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The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy
In this thought-provoking polemic, “an accomplished iconoclast” whose “knowledge of american history is as persuasive as his wit” (New York Times Book Review) blames americanca’s outmoded constitutional system of checks and balances for the political malaise and governmental gridlock of recent years. Index.
408 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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March 12, 2019
We are very religious in the United States. We worship our Constitution.
The Frozen Republic was written to show how this binds us to the past and the ideas of people long dead who could have no conception of our world and our problems. For comparison, Daniel Lazare explains how the British Parliament has come to be what it is today, a body that allows the will of the majority to have its way without any limits. Whereas Parliament does have two houses, the House of Lords has been stripped of any real power with the House of Commons under the leadership of the Prime Minister is supreme. There is no Supreme Court to rule anything out of order because there is no written constitution to be interpreted.
The author also goes into detail about the time in which the Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution with limitations on the will of the people and protection of property always in mind. Allowing all the people, beyond that of white male holders of significant property, to have a say was something they definitely wanted to prevent.
The upper house of Congress, the Senate, is not democratic, being apportioned not according to population but purely to put all the states on an equal basis with two senators from each. The absurdity of this is that in the Senate, one American citizen in Idaho has 73 times the influence of one American citizen in California (this was at the time the book came out...it is even worse now). There's no reason for this except a 232 year old document says so. In this way Congress is prevented from passing legislation that is the will of the majority. We see this clearly in the fact that gun legislation has no chance of passing though a majority of Americans want such legislation. This subject cannot even be debated. This is the tyranny of the minority. The archaic electoral college is the tyranny of the dead, another part of their plan to keep the people at bay.
And the creators of the Constitution did not want citizens of the future to easily change it: Article V requires that any amendment must not only be approved by 2/3rd's of both Houses of Congress, but must also pass 3/4th's of the state legislatures. This assures the will of a simple majority will never result in an amendment and if by some miracle an amendment does pass, such as the one that created Prohibition, it is just as hard to get it removed (it took 13 years). In Britain, anything and everything can be changed immediately if a majority of the House of Commons so desires.
Walking the reader through American history, author Lazare points out how the Constitution has been promoted to the point of worship even though it has proven incapable of dealing with things such as slavery. When the Civil War ended, a golden opportunity to change the Constitution was passed by with the resulting horrible years for blacks that followed the taming of the Radical Republicans, a majority, by the return of the Southern states to Congress along with a complacent presidency and a reactionary Supreme Court so eager to defy equality that one could wonder why the war had been fought.
Today we see legislation addressing climate change or national health care kept from consideration merely because, for a recent example, Senate Majority Leader McConnell says the Senate will not consider it! One legislator can stop something just like that. And need I mention, Obama's weak ACA that was watered down (by Obama!) to please industry and has since been watered down more though a majority of Americans are in favor of a national healthcare plan.
This is all to say that we the people are effectively removed from power while those with a narrow interest (in their profit) keep the ship of state aimlessly drifting as problems mount.
Lazare is convinced that far from being a virtue, the famous separation of powers concept makes it extremely difficult to get anything through Congress, the body best representing all Americans. In the gridlock it is the masters of legislative procedural detail that win the day and they are in the employ of industry.
For all its power, the Constitution provides little in the way of blocking actions when it can be ignored. Presidents have ignored it in getting the country into war after war. Congress has ignored it in refusing to take the responsibility the Constitution assigns it to declare war. The "Defense" Department ignores it in not holding to an audit that would present Congress with the proper financial accounting the the Constitution specifically requires for all federal spending. The Supreme Court ignores it as in the Heller ruling of 2008 that blatantly dismisses the opening phrase of the 2nd Amendment, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..." as irrelevant to the purpose of the amendment!
Daniel Lazare would put this to good use. He suggests the House decide to change the Constitution unilaterally, challenging the executive and judicial branches, neither one of which can claim to represent the people as the House does, to defy it. Wow, that would create quite a scene. If only the great majority of the members of the House were not so comfy with the way things are.
This is a most informative and interesting read, particularly illuminating both the American and British governments, but I am afraid that even if the Constitution could be easily changed and the balance of power concept abandoned, many of our intractable problems would remain so because money rules and would continue to do so in the absence of public financing of election campaigns. Let's hope that the current crop of Democrat presidential hopefuls refusing PAC and mega-donor money will move us toward that because Congress definitely won't, claiming that it can't because the Constitution doesn't mention it.
The Frozen Republic was written to show how this binds us to the past and the ideas of people long dead who could have no conception of our world and our problems. For comparison, Daniel Lazare explains how the British Parliament has come to be what it is today, a body that allows the will of the majority to have its way without any limits. Whereas Parliament does have two houses, the House of Lords has been stripped of any real power with the House of Commons under the leadership of the Prime Minister is supreme. There is no Supreme Court to rule anything out of order because there is no written constitution to be interpreted.
