The case against the American Constitution by Ryan Cooper
As I read this article all I could think was “better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.” The one thing this article does prove is Ryan Cooper’s utter ignorance about what the Constitution actually says, the reasons why our Founding Fathers wrote it that way, and the history of our country.
Mr. Cooper starts out with a straw man:
Everyone agrees that the American Constitution is perfect, an exceptional document akin to holy writ. It is the absolute essence of freedom distilled, committed to parchment for the eternal benefit of all mankind… right?
Actually no. The premise that everyone thinks the U.S. Constitution is perfect is ridiculous and I can prove it. You see, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, and even today there is a movement known as “The Convention of the States” to propose additional amendments. In fact the 1787 proposed Constitution would not have been ratified if there wasn’t an agreement to submit the amendments known as the Bill of Rights in the very first Congress formed after the ratification. Not only does this ridiculous and hyperbolic straw-man argument not bode well for the rest of the article, it shows Mr. Cooper’s utter contempt for the rule of law.
Mr. Cooper then goes on to identify the “three fundamental defects” he believes exist in the Constitution.
1. The Constitution is anti-democratic.
Mr Cooper is correct, the Constitution is anti-democratic, and for several VERY good reasons.
“We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of a dictatorship.”
Alexander Hamilton
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”
John Adams
“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
James Madison
After the Constitutional Convention when Benjamin Franklin was asked “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” What was Benjamin Franklin’s opinion of democracy?
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
Benjamin Franklin
Our Founding Fathers had seen democracies and what happens to them. In order to protect our rights and liberties they set up a republican form of government, rejecting the idea of a pure democracy. Not only that, they required that all states also adopt a republican form of government before they could enter the union.
Mr. Cooper further shows his ignorance by calling out the Senate as an example of the unfairness of this undemocratic form of government. Had his primary education included any serious reading of the Constitution, Mr. Cooper would have known that Senators were originally selected by their state legislators and thereby represented the states, not the people. In fact there was a lot of discussion in the Constitutional Convention about how to apportion representation in the Congress they were proposing. Should populous states be able to overrule the people of other states? Should the people of smaller states have an undue influence over larger states? The brilliant compromise of a bicameral (two body) legislative branch insures that populations of both large and small states have a say in the laws of the nation. What Mr. Cooper seems to recommend is to let New York, California, and Florida dictate law and policy to the rest of the nation. Mr. Cooper’s diatribe about “bare-knuckled political power play” by smaller states ignores similar arguments by larger states to gain power over those smaller ones.
Mr. Cooper also complains about “In many states, [legislative redistricting] means self-interested politicians drawing the lines that control their electoral destiny”. But while he rails about Republican gerrymandering, he completely ignores the very same tactics employed by Democrats in states they control.
Lastly, in this particular complaint, Mr. Cooper refers to an article he wrote excoriating the electoral college. Not only does this again show his complete ignorance of our Constitution and system for Presidential elections, but a serious desire to ignore the law when he doesn’t get what he wants. Like the Senate before the 17th Amendment, the States elect the President, not the people and for similar reasons. (See my article here.) Our Founding Fathers understood that human nature would tend to lead people to put their interests ahead of others in the union. By allowing the States’ electors to choose the President they helped make sure all states would have a say in the choice, not just a few large one.
2. The Constitution’s separation of powers is a boondoggle.
Again Mr. Cooper seems to miss the point. Yes, other nations have a parliamentary system of government, a system which Mr. Cooper states he prefers. But a parliament, where the majority rules because effective opposition is impossible until they take over, is exactly the situation our Founding Fathers wanted to avoid. While Mr. Cooper focuses on the separation of power between the legislative and executive branch, he completely ignores the separation between both of them and the judicial branch, and between the federal and state governments.
Yes, the office of the President has become more powerful. Not so much from the inception of the Constitution as Mr. Cooper suggests, but with the election of Woodrow Wilson and then accelerated by FDR, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Bush (43), and Obama. However, the blame for this increase in power isn’t so much with the men who wielded it, but with those we elected to represent us, both at the federal and state level, who gave over their legislative authority to the executive branch, and who failed to do their duty to restrain both the executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
Funny how Mr. Cooper blames President Trump for executing the law as passed by Congress and signed by his predecessors while ignoring the times Obama enacted executive orders in direct opposition to Congress, and through his administration ordered states to ignore their own laws or lose federal funding. I guess in his mind the violation of separation of powers only matters when it’s used to do things he doesn’t like.
Mr. Cooper complains the Congress moves too slow. Again, our Founding Fathers had a very good reason to set up the system that way. The federal government was actually meant to do very little, focusing mostly on external relationships and not the governing of the people themselves.
Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
Maybe Mr. Cooper would be less interested in speeding up the workings of Congress when the goals of such work is in opposition to what he wants.
3. The Constitution is basically impossible to fix.
Funny how in Mr. Cooper’s mind, a system which has been modified 27 times to meet specific needs or changes in society, is impossible to fix. Yes, it takes super majorities to change the Constitution; otherwise every fad, whim or popular idea would almost instantly become law with no time for consideration, deliberation, and debate. Apparently Mr. Cooper cares little about considerations such as the inalienable rights, laws, or concerns of others as long as he gets what he wants when he wants it.
Mr. Cooper claims that “Literally every other country that set up an American-style Constitution collapsed eventually.” Yet he gives not one example. Maybe because there is no other country with an American-style Constitution? While I may be wrong, I can think of no other nation that has tried a multi-governmental system, states, and central governments, where the states had more power than the central governments (Amendments 9 & 10). Where individual rights are given priority over governmental interests. And where we are governed by the rule of law, not the rule of the law makers.
If there is a problem with our Constitution, I believe it is that we have found it difficult and ignored it rather than with the frame and structure it created. I agree our Constitution is not perfect, but how can we complain that the problem is with its words when we haven’t followed them in over a century?
It seems to me Mr. Cooper cares very little about the supreme law of the land (Article VI of the U.S. Constitution) and much more about his temper tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. While some may want to shut him up, I am quite happy with Mr. Cooper’s repeated examples of his foolishness, childishness, and ignorance. That is why we have a Constitution that includes the First Amendment after all.
