Why Democracy Depends Upon Civil Debate to Thrive – and why that’s important right now.
This past week, the US Supreme Court rejected a case filed by the state of Texas relative to 2020's Presidential election, its process and outcome.
I am a political Independent, and while I share fair, benevolent and constructive values with both major US parties, I, like many Americans - including those belonging to either party, find my faith in party-politics and election process tested with each passing election cycle. But still I hope.
Slanted, stilted and sometimes slanderous campaigning. Major media coverage portraying a disorderly or dysfunctional process. Constantly ‘evolving’ and eminently corruptible devices of ballot casting ever-distancing the means of counting from the living hand of intention. Candidates and party leaders positioning to argue their loss as the result of poor electoral procedure or unfair electoral provision. The constant attacks against the possibility of a free and fair election has left many Americans wondering if our elections are, in fact, any longer or, have ever really been - free, fair and dependable.
Party squabbling and process-targeting naturally spurs party supporters to do the same thing. If there is a problem, we certainly should be exercising our right to protest it, to raise awareness of it.
But, what about actually resolving it?
Some things are engineered to fail or, to flounder and then fail in order to process-pave the way to something different. A ‘loss’ on investment can sometimes better enable a different kind of investment down the road.
Is our democracy and democratic way in the way of something pre-destined or pre-determined? Is there a shelf-life to a functioning republic?
Perhaps. But, our system wasn’t designed to merely become brittle and decay. It was designed – at least I think it was designed to adapt and re-adapt under the purview of federal and state law, while maintaining stalwart principals protecting individual freedoms.
Why, then, would a top-tier examination of our electoral process be a mere exercise in futility?
If we were to find genuine flaw, would it cost us our last untouchable bastion of blame? Do we need the unresolvable shadow of a non-problem, so we can feel justified in staying on the field, and celebrating our protested loss long after the game has ended? Is a flawed system part of a flawed national identity? Is it a bonding element among platform supporters?
I'm beginning to think our elections may have become so.
For a number of recent election cycles, both parties have cried foul, depending upon which party lost the race. And they cry foul and cry foul for years after a new election. Does this tendency erupt from the bitter taint of bile or, from a need to blame something other than an apparent ravenous taste for political entitlement and extremism?
If we need to respect party platform, why don’t we? If we need to respect political candidates, why don’t we? If we need to respect the political process, why don’t we?
It’s either because all of it has lost its respectability – or, because we don’t respect ourselves. We spawn what we are. Could it be, then, a little of both?
An exercise in respect often requires an evident and mutual expression of equality and fairness.
An act of opposition can be beneficial in better identifying and further defining our values and priorities. For an act of opposition to be informative and influential, it must be respected as bearing that potential. And we must examine it objectively to learn if it is fair in its presentation. In its challenge. To dismiss an opposing perspective without examination for its potential to better inform and influence, undermines our own intentions and can position us as opposing ourselves without beneficially bearing informative and influential value. It can seed unnecessary conflict arising from those who may feel marginalized or underrepresented by a majority movement. Opposition in the way of civil debate should act to open channels of greater understanding, not close them.
Maybe there really is a problem with American elections. Maybe we’ve lost control of the wheel but are too dizzy to recognize that we’re crashing about on a spinning deck.
Subject matter and other jurisdictional considerations are qualifiers for court hearings, and, certainly, there is insufficient time, resources and tolerance to further swamp our court system with frivolous suits utilized as mere tactic to stall a legitimate process or overwhelm an adversary. These means and methods to abuse legal institution are petty, wasteful, belligerent and far beneath the human and legal integrity our courts are intended to advance.
As a democracy, we don’t get to pick and choose interpretation of law based on its potential for our personal abuse of it. And whereas I've lost much faith in party leadership across the board, I still have faith that one day we will better align, and I'm certainly still holding onto the potential of our judiciary to better help us find our way.
Deeply moved, I once stood before the great bronze doors leading to the Supreme Court’s chamber. I was not so stirred because I’d been wronged nor righted. Rather, I’d been humbled by the enormous moral and ethical burden to be borne by the Justices within. Few will ever bear such a burden on behalf of their nation. Few will stand to represent a co-equal cornerstone of legal reach among law makers and administrators of policy – and do so on behalf of every one of us, affected.
The high court sits to settle disputes between states, to inform and guide Constitutional intentions. No one has a greater appreciation for the potential of law than I for its potential to do harm and to preserve good. To enable function. To enable freedom. To uphold equal justice.