The author also goes into detail about the time in which the Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution with limitations on the will of the people and protection of property always in mind. Allowing all the people, beyond that of white male holders of significant property, to have a say was something they definitely wanted to prevent.
The upper house of Congress, the Senate, is not democratic, being apportioned not according to population but purely to put all the states on an equal basis with two senators from each. The absurdity of this is that in the Senate, one American citizen in Idaho has 73 times the influence of one American citizen in California (this was at the time the book came out...it is even worse now). There's no reason for this except a 232 year old document says so. In this way Congress is prevented from passing legislation that is the will of the majority. We see this clearly in the fact that gun legislation has no chance of passing though a majority of Americans want such legislation. This subject cannot even be debated. This is the tyranny of the minority. The archaic electoral college is the tyranny of the dead, another part of their plan to keep the people at bay.
And the creators of the Constitution did not want citizens of the future to easily change it: Article V requires that any amendment must not only be approved by 2/3rd's of both Houses of Congress, but must also pass 3/4th's of the state legislatures. This assures the will of a simple majority will never result in an amendment and if by some miracle an amendment does pass, such as the one that created Prohibition, it is just as hard to get it removed (it took 13 years). In Britain, anything and everything can be changed immediately if a majority of the House of Commons so desires.
Walking the reader through American history, author Lazare points out how the Constitution has been promoted to the point of worship even though it has proven incapable of dealing with things such as slavery. When the Civil War ended, a golden opportunity to change the Constitution was passed by with the resulting horrible years for blacks that followed the taming of the Radical Republicans, a majority, by the return of the Southern states to Congress along with a complacent presidency and a reactionary Supreme Court so eager to defy equality that one could wonder why the war had been fought.
Today we see legislation addressing climate change or national health care kept from consideration merely because, for a recent example, Senate Majority Leader McConnell says the Senate will not consider it! One legislator can stop something just like that. And need I mention, Obama's weak ACA that was watered down (by Obama!) to please industry and has since been watered down more though a majority of Americans are in favor of a national healthcare plan.
This is all to say that we the people are effectively removed from power while those with a narrow interest (in their profit) keep the ship of state aimlessly drifting as problems mount.
Lazare is convinced that far from being a virtue, the famous separation of powers concept makes it extremely difficult to get anything through Congress, the body best representing all Americans. In the gridlock it is the masters of legislative procedural detail that win the day and they are in the employ of industry.
For all its power, the Constitution provides little in the way of blocking actions when it can be ignored. Presidents have ignored it in getting the country into war after war. Congress has ignored it in refusing to take the responsibility the Constitution assigns it to declare war. The "Defense" Department ignores it in not holding to an audit that would present Congress with the proper financial accounting the the Constitution specifically requires for all federal spending. The Supreme Court ignores it as in the Heller ruling of 2008 that blatantly dismisses the opening phrase of the 2nd Amendment, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..." as irrelevant to the purpose of the amendment!
Daniel Lazare would put this to good use. He suggests the House decide to change the Constitution unilaterally, challenging the executive and judicial branches, neither one of which can claim to represent the people as the House does, to defy it. Wow, that would create quite a scene. If only the great majority of the members of the House were not so comfy with the way things are.
This is a most informative and interesting read, particularly illuminating both the American and British governments, but I am afraid that even if the Constitution could be easily changed and the balance of power concept abandoned, many of our intractable problems would remain so because money rules and would continue to do so in the absence of public financing of election campaigns. Let's hope that the current crop of Democrat presidential hopefuls refusing PAC and mega-donor money will move us toward that because Congress definitely won't, claiming that it can't because the Constitution doesn't mention it.
February 7, 2017
A must-read laundry list of how anachronistic the US Constitution really is, and why, with Lazare making a strong argument for junking the whole thing (not counting the amendments that give us our rights) and starting over ... with an eye to a non checks-and-balances gridlock parliamentary government instead of our current nonsense.
This is a book I have re-read more than once.
And, in what is arguably a bit of serendipitous timing, Lazare starts the book with a threat of secession by the state of California, in conjunction with the 2020 election.
Beyond this, readers should look for other books about the realities of the Constitutional Convention. Sheldon Wolin is one good one.
This is a book I have re-read more than once.
And, in what is arguably a bit of serendipitous timing, Lazare starts the book with a threat of secession by the state of California, in conjunction with the 2020 election.
Beyond this, readers should look for other books about the realities of the Constitutional Convention. Sheldon Wolin is one good one.
January 12, 2013
If you want to know why our government is so peculiarly unable to solve the major problems of our day, read this book. Lazare takes on our secular worship of the Constitution head on, and shows how gridlock and paralysis aren't aberrations of our system, they are in fact how it was designed to work. There is a reason why no other country in the world has adopted our separation of powers - it doesn't work.
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