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ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: Only in America (8/25/2009 8:52:38 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Arpig
quote:
I just don't see where this issue comes anywhere near being crucial enough to warrant doing it for the 19th or 20th. It's a very minor issue. Less important than banning (or unbanning) liquor, for example? Not all the amendments were about important weighty issues.
Well, Prohibition was seen to be a foolish error, and corrected relatively quickly. But once the damage was done (in the form of a Constitutional amendment banning alcohol), the only way to undo it was to pass another amendment repealing the first one. So while the first was clearly a mistake, the second was a necessity to repair that mistake.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Arpig
And my remark about the US government being designed not to work was really an aside. It is a conclusion I have begun to come to from studying the Constitution and the workings of the US government.
And it has a lot of merit. The fact is, our government was designed to be complicated. Our experience with British tyranny impressed upon our Founding Fathers the importance of a system of checks and balances, of a deliberative representative Congress that moved slowly enough for the people to make their wishes known to their legislators, and the importance of frequent elections to keep the legislators accountable and ensure a relatively high turnover. Obviously, some of those schemes worked out... well... less well than intended, and in fact are directly responsible for much of the dysfunction that characterizes our government today.
Bottom line is, the government was designed to work slowly and for the various branches (specifically the legislative and executive branches, and the two house of congress) to outright block each other. You could say that it was a pretty good model for a country of 13 colonies, populated by about 2 and a half million farmers, craftsmen, and storekeepers. But you could also say that model doesn't translate very efficiently to a global military and economic empire of 50 states and 300 million people. But it is what it is, and for better or worse we're stuck with it. Warts and all.
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