{"id":19901,"date":"2013-04-18T09:23:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19901"},"modified":"2013-04-18T09:23:21","modified_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:23:21","slug":"slowing-down-the-urge-to-do-something-is-a-feature-not-a-bug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/04\/18\/slowing-down-the-urge-to-do-something-is-a-feature-not-a-bug\/","title":{"rendered":"Slowing down the urge to &#8220;do something&#8221; is a feature, not a bug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanevents.com\/2013\/04\/17\/who-cares-what-the-majority-wants-on-guns\/#.UW_bKRwhKRc.twitter\" target=\"_blank\">David Harsanyi<\/a> discusses the (limited) mechanisms the US constitution put in place to prevent the whims of temporary majorities being imposed on the country:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To begin with, whether Democrats like it or not, this issue concerns the Constitution \u2014 where stuff was written down for a reason. That\u2019s not to say that expanding background checks or banning \u201cassault rifles\u201d would be unconstitutional (though you may believe they both should be). It\u2019s to say that when you begin meddling with protections explicitly laid out in the founding document, a 60-vote threshold that slows down stampeding legislators is the least we deserve.<\/p>\n<p>The Founding Fathers worried that \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.constitution.org\/fed\/federa10.htm\" target=\"_blank\">some common impulse of passion<\/a>\u201d might lead many to subvert the rights of the few. It\u2019s a rational fear, one that is played out endlessly. Obama, who understands how to utilize public passion better than most, flew some of the Newtown families to Washington for a rally, imploring Americans to put \u201cpolitics\u201d aside and stop engaging in \u201cpolitical stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[. . .]<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not operating under the delusion that any of this is good national politics for Republicans \u2014 though the arguments about obstructionism\u2019s dooming the GOP are probably overblown. No doubt, when the next disaster hits \u2014 and it will \u2014 Democrats will blame the overlords at the National Rifle Association and Republicans for the act of a madman. That\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>But generally speaking, it\u2019d be nice if Congress occasionally challenged the vagaries of American majority \u201cinstinct.\u201d Though it might seem antithetical to their very existence, politicians should be less susceptible to the temporary whims, ideological currents and fears of the majority. Theoretically, at least, elected officials\u2019 first concern is the Constitution. And if the need for gun control is predicated chiefly on the polls taken immediately after a traumatic national event, they have a perfectly reasonable justification to slow things down. In fact, if Washington internalizes the 60-vote threshold as a matter of routine, voters should be grateful. Considering Washington\u2019s propensity to politicize everything and its increasingly centralized power (what your health care looks like is now up for national referendums, for instance), this might be the only way left to diffuse democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Harsanyi discusses the (limited) mechanisms the US constitution put in place to prevent the whims of temporary majorities being imposed on the country: To begin with, whether Democrats like it or not, this issue concerns the Constitution \u2014 where stuff was written down for a reason. That\u2019s not to say that expanding background checks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,53,13],"tags":[158,698,715,49,217,553],"class_list":["post-19901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-liberty","category-politics","category-usa","tag-barackobama","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-guns","tag-rights","tag-senate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5aZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19902,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901\/revisions\/19902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}