Apparently there is a bunch of Left Wing lunatics who unironically post in a magazine called “Jacobin”. Apparently in this magazine, they allow grad students who rant idiotically how the Constitution is for suxxors!

The idjit ain’t deserving of a full Fisking, but a choice belittlement is indeed in order.

“The patrician editors of the New York Times had given this matter some thought, and on Constitution Day, 1921, they provided one plausible explanation: ‘If it is true, as there is much evidence to prove, that Americans are showing themselves the most conservative nation in a turbulent world, the largest cause of it lies in our Federal Constitution.’ The Constitution, the editors explained, ‘makes the American people secure in their individual rights as citizens when these are imperiled by passing gusts of sentiment.’ “These dubious ‘gusts of sentiment,’ in the lingo of American constitution-speak, are precisely what other societies call ‘the democratic will.'”

Ah, the “democratice will”, AKA “Volonté Générale”, which was invented out of nothing by the actual Jacobins’ spiritual pimpdaddy Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Rather than rely on the idiocy of ignorant scam artists like Rousseau, the Founding Fathers applied the collected wisdom of the ages and put forth a binding document that was based on checks and balances, and served to limit the power of anyone to impose their will, be it a king or a temporary electoral mob.

“Thus, brilliantly and subtly, the system they built rendered it virtually impossible for the electorate to obtain a concerted change in national policy by a collective act of political will. The Senate is an undemocratic monstrosity in which 84 percent of the population can be outvoted by the 16 percent living in the smallest states. The passage of legislation requires the simultaneous assent of three separate entities — the presidency, House, and Senate — that voters are purposely denied the opportunity to choose at one time, with two-thirds of the Senate membership left in place after each election. The illogical electoral college gears the whole combat of presidential elections around a few, almost randomly determined, swing states that happen to contain evenly balanced numbers of Democrats and Republicans. And the entire system is frozen in amber by an amendment process of almost comical complexity.”

This is not a flaw, but the very intentional feature. The Senate served as a legislative check on the House of Representatives. Staggered terms make sure that a temporary majority, or plurality, can not just wreck everything in one fell swoop. The Electoral College was there to prevent someone with a deep but narrow majority, or plurality, from winning, and rather insuring that the choice would more likely be a broader choice, even if more shallow. The difficulty in amending the Constitution as well serves as a check, as weak as it may be now-a-days, against temporary majorities and transient “wills”.

“It’s easy to make fun of the Right’s bizarro Constitution fetish”

An adherence to the Constitution, and the governing wisdom therein is hardly a “fetisth”; it is nothing less than pure rationality.

“A true fanatic and weirdo, Skousen believed the Founding Fathers were inspired by the example of the ancient Anglo-Saxons”

And W. Cleon Skousen would be right. Long held rights are the very basis for everything from the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forrest to the English Bill of Rights and the American Bill of Rights. They are real. Invented musings of a tiny minority that seek to surreptitiously tweak society are not.

“[U]nfortunately the Constitution is much more than that: it is a charter for plutocracy.”

This is yet another example of the Left being unable to see anything but one group having privilege and power over others. They can not imagine long-standing law of the land, or even mores and customs, being a check on anyone obtaining power over others.

“You would almost think Madison had been listening to Glenn Beck.”

If you did, then you should put down your crack pipe.

Sadly, this idiocy is what passes for “smart” thinking…



Tweet