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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Democracy in Action

When I was a mere tadpole of 13 or so, my homeroom teacher was Mrs. Sarah Seekins. It was 1965, post Joseph McCarthy, pre Eugene McCarthy. Vietnam was waging, the ink on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was barely dry, dominoes were in fear of falling and one Kennedy had died. And Mrs. Seekins was a *GASP* Communist! At least that’s how my parents interpreted my regurgitation of class discussions. Whether she was or not, my mother wrote a note to the school requesting that Mrs. Seekins’ personal politics not become part of the curriculum. All in all it was a tolerant response, considering others might have stormed the school and strung her up.

Whatever else, it may have been the beginning of my on again-off again love/hate relationship with politics, democracy, government, and our history. Of course, it’s not been a linear thing. There have been lapses when I didn’t care about any of it, such as when I turned 18 and was in fear of being drafted.
Now that I’m safely beyond the age when Uncle Sam might have any use for me, I can easily take the curmudgeonly attitude of sitting on the porch yelling at the neighbor’s kids about staying off my lawn. Or learning the nuances of our way of life.

Getting back to Mrs. Seekins, I remember trying to discuss with my Dad the finer points of why we would be so much better off living under the Socialistic system. You know, the collective, where everyone contributed to their best ability and took fairly from the trough, leaving enough for their neighbors. It was so much better than Capitalism, where you were the windshield or the bug, and unless you were on top you were downtrodden by those who actually were on the top.

Dad basically told me two things: Yes, Socialism (or as I referred to it, Utopia) would work well if it just wasn’t for those pesky people. And Capitalism was the worst system in the world, except for everything else.

Flash forward 40 plus years and I find myself wondering about where that leaves us today, in this society. Further, I consider the elements that are hand in hand with our system, specifically our democratic system---or what is purported to be a democratic system.

For years I’ve been fascinated with Thomas Jefferson, and the dichotomies he was. The common man of the people who learned to use his authority to get his way. The slaveholder who recognized the futility of the plantation system and the horror of owning people. The principle writer of our Declaration of Independence who understood that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were imperfect and would need to be modified. The revolutionary who realized it was not to be the last revolution.

Christopher Phillips has written a new book called “Constitution Cafe: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution”. The book outlines his tours of the US, stopping at various places where he met with people from many walks of life and essentially gave them free reign to rewrite the Constitution. Based on his studied belief that Jefferson might have done something similar due to his writings, speeches, etc., indicating that the average citizen has a right and duty to participate in our governance. It isn’t, in Jefferson’s view, necessarily a matter of politics in establishing and reestablishing our rights and duties as citizens – it’s a matter of necessity to prevent despotism.
Sixteen years ago I started a government job where I had to go into bars and listen to drunks. Sounds like fun, huh? In many cases it was an eye opener, only not for the reasons you might think. You could almost say that it was when I learned that we, as a society, are filled with crabby whiners who are too lazy to do anything to change their circumstances. Let me illustrate.

New York has a mechanism where every so many years it can be voted whether to have a Constitutional Convention. The last time it was on the ballot was on November 4, 1997. This provision is really the only chance the average person has to change how this state is run. So by the time it came up on the ballot, I’d had two years of people complaining about how flawed we were as a state, how the politicians couldn’t be held accountable, how corrupt the government was, blah, blah, blah. I reminded them that they had a chance to do something about it, maybe their only chance.

Oh, there were people for it, and people against it. One group that I found fascinating that was opposed was the New York State United Teachers. Why? Well, here’s from their position paper as published on their website:
1. Protections Under Current Law That Could Be in Jeopardy
 Civil rights
 Prevailing wage
 Education funding
 Aid and care of the needy
 "Forever wild" clause
 Restrict workers' rights to organize and to bargain collectively
 Women's reproductive health right
2. Possible Additions to the Constitution
 Referendum and initiative
 Lift the ban on state aid to religious schools
 School vouchers
 Right-to-work
 State budget and taxation spending caps

For some reason they left out the bogeyman hiding under the bed.

Were some of their concerns realistic? Sure, if left unopposed. But that’s kind of the point in a Constitutional convention. Many are heard, consensus is built.
But I digress. You know what ended up happening? The question was asked, and the measure was voted down by 1,579,390 to 929,415. Just under 40% of the eligible voters voted that November, and not everyone that voted actually voted on this proposal. The proposal went down because 15% of all eligible voters voted no. 15%. That is obscene.

I’m not suggesting that anything would truly have changed had the proposal passed and the convention held. But for all the complaining and belly-aching, it was an embarrassment that it was not serious enough a matter to participate.
And that’s where Jefferson comes in. Jefferson firmly believed in participatory government. You know, that ‘for the people, by the people' thing?

He also believed that whatever the merits of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that they were not set in stone. There were going to be times, he recognized, when they had to be modified to fit the circumstances. That there might even come a time when the government, our Government, had overstepped and might need to be brought back into line. Even to the point where it might become necessary for citizens to rise up against the government.
What? A new American Revolution? That would mean I have to put down my bowl of Cheetos.

And the problem with this would be...what?

Regardless of where you come down on Jefferson, please read this book. Please get involved.