Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert Them From It 11-12-2010 (2)

 [Continued from "Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert Them From It 11-12-2010 (1)". sch 8/23/2024]

I have yet to see de Tocqueville (Chapter IV: Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert Them From It ) say anything about constitutions. James Madison worried about the frailty of parchment barriers and put more faith in the political organization of government to prevent despotism. Only Thomas Jefferson worried over the Constitution having put the living in the hands of the dead. But the constitutions (federal and state) have been, generally, respected by the people and politicians.

[Well, this was before the Trump presidency. sch 8/23/2024.]

The independent judiciary made the difference with the concept of judicial review. Madison was right that a constitution is not enough. The Soviet Union had a constitution and Weimar Germany had one. We may have been saved because we are a litigious nation of many lawyers. Lawyers concern themselves with the past, and even the most liberal lawyer is a conservative. I can think of no other explanation for why our constitutions serve us, unlike many others.

De Tocqueville worries over one person taking control of a democratic government. Having a Supreme Court capable as our won makes a coup more difficult - so long as the Supreme Court Justices do not join in the coup. [Well, this was before Trump, before Mitch McConnell packed the Supreme Court, before we found out the rot, intellectual and political, of the Roberts Court, and now we must consider the United States Supreme Court as aiding and abetting the demise of our Constitution, if not leading the charge; see The 'Dred Scott' of Our Time from The New York Review of Books. sch 8/25/2024.] The Supreme Court is a slender reed, as the Cherokee (Cherokee Nation v. Georgia), the Japanese-Americans, (Korematsu v. United States), and African-Americans (Plessy v. Ferguson) know. But the American appellate courts do something more than balance the executive and legislative branches. The American appelalte courts taught respect for the law. [Well, until Justices Alito and Thomas acquired enough votes to ignore the law. sch 8/25/2024.] We stopped looking at amendments to fix the Constitution and depended on the Supreme Court for the protection of our government. That dependence has put us in the position where we play political games with appointing jsutices rather than changing the Constitution. [Mitch McConnel would take the game-playing to a new extreme. sch 8/25/24.]

(This inability to think in terms of court personnel, not of constitutional amendments, showed up in Iowa in 2010. Some right-wing groups piled money into three judicial retention races in a way never done before. What lead to this was the Iowa gay marriage case. The quote in the paper was crowing how they had showed the justices could not impose their will. The opinion stands. A judicial opinion is not an act of will, the pouring in of money was ana ct of willfulness. [Okay, Alito and Thomas and Roberts have shown me to be the fool here. sch 8/25/2024.] If the right-wingers wanted to change the opinion, they ought to have worked on amending the Iowa Constitution. What they have done does not disprove the court's opinion was unreasonable, only that they find intimidation of the jduiciary is viable political tool.)

sch

[Continued in "Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert Them From It 11-12-2010 (3)". sch 8/25/2024.]