BNN provides English-language US and world news, analysis and opinion from all over the Internet. We strive for high standards, ethical behavior, and the presentation of multiple responsible points of view.
|
Get More Traffic For Your Blog! Blog Explosion brings hundreds of interested visitors to your blog - without costing you a cent. BNN News Archive Page |
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Here Goes Nothing: Scrapping The Electoral College Sen. Bayh defended his policy prescription thus: I think our president should be chosen by the majority of the American people. That is ordinarily the case. But in 2000, as we all recall, we elected this president with fewer votes than the other candidate got. I just don't think in the modern era that is appropriate.Diction, Senator, word choice. You think our president must be chosen by the majority of the American people -- er, voters. How long until you think, like the British, that voting ought to be compulsory? One would expect that Bayh's position should become an article of faith among Democrats, whose enthusiasm to junk the College might have been dimmed or even snuffed had Gore earned an additional hundred or so votes. But he didn't, which is another thing Sen. Bayh probably agrees was not appropriate in this modern era. And that's the extent of his logic in setting gunsights on the Electoral College. It's true, unfortunately, that the sovereignty of the sovereign states that created the USA is at a rather low ebb, and, worse, that most people are so used to this that some (worst of all) don't even want the states to have any real sovereignty. Now is not the place to get in a twist about states' rights and the rule of law, even immoral law. But the College is as key a component of federalism as any. Without it, states are absolutely irrelevant to voting patterns, and their power as sovereign entities -- as entities with political power, in other words -- disappears. Fine! Good riddance! All state sovereignty managed to do was institutionalize racism! -- Wait. There is yet at least one Democrat who understands the significance, the legitimacy, and the power of regionalism that predate national sovereignty. Joe Biden wants to "maintain a united [country] by decentralizing it, giving each [state] ... room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests." Genius! Only Biden said "Iraq," not country, and "ethno-religious group," not state. If Biden's case for "decentralizing" Iraq is a good one, it's an even better one for the USA, where sovereign states that do not owe their power to Washington, but rather share it, also own the wisely institutionalized Constitutional authority to vote for federal officeholders by means of electors. And if Biden's case is a bad one, it's because Iraq's "ethno-religious groups" have legitimacy problems in all the way American states do not: (1) exclusivity, that condition whereby no part of California, for example, is also Nevada; (2) equality, that condition whereby no state of the union, for example, enjoyed quasi-sovereignty under a decade of UN-sponsored protection while other states went unrecognized; and (3) politicality itself, that condition wherein Iowa, for example, does not embody an exclusively ethnic or religious character, but rather is a purely political unit meant to afford power to the political interests of its residents. The Electoral College seems archaic and outdated, in large part because the voting outcomes it produces so rarely fall out of accord with those of the majority voting public. But chucking it out because it's useless when it does nothing and worse than useless when it does something erodes the basis of state sovereignty and federalism itself. To take such a precipitious step requires a stronger argument than mere unfashionability. Alas, Sen. Bayh, there isn't one. James G. Poulos is the Postmodern Conservative. Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by James G. Poulos at 8:09 AM |
Subscribe to BNN and get a daily bulletin of all our news postings. Interested in writing for BNN? Want information on our news service? Contact The Editor Writing for BNN BNN Editorial Policies Previous Posts
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home