I would like to address Clay Patterson’s editorial about the
Electoral College. In it he states he has issues with this system because he
believes it is outdated and was used only to protect us from electing the “wrong
president due to incompetence.” However,
technology does not remove our incompetence. I believe that it may even
increase it. In today’s technological society there is so much information and
so many opinions posted on the internet, for instance, that you can find just about anyone to
agree with any statement made. Technology does not make us smarter; it is still
hard to know what are truths and what are fibs.
Our nation began during the Age of Enlightenment; we were
not a nation of illiterate bumpkins. Most people were either fresh off the boat
coming from the repressive regime of England or the first (maybe second)
generation born on American soil. These people saw an opportunity to create a
new government that truly was for the people, and by the people. They fought
and died for this concept.
The fact is the United States is not a democracy, it is a
republic. This means we elect representatives to represent our interests. A
republic is a limited, representative-type government that follows a
Constitution which is changeable by the people through amendments. A democracy,
on the other hand, is basically rule by majority which is omnipotent. Individuals
and any group of minority individuals would have no protection against the
unlimited power of the majority. It has, in some cases such as the ancient Greeks,
degenerated into mob rule. The Framers of the Constitution condemned the “excesses
of democracy” and prevented the majority from getting too much power by
allowing for the unalienable rights of the individual in the Constitution.
It is actually pretty amazing that people over 250 years ago
had the foresight and presence of mind to consider that as time went by,
society would change in ways they had yet to even imagine, and yet the
government they established is still in the position to give all individuals,
minorities and majorities alike, the same protection and rights. This is proven
in the Amendments that gave black men, and then later women, the right to vote.
Both of these occurrences were not foreseen by the Framers and yet when the
time came, we were able to enact these Constitutional changes. That is the
power of a Republic. If we were truly a democracy, the “white, male,
Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant” majority would have over-ruled the amendments that
gave blacks and women the vote.
Losco, Joseph and Ralph Baker. AM GOV 2012. 12/11
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