Freedom vs. “Freedom”

Ready for the Zombie Apocalypse

So how free are we?

I posed that question in a post back in 2013 which I re-posted here in 20115:

How Free Are We?

This week we had another slaughter of innocents in Las Vegas committed by someone whose motives remain unknown.  No manifesto.  No suicide note.  No indication of serious mental illness in his past.  The investigation goes on pushing poor Puerto Rico to the inside pages of the papers or a brief mention on the 6 P.M. news.

As usual, a great cry goes up from a majority of Americans for Congress to do something!

Congress responds with maybe it should take a look at regulating “bump stops” which are a simple attachment turning a semi-automatic weapon (you have to pull the trigger each time you fire) into fully automatic machine gun like weapon.  Hold on to the trigger and loose 100 rounds or so in 7 seconds.  Mind you, Congress will not look at the availability of semi-automatic weapons which I can buy at any gun show without a by your leave.  Just the bump stock.  Nice.

Now our fellow citizens overwhelmingly reject the idea that we should do nothing and let the killings continue. Majorities of voters in both parties favor universal background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons, and measures to prevent the mentally ill and those on no-fly watch lists from buying guns.

Yet nothing happens.  Why is that?

We have become a “non-majoritarian democracy.”  We like to think the people rule – but they don’t.  The Constitution of the Republic was crafted with enough “checks and balances” to insure that the people don’t rule.

The non-majoritarian nature of our institutions was brought home in 2013. After the Sandy Hook slaughter of children, the Senate voted 54-to-46 in favor of a background-checks amendment crafted by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa. Those 54 votes were not enough to overcome a filibuster, which the GOP regularly abused during the Obama years. Worse, since most large-state senators voted for Manchin-Toomey, the 54 “yes” votes came from lawmakers representing 63 percent of the population. Their will was foiled by those who speak for just 37 percent of us.

As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump has noted, if all 50 senators from the 25 smallest states voted for a bill and Vice President Pence cast his lot with them, senators representing just 16 percent of Americans could overrule those representing 84 percent.

This problem will get worse. David Birdsell, a Baruch College political scientist, has calculated that by 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states — and be represented by only 30 of the 100 senators.

The Electoral College, meanwhile, is increasingly out of line with the popular vote. In raw terms, Trump had the largest popular vote deficit of any Electoral College winner; some 1.9 million. It was the second time in just five elections that the two were at odds. Here again, the failure of our institutions to account for the movement to metropolitan areas is the culprit. In 1960, 63 percent of Americans lived in metros; by 2010, 84 percent did.

The United States is now a non-majoritarian democracy. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, that’s because it is. Claims that our republic is democratic are undermined by a system that vastly over-represents the interests of rural areas and small states. This leaves the large share of Americans in metropolitan areas with limited influence over national policy. Nowhere is the imbalance more dramatic or destructive than on the issue of gun control.

If Hillary had won by 5 million votes in the states she won in 2016 she still would not be President.  So much for “democracy.”

“But we are not a democracy!  We are a Republic!”  say conservatives.  The system is designed to protect minorities from the “tyranny of the majority.”  This is usually spouted by those who write about the “Democrat” Party.  It was popular when I was a kid; the John Birch Society used it all the time against civil rights advocates.  Look it up if you’re too young to know of the JBS.   Actually the checks and balances  seem designed to protect the men of property – the 1% – and keep them in charge.  IMHO of course.

The House is no better than the Senate or the Electoral College in this regard.   Mischievously drawn district lines vastly distort the preferences of those who cast ballots. After the 2010 Census, the GOP controlled the redrawing of congressional boundaries in most key states. The result? The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School concluded that Republicans derived a net benefit of at least 16 seats from biased boundaries, about two-thirds of their current House margin.

There is currently a case before the Supreme Court on district lines in Wisconsin alleging they are unconstitutionally drawn and violate the “one man one vote” rule.  The Court of course has been thoroughly politicized with 4 reliable Liberal votes and 4 reliably conservative votes.  One man, Justice Kennedy is considered the “swing vote.”  The fate of millions of Wisconsin voters will come down to one man’s opinion.

“Voter-suppression efforts and the disenfranchisement of former felons in many states further skew electoral outcomes, as does the power of money in politics.

A renewed Voting Rights Act and universal voter registration could restore access to the ballot box to those who have lost it. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is trying to move us toward the popular election of the president. And our campaign finance system badly needs repair.

Our paralysis on guns reflects a looming legitimacy crisis in our system.”

The majority in this country has become captive of a minority of the population which strongly believes that “government is the problem” and the less it does the better.

Addressing such issues will not be easy or come soon.  The need however will become more apparent as freedom becomes “freedom.”

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From the Voice of America, Richie Havens’ “Freedom”