opinion@dailylobo.com
“We the People” — a noble and memorable phrase enshrined within the preamble of the Constitution of the United States. It reminds us that, as Americans, we are the core of our country and our government was designed to be ultimately accountable to us. It’s a reminder that “We the People” created this country based upon a social contract wherein the power of the government derives from the consent of the governed, and that we have the responsibility and right to keep an eye on the government and express our displeasure if our consent has been misplaced.
In more modern terms, “We the People” is the name of a White House website where people can petition the government on any topic. As long as the petition can get 100,000 signatures within 30 days, the petitioners can expect a response from the White House.
Such a website sounds like a worthy extension of the high-minded ideals this country was founded upon, specifically the petition clause of the First Amendment. However, sometimes it serves to justify the Founding Fathers’ fears about “the rule of the mob” by showing how outrageous some ideas can be and how it would be a problem if the petitioners were allowed to actually advocate for their ideas seriously.
The infamous petitions to have the U.S. construct a Death Star, to admit to the existence of and secret government contact with aliens, and to have the U.S. nationalize the Twinkie industry are a few that come to mind.
Before an angry outcry emerges about this column being an elitist, antidemocratic tract, remember that the United States is technically not a democracy and was never founded as one. It is a representative republic that includes elements of democracy, or — at its simplest definition — the rule of the many through the electoral process.
The main difference between the two forms of government, though, is that while a republic is based on a constitution and rule of law, a democracy may be based upon pure, direct majority rule, having no mention of a constitution anywhere in the definition.
Note that many of the countries the U.S. hails as democracies in political rhetoric have written constitutions, such as western European nations, or at least have codified law systems that emerged over years and effectively function as constitutions, as is the case with the United Kingdom.
In fact, our country was set up to prevent direct democracy, which was among the greatest fears of several of the founders. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “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.” Or, if you prefer Benjamin Franklin’s more pithy statement, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
The evidence is also found in the writings of the founders. We can see it directly in the Constitution itself, in Article 4, Section 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The Constitution itself never mentions democratic government, only republican government.
Evidence can also be found in the Federalist Papers No. 10, where James Madison stated that democracies “have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
However, the founders knew “We the People” should not be shut out from the governing process, and that we must have a say to make sure the rule of law and the supreme law of the land are abided by in a just manner. Hence, the representative nature of the U.S. that integrates certain democratic elements into the country’s government.
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Some of these include the election of congressional representatives by the people — though the Senate was originally elected by the states as a counter to the people’s wishes, but that’s a topic for another column — the choosing of electors who cast votes to elect the president, the provision for the direct ratification of Constitutional amendments by the states, and the petition clause.
The White House website though, to be fair, has also produced some very important petitions, including one to have the U.S. government recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group and another advocating for comprehensive immigration reform.
However, the former has received no response from the Obama administration in over four months, despite passing the requirements, and the latter received only a boilerplate response reiterating the administration’s campaign promises on that topic.
This behavior by the government reinforces the founders’ wisdom in including democratic elements within a rule-of-law framework. As provided by Rousseau’s concept of the social contract, the governed can rattle the governors when they feel their consent is being ignored or abused. As Thomas Jefferson also said, “When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
While the White House website does produce some irrelevant and often hilarious petitions, it is the beauty of the First Amendment that we can make such petitions anyway, alongside petitions about legitimate grievances. However, it is also the well-designed dual nature of the Constitution that allows the use of the representative republic process to shut out action on all but serious issues while still allowing the people to check and question their government when that same process is used to shut out the truly legitimate grievances of “We the People.”