It is truly our last bastion. Beyond an unbiased and fair-minded judiciary, we’ve no option but to begin again.
So, while the Supreme Court perhaps - and only, perhaps - too quickly rejected a recent challenge by the state of Texas related to election procedure, the challenge was a bold, direct invitation eminently worthy of greater study by the Court and, as quickly, became a lost opportunity for clear opinion. And, perhaps, an opportunity for our country to regain at least a degree of lost faith. I am not qualified to ascertain the dismal, so must believe it a sound decision. However, it has me casting futilely about for an alternative to clarification.
We are a strong people. We will abide and adapt for as long as our institutions stand. But, as much as they are co-equal, they are co-dependent. And as one weakens, so does another.
Which begs the question: Is there an obsolescence to the design of democracy?
When asked by a passing citizen what drafters of the Constitution had created, Benjamin Franklin, himself, said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Is there a limit to the flex of our founding principals? An inevitable rending of the fabric of our Constitution… even the all-important and far-seeing Bill of Rights?
Have we, as a society, evolved beyond its living allowances? Are we, and our social demands too great for its enduring embrace? Or, are we simply tugging, yanking and pulling too hard from opposing sides, to allow for its greatest inherent capacity to accommodate and gently reform.
We are a hurried people. And we can be driven by self interest. We can fight hard, fight narrowly, and we can be unforgiving, and reluctant to admit fault. A ratified, national, guiding, living document supported by fundamental civil and legal principal can only do what it is allowed to do.
A democratic people are a part of their institutions. Their institutions, a part of the people. We are bonded and must flex together.
Maybe we can respect that. And in doing so find greater respect for ourselves. And one another.
The Constitution, the legislature, the executive office, and the highest court are there, in fact, to enable that. They were created by the Constitution, now seemingly increasingly threatened by insular institution and bitter division.
Had this particular case been heard, it may have, in the least, provided greater insight into and understanding of the collective outcome of presidential elections (and possibly even US House and Senate distribution) which affects the 'united' states.
If an election results from procedure - it's an opportunity to further study the legitimacy of that. And if those procedures affect the tendencies of the electoral college, then, that too, would have a chance to benefit from greater insight.
Clarification of legitimacy and a process which produces an outcome as important as the US Presidency is a valuable opportunity for all Americans, regardless of whether the motive to question is, itself, legitimate or even reprehensible in the outward appearance of its currier.
If there is a genuine problem with the election process, I lend a degree of credibility to getting down to the crux of it. And clarification from the Supreme Court on the effect of the electoral process on our ‘united’ states and Presidential legitimacy would go a very long way in legitimizing our election process for our own constituents and the world looking on - particularly as we head straight into the storm of global restructure demanding of confidence in our genuinely chosen leaders - whether Democrat or Republican or from another party.
The US is constantly positioning itself above other countries in lauding our elections as free of fraud, coercion and corruption... but are they? This would have been an opportunity to examine that from the highest perspective.
For as long as I've been voting - and that's been a handful of decades since initially registering as an Independent - I do not celebrate an election. Instead, the party at the helm merely informs me of which inherently shared and founding constitutional principles of a struggling democracy largely represented by two bitterly opposing parties will need greater representation, themselves.
Divided.
We are divided.
America is currently and increasingly divided by two increasingly opposing and assertive extremes.
United we stand.
United... in fundamental principals, preserving the rights and liberties of individuals while respecting equally others' rights and liberties... collectively balancing and enabling society's potential to stand together, leaning on and supporting one another in our most human, fundamental capacities forward.
Civil free speech and debate help enable the broadest preservation of our Constitutional and democratic potentials. This is accomplished by broadening the conversation, and considering reasoned opposing perspectives, within the arena of public discourse.
Free and fair Presidential elections in America? Well, that is indeed paramount; and, therefore, seems fitting for our highest court.
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? 2020 Lisa Bracken - newflightbooks.com
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Original reference to this article: New York Times Article - appearing December 11, 2020:
"Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Subvert Election
The suit, filed directly in the Supreme Court, sought to bar Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from casting their electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr."
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UPDATES
03-04-21
https://apnews.com/article/house-passes-sweeping-voting-rights-bill-88088175552f13a8e3f6f25d7bc45f6c
House passes sweeping voting rights bill over GOP opposition
By BRIAN SLODYSKO
Excerpt: "WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats passed sweeping voting and ethics legislation over unanimous Republican opposition, advancing to the Senate what would be the largest overhaul of the U.S. election law in at least a generation."
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