Today's the day

Election day, that is.

Everywhere I look, it seems, there's some prediction of the outcome.  As usual, I'm not running with the pack.

Instead, I'll comment upon something I saw about Michael Moore.  It was about how the Founding Fathers disenfranchised voters.  Rather than comment negatively on that, it seemed interesting to speculate a bit on what the government should actually be like.

Should the president be elected by a nationwide popular vote, as some like Moore would prefer?  Or should it be more like the Founders intended?

What did the Founders intend?  The intention was a pluralistic governance based upon a system of checks and balances.  The natural tendency is toward factionalism.  This is not necessarily good, but the theory was that if there were enough factions spread out over a large extent, it could temper and control the effects.  The government was designed so as to be divided against itself in many ways.  To put it simply, the Founders didn't trust government, nor did they trust pure democracy.

I think I'd trust their judgment more than Michael Moore's.

Moore has this faith in democracy which does not square with history.  Democracies tend to commit suicide. If anything, that appears to be getting validated in the West, as this culture is doing itself in.  Why be so enamored of democracy?

Moore's critique is the type of accusatory style you often see of liberals.  The Founders were just a bunch of bigots.  So are all conservatives.  The liberals and the liberals alone are the standard bearers of all that is good.  That bit of self-proclaimed goodness and innocence is a bit sickening, if you ask me.  I'm inclined to believe that human beings are flawed.  People cannot be always trusted to do the right thing.

The Founders understood it that way.  They recognized the need for government because people are not angels.  The government needed to control the population, but it also had to control itself.  Therefore, its powers should be limited and diffuse.  Just enough to ensure order, but not too much to become overbearing and oppressive. I think they had the right idea.

Let's hope that the Founders' idea of governance continues, and the ideas of Moore's do not go too far.  Benjamin Franklin was asked about what kind of government they had created at the Constitutional Convention.  His reply was: " A republic, if you can keep it."  If the people realize their limitations, they'll understand the need for the government to be limited and kept within the limits of a republic.  A democracy is to be avoided.

If that is done, the Republic will be safe for now.  Let us hope that this will be the most important outcome of this election.  That is to say, let us hope that the friends of the Constitution and the Republic are the winners.

I leave it to the voters to do the right thing.  [ cross my fingers ]