1. In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.

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  2. Trump in June 2019 – Fox News interview
    “It’s always tougher for the Republican because, . . . the Electoral College is very much steered to the Democrats. It’s a big advantage for the Democrats. It’s very much harder for the Republicans to win.”

    Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
    “I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
    “I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

    Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
    “I would rather have a popular vote. “

    Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
    “ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”

    In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
    "The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

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  3. 5,187,019 Californians live in rural areas.
    1,366,760 New Yorkers live in rural areas.

    Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws for awarding electors, minority party voters in the states don’t matter.

    California and New York state together would not dominate the choice of President under National Popular Vote because there is an equally populous group of Republican states (with 58 million people) that gave Trump a similar percentage of their vote (60%) and a similar popular-vote margin (6 million).

    In 2016, New York state and California Democrats together cast 9.7% of the total national popular vote.

    California & New York state account for 16.7% of the voting-eligible population

    Alone, they could not determine the presidency.

    In total New York state and California cast 16% of the total national popular vote

    In total, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania cast 18% of the total national popular vote.
    Trump won those states.

    The vote margin in California and New York wouldn't have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 60 million votes she received in other states.

    In 2004, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

    New York state and California together cast 15.7% of the national popular vote in 2012.
    About 62% Democratic in CA, and 64% in NY.

    New York and California have 15.6% of Electoral College votes. Now that proportion is all reliably Democratic.

    Under a popular-vote system CA and NY would have less weight than under the current system because their popular votes would be diluted among candidates.

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  4. [The] difference between a democracy and a republic [is] the delegation of the government, the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest."
    In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."- Madison

    Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.

    Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.

    Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.

    Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. It is not rule by referendum.

    We would not be doing away with the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc.

    The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.

    The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes

    The National Popular Vote bill is 73% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

    The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

    Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.

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  5. Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN).

    Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”

    Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill

    In 2017, Saul Anuzis and Michael Steele, the former chairmen of the Michigan and national Republican parties, wrote that the National Popular Vote bill was “an idea whose time has come”.

    On March 7, 2019, the Delaware Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill in a bi-partisan 14-7 vote

    In 2018, the National Popular Vote bill in the Michigan Senate was sponsored by a bipartisan group of 25 of the 38 Michigan senators, including 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

    The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

    In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
    Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
    In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.

    In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.

    In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill

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