Sunday, October 7, 2018

Been a long time...

It's been a while since I last posted anything here, but I wanted to share a post that I made on Facebook.

"NBC reporter Ken Dilanian tweeted on Sunday that states with varying population sizes should not get the same representation in the U.S. Senate.
Dilanian suggested in his tweet that it was unfair that Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday, quoting a Washington Post article that said, “Senators representing less than half the U.S. are about to confirm a nominee opposed by most Americans.”
Dear Mr. Dilanian,
Those smart men who wrote the Constitution would today call that a "feature" not a "bug". Our REPUBLIC (not democracy) was created to "restrain the mob" by dividing powers not only among the three branches of government, but between the federal government and the states. If you will educate yourself, these are called "separation of powers" and "federalism" respectively. It is not (and should not be) possible for the people of 2 or three states (California, New York, Illinois) to dictate political preferences to everyone in the United States.
If anything, what we see in the latest fiasco, is the failure of the 17th amendment. The writers of the Constitution envisioned the Senate as a place relatively free of politics with senators elected by state legislatures to represent the states interests in Washington. By allowing for the election of Senators, the amendment made the Senate just as political as the House. By the way, without the 17th amendment, there would be 62 Republican Senators.
The trouble lies in this failure, and the 17th amendment should be repealed.
So, please stop with all the whining about "fair". I tell my students that the fair comes once a year. Let us concern ourselves with what is JUST and CONSTITUTIONAL. If our media members are really so ignorant of our Constitution, it comes as no surprise to me that the majority of our citizens are also.