Changing the Constitution, Part 1
Grim’s Hall has a longish piece on reforming the Federal government that you should read. I agree in part and disagree in part, to wit:
His take on the Federal courts is accurate, but misses some points. There is a serious problem when courts wholly disregard parts of the Constitution entirely, such as the takings clause in Kelo vs. New London. He points out that
Unlike the other branches, the Judiciary does not appear to be corrupt. The stresses it is placing on the electorate are not less severe — but they are not the fault of the judiciary, which is functioning as the law requires. It is that the law’s current requirements are unwise and destructive to the stability of the nation.
But this is not strictly true. Yes, the law is currently unwise and destructive in many respects. But in many cases the extent to which it is bad is the extent to which it is unconstitutional. Judges who do not overturn unconstitutional law are corrupt, as they, to quote from his section on executive power,
enjoy special power and trust. Those who abuse that trust are worse than criminals. Those who break their oaths betray us all.
Judges have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. When they (through inaction) refuse to act against that which weakens it, they refuse to support it, which means they are not upholding it as they said they would. This is corruption, as it goes against their oath, and needs to be removed. We need to discern a means of removing the taboo against removing bad judges via impeachment.
His assessment of Congress is equally accurate, but his prescription is partly good and partly bad. He recommends repealing the 17th Amendment (a good thing, to my thinking) and letting Representatives be elected by the whole state – if a state gets 10 representatives, let 100 people run statewide and pick the top 10. This is bad, as it would concentrate power in the population centers, which tend to vote Democrat. This would have very bad effects for the nation as a whole, and would silence the less densely populated areas, which are truly not represented by someone from a larger city. A far better solution would be to raise the cap on representatives so that each one represents fewer people. This would have the effect of improving representative-constituent relations, and no one discounts that.
As far as his assessment of Executive malfeasance by career bureaucrats, he hits the X-ring. Repeatedly.
Go. Read. Ponder.
More later, as this dovetails beautifully with a project I’m working on for a longish post of my own.