Learn To Love Gridlock For Your Freedom

"Why do you think America is such a free country?" " What is it in our Constitution that makes us what we are?"

These are questions that Supreme Court Antonin Scalia often asks audiences.  He almost never gets the right answer.  Most think that it is the individual freedoms in our Bill of Rights that sets us apart.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Scalia recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the "Role of Judges Under The Constitution of the United States" that was reported by Hot Air

“If you think a bill of rights is what sets us apart, you’re crazy.” Every banana republic in the world has a bill of rights. Every president for life has a bill of rights. The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours. I mean it. Literally, it was much better. We guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. Big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff! 

Of course, it’s just words on paper, what our Framers would have called a “parchment guarantee.” And the reason is that the real constitution of the Soviet Union — you think of the word “constitution” — it doesn’t mean “bill” it means “structure”: [when] you say a person has a good constitution you mean a sound structure. The real constitution of the Soviet Union *** that constitution did not prevent the centralization of power in one person or in one party. And when that happens, the game is over, the Bill of Rights is just what our Framers would call a “parchment guarantee.”

Scalia sees our uniqueness as centered on the system of government that our Founding Fathers established rather than in the individual rights we have.   As I wrote in my blog post, "It Was Ugly. It Was Supposed To Be Ugly." , the Founders had a deep distrust of centralized power, especially if it was used to take advantage of minorities.  They believed in gradual change and consensus rather than radical changes.  Everything was set up to make sure we avoided the excesses of government oppression.

The real key to the distinctiveness of America is the structure of our govenment. One part of it, of course, is the independence of the judiciary, but there’s a lot more. There are very few countries in the world, for example, that have a bicameral legislature. England has a House of Lords, for the time being, but the House of Lords has no substantial power; they can just make the [House of] Commons pass a bill a second time. France has a senate; it’s honorific. Italy has a senate; it’s honorific. Very few countries have two separate bodies in the legislature equally powerful. That’s a lot of trouble, as you gentlemen doubtless know, to get the same language through two different bodies elected in a different fashion.

The bottom line from Scalia-"Learn to love the gridlock" for it tells us the system is working exactly as it should.  If we get to the point where we don't have gridlock we should be at a point where there is a real national consensus.  We clearly are not there yet when you see Occupiers on Wall Street one day and Tea Party rallies the next.

Unless Americans can appreciate that and learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love the gridlock which the Framers believed would be the main protector of minorities, [we lose] the main protection. If a bill is about to pass that really comes down hard on some minority [and] they think it’s terribly unfair, it doesn’t take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system. Americans should appreciate that; they should learn to love the gridlock. It’s there so the legislation that does get out is good legislation.

 Of course, as Hot Air points out, the complaints about our current system almost always come from the progressives and liberals.   They often argue we need a parliamentarian system like Europe or, in the case of Governor Beverly Perdue (D-NC), we should just suspend elections altogether.

When they don’t get their way (usually some version of Euro-socialism), their solution is to radically alter our system of government, rather than to make better arguments or listen to their fellow citizens. Even Alexander Hamilton would shudder.