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Our dysfunctional government
Jul. 27th, 2011 09:41 pmWe desperately need a new constitution. This is the laughingstock we've become under the current one.
Walking to the Green Line this morning it occurred to me once again that if things keep going as they are, we might well have a dictatorship in a few years. Dysfunctional government in Italy and Germany during the interwar period led to fascist coups in both countries. The United States has never had a dictator, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; at any rate, no one alive today has any memory of life under fascism, and patience with gridlocked government will inevitably wear thin, especially if the government goes into default next week. Governments are instituted to govern, and when they cease to do so effectively they lose legitimacy, or what the Chinese once called the "mandate of heaven". In the end people will demand someone step forward and govern, and constitutions and laws be damned. Things could get truly ugly.
It's time for a constitutional convention. I'd like to see something like the system our neighbors to the north have worked out, with a prime minister responsible to parliament heading the government and a ceremonial figurehead as head of state. That's how most of the developed world is governed, and it seems to work well enough in Canada.
I'd even vote to rejoin the British Commonwealth. God save the Queen!
Walking to the Green Line this morning it occurred to me once again that if things keep going as they are, we might well have a dictatorship in a few years. Dysfunctional government in Italy and Germany during the interwar period led to fascist coups in both countries. The United States has never had a dictator, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; at any rate, no one alive today has any memory of life under fascism, and patience with gridlocked government will inevitably wear thin, especially if the government goes into default next week. Governments are instituted to govern, and when they cease to do so effectively they lose legitimacy, or what the Chinese once called the "mandate of heaven". In the end people will demand someone step forward and govern, and constitutions and laws be damned. Things could get truly ugly.
It's time for a constitutional convention. I'd like to see something like the system our neighbors to the north have worked out, with a prime minister responsible to parliament heading the government and a ceremonial figurehead as head of state. That's how most of the developed world is governed, and it seems to work well enough in Canada.
I'd even vote to rejoin the British Commonwealth. God save the Queen!
