Page Two: Ego and Conscience

My most recent column was about how the Constitution, rather than having been designed to anticipate or to merely accommodate times when the citizenship is most divided and in violent disagreement, was instead predicated on just such acrimonious debate; it assumes such is the constant, ongoing state of the nation. Whenever I hear someone say that this country is more polarized than it's ever been or that hostility among citizens is at an all-time high, I just shake my head. All too often people base such comments on a shared, imagined history. Facts aren't necessarily true; what actually happened sometimes gets in the way of history. One's position should privilege his or her beliefs and not be tainted with inconvenient facts. Thus, the Constitution is clearly and exactly what a person envisions it to be.

In "Postmarks" and the Chronicle's online forums, there are ongoing discussions on whether or not voters should support Rep. Ron Paul's run for the presidency based on his ability to be elected. Some say that he can't win, so giving him support is wasted effort; others say that thinking like that is one of the greatest obstacles to dark-horse and third-party candidates. There are still others who argue that Paul can win, even if such an event is unlikely. Finally, as always, there are those who argue that citizens must vote their consciences: To temper that impulse in any way with thoughts about a candidate's electability is to participate in corrupting the process. Following one's conscience rather than making a more pragmatic decision has long proven fertile ground for readers' discussions.

This is a very important topic. Obviously, some people's consciences are built quite differently from others'.

I enter this discussion as a member of one of the smallest minority groups in this country. I am among the handful of those who think that the government is not basically broken, though it has been intentionally jammed up by the current administration. My obviously demented take is that this is still very much a representative country and that, despite the ample destruction and enormous ineptitude of the Bush administration (which has provided a library of anecdotal evidence on how badly an administration can possibly govern), this administration's abuses were an unusually extensive aberration.

Crucial to this take is the idea that if 300 million people are truly empowered (though, despite idealism, this empowerment is uneven, has all kinds of problems, and displays certain class prejudices), there is no way the resulting government can move swiftly or without causing great displeasure to most of them. This is crucial to the governmental design strategy offered in the Constitution: Ideally, most of the citizens should be unhappy with the government most of the time. Admittedly, this unhappiness can just as easily represent the government's complete failure – the partisan extremism of the current administration's position that the way to power is through national divisiveness – with there being very few politicians of either party who try to rise above the mundane.

What is wrong with our government that can be easily fixed? Realistically, how could it function more smoothly, given its mandate? This is not to argue that the government is pristine – far from it. Instead, it is to suggest that the federal government works better than – and that its actions really do reflect the general beliefs of the constituency as much as, if not more than – one could reasonably expect, given all the various pressures on it. In a dramatic misunderstanding of the basis of our law, many seem to believe the federal government, being a democracy, should more closely reflect their beliefs. To the contrary: It does not ever purely represent you or me; it is not restricted nor determined solely by our beliefs; it responds to all and not just to any limited constituency.

The often confused and contradictory ideas of the American people allow for no clear path. Most Americans decry taxes and insist they want smaller government, with some arguing for much less government interference in their lives. Yet some of these same people support a massive federal campaign against undocumented immigrants that would cost several fortunes. Given that the most conservative estimate might find at least 5 million undocumented workers, the number of new bodies needed and laws to restrict individual freedoms in order to track down their employers would impact all of us, taking us closer to a police state. Conservatives want a more circumspect government, but there are all types of behaviors they think should be outlawed. There are thousands of different kinds of special-interest groups that want the government, while growing smaller and cutting its budget, to pass legislation based on their concerns.

Many complain that the federal government is broken because we have moved too far from constitutional principles. In actuality, most are really complaining about governmental complexities and difficulties that quite clearly emanate from the Constitution. When people complain about the movement of the government away from the Constitution, they are almost always not really considering the document. Instead, they are distressed because their core beliefs are not adequately represented. They imagine that the Constitution is a document that is as wise as they are and stands for exactly the same things.

