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Epic fail Political philosophy

The bastardization

is the 17th amendment–the direct election of Senators. Actually, if there were ONE thing I would change about or system of government it would the this. And it wouldn’t even be close!

See, originally this was a four-part government. It was (ahem!) made up of four mutually-limiting parts:

The House of Representatives was the people’s house. The people directly elected Representatives. The term was for only TWO years, so as to give the people as much power to correct things as possible.

The Senate represented the state. Senators were chosen only indirectly by the people and the formal voting was, naturally, by the state congress. They did NOT represent the people directly, but were there to represent the state. And they therefore had a rotating 7-year term of office.

So they were a “check” on the House. And this represented the Founding Father’s strong desire to separate powers.

The President was also directly elected. For four years. He or she was kind of a “bridge” between the two congressional entities.

The Supreme Court (ideally) did not legislate at all, but merely reviewed the actions of the other governmental entities to make sure they adhered to the Constitution.

So a new law had to be acceptable to the people, to the states, be signed by the President, and be found Constitutional by the Supreme Court. Separation of powers.

The 17th amendment screwed that all up. NOW the House and the Senate were not structurally different at all! The States lost all representation. The Senate became just the House with longer terms and a tradition of the Filibuster.

It was a TOTAL mistake! And that’s not how it was originally (and wisely) set up. Our ancestors made a HUGE mistake in changing that!

LET’S REPEAL THE 17TH AMENDMENT!

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