bjturk.commentary: five weeks of indecision

bjturk.commentary
hanging from my own rope

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this bjturk.commentary:
five weeks of indecision

Through numerous court battles, the election for the Presidency of the United States remained in limbo for 36 days. Some might argue that the protracted fight had a weakening effect on the country as a whole and our democracy in particular. I disagree with this assessment.

The Constitution of the United States has always been the guiding document of American justice. As the supreme law of the land, all other laws must fit within its guidelines. Election law is no exception, and the Florida cases proved the value of the Consititution as a protector of equal rights and equal protections. It may appear on its surface the the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court awarded the presidency to George W. Bush, but in fact, the Supreme Court did no more than its duty under the Constitution to uphold the Constitution and its principles. The poorly-crafted Florida election laws required the intervention of the Supreme Court to clarify the applicability of constitutional protections to the manual recounts.

Upon reflection, there are dozens of so-called "democracies" in the world that could not have weathered such a controversy without falling into anarchy or outright revolution. The beauty and strength of the American system is that it bends, but never breaks. That we can rely upon a document written two hundred years ago to preserve our system of government is a point of pride that no other country can equal. The United States has long been considered the home of the greatest form of democratic government the world has ever known, and nothing that has occurred in the past few weeks should have changed that view. All controversies regarding the election were resolved within the framework of our existing two-century-old democratic system.

I find that nothing in this whole sequence of events has weakened any facet of American society. Our judicial, executive and legislative systems worked as they should to "ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The courts made rulings in accordance with the laws. Executive agencies and their elected heads made decisions based upon the powers granted them by the legislators. The legislators, however imperfectly, crafted laws to govern what contingencies they had foreseen. Our founding fathers would be rightly proud to see that what they have wrought still stands as the beacon of freedom. No matter how one feels about the outcome, there can be no doubt that the system still works, even after all these years.

A system of government, rigidly defined, cannot fulfill its function. It is the less-well-defined American system that give it its flexibility. A little free play is necessary for it to work, and work it does. those who forecast this election as being the death knell of the United States as the bastion of democracy were sadly mistaken. All governments should be so resilient.

The head of Russia's elections office offered the give the U. S. advice on how to run fair, free elections. Imagine that. We've been having free, fair elections for over two hundred years, as opposed to ten or so years in Russia, and we haven't had two revolutions this century either, so we're probably better off sticking with what we have. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. What we have works just fine...

December 18, 2000

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