The U.S. Constitution is Not Democratic-and Why That's a Good Thing

Another one from The Western Confucian.

Kevin Gutzman, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, offers a brilliant critique of Sanford Levinson's Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). Oxford University Press, 2006.

Excerpt: "The reason why the U.S. Constitution is not structured in the way that a national constitution would be is that it was not intended to create a national government. Majority rule is impeded throughout the system precisely because the states wanted the federal government to be inefficient; they feared that an efficient (national) government would strip them of their reserved powers. Silly fear, right?

As Levinson and his ilk have given the federal government the powers of a national one, it is they who have introduced distortions into the system. The method of selecting a truly federal chief executive, for example, or solely judicial judges, would not be a matter of much concern. It is because Levinson and Company agree that presidents must have untrammeled authority in foreign affairs and federal judges rightly may legislate that the methods of selecting them established by the Constitution seem inappropriate — to Levinson and Company."

You can read the whole article on Taki's Top Drawer.