American Political System: Difference between revisions

 

There is a feeling among some Americans that there may be a reality distortion field of some sort that follows the outer edge of the Capital Beltway (a highway that circles DC). Attempts to prove this fail to obtain federal funding.

 

Since the United States is a republic, you will occasionally find people trying to tell you that the United States "is not a democracy." This may or may not be true, since a republic and a democracy are technically two different forms of government, but a republic can still use democratic processes. So ask the person doing the claiming what he means before nodding sagely. The essential issue here is that the founders thought direct democracy (after the fashion of, say, [[Ancient Greece|ancient Athens]]) was a generally bad idea; for example, [[Thomas Jefferson]] claimed "''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.''" More colloquially, "Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on dinner."

 

When people of other nations are trying to understand the rather odd political behavior of the USA, they would do well to remember that the United States is literally just that: fifty individual states, each with their own constitution, all under the aegis of a central federal government. The relationship between the federal government and the state governments can get contentious, to the point that there [[The American Civil War|was a civil war about it]].

 

Unlike many other nations, the US has had precisely one written constitution since independence in 1776,<ref>The [[The American Revolution|Articles]] [[Old Shame|of Confederation]] were a wash and don't count</ref> which is referred to simply as "the Constitution". This makes it the second-oldest written national constitution still in effect,<ref>The oldest is the constitution of [[San Marino]], which went into effect in 1600</ref> and the third-oldest still in effect overall.<ref>The Constitution of Massachusetts, drafted by [[John Adams]], [[Samuel Adams]], and James Bowdoin, went into effect in 1780 and had significant influence on the federal one.</ref> The Constitution defines itself as "the supreme law of the land", and all other statutes and acts of government must defer to it or be rendered null and void. The thesis of the thing is that all people are guaranteed certain inalienable rights by virtue of their being, that government exists for the purpose of safeguarding those rights, and that Americans have the right and responsibility, if their representatives fail to do so, to kick them directly in the seat of their pants and replace them with people who will. A beautiful thing.