The reality is that very few activists have any love for the Constitution or its intention. If you presented them with its core ideas, removed from the label of the Constitution, much of what would be described is what those activists like least about our government. The whole idea of the document is to establish an argumentative government wherein the full range of positions on issues is discussed. There is a very real drive from reactionary conservatism, the religious right, and socialists and communists, among others, to tear up the Constitution and start over. This is because it specifically empowers those holding positions we disagree with, as it empowers us against them. In this light, the positions activists are championing often are not simply unconstitutional, but anti-Constitution.

There is constant talk about this being a democracy with majority rule, but that is exactly what the framers neither wanted nor intended. Rather than have our government be a democracy in which the elected Congress implements the will of the majority, the design is for a constitutional republic. Ideally all get to vote, but the rights of minorities (ideological and political, as well as racial and religious) are protected, and politicians are expected to place their own informed nationalism and ideals above the will of the people. The president was given a four-year term and senators six years so that they would be free to legislate in what they considered the country's and its citizens' best interests while not being tied down by the hysterics, passing whims, and misguided passions of the majority. Their only guide was to be their consciences and principles.

In the days before telephones, TV, radio, movies, the Internet, and so on, news and information traveled so slowly that it created a certain barrier for elected officials. There was a lot of time between legislation and election. Today this is no longer true. If there are any great failures of contemporary American government, they have far less to do with masterly overlords, powerful corrupt special interests, or an omniscient, malevolent cabal than with the immediacy and intensity of citizen impact.

The genius of the Constitution is that it empowers you as a citizen but also empowers equally those with whom you most disagree. The expectation is not that every citizen should and will be happy with every decision his or her elected officials make. Most of the time there should be a general, shared discontent with the government.

Now, advanced technology not only lets citizens know what their elected officials are doing almost immediately; it also allows them the opportunity to so respond. Anytime legislators try to act from principle, or at least emotionally distanced reasoning, they are immediately attacked, accused of selling out or being corrupt. The way the government should ideally function as conceived by the Constitution – through debate, acrimony, negotiation, and compromise – is now regarded by all too many Americans as corrupted, broken, hopelessly malfunctioning.

As citizens with the right to vote, we are responsible for whatever our government does, because it represents us. (The spit-takes prompted by that sentence are probably at flood-level intensity. In a future column, I will go into detail.) If we believe in representative constitutional government and the Declaration of Independence for granting the many rights that we insist we have, we also have to acknowledge the accompanying responsibilities. When we accept the basic premises of our government, we are responsible for what it does; privileging one's conscience over policy, diplomacy, and legislation does not alleviate responsibility.

The elaborate song-and-dance explanations of the Naderites, for example, are made with a theatrical insistence that they acted with more integrity than the rest of us. If Ralph Nader hadn't run, they go on, who is to say how they would have voted, or even if they would have voted? The reality is that, in all likelihood, if Nader hadn't run, Al Gore would have won. Obviously, this position evidences my stunning naivete in not understanding the extent and the ability of the powers that control all elections, alongside the extent to which Republicans would go to steal an election. Florida was a disgraceful corrupt destruction of the Constitution, but I don't believe it was either the first or only time in our history.

No matter who you voted for, you are responsible for what the United States does. If you voted for the Bush administration, you are especially responsible. If you didn't use your vote to actively try to prevent Bush's election, but instead voted your conscience, you sure do have a hell of a conscience. It seems restricted to personal taste and isolated from the real world. There is a beautiful ideal in the vote, but also a practical reality. In those terms, if following your conscience is more important than the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and citizens, the social safety net, women's right to choose, employees' rights in general, the Constitution, and so on, aren't we talking ego much more than conscience? In fact, given this country's power and prominence in the world, following one's conscience rather than considering the consequences of your vote is in no way noble, but simply another action by the empowered, ruling elite who can't be bothered with the rest of the country and the world.

My conscience is designed differently. It includes an awesome and awful sense of responsibility for the consequences not only of my vote, but of all citizens' votes or decisions not to vote. The day my conscience is more important than the lives of others – the safety and well-being of Americans and their children and the principles of our country – is the day I stop voting.