kmiainfo: US Constitution : Is really a democratic constitution? US Constitution : Is really a democratic constitution?

US Constitution : Is really a democratic constitution?

US Constitution : Is really a democratic constitution? To many American citizens who revere the US Constitution as the social and political contract that shapes American identity, this question posed by the eminent political scientist Professor Robert Dahl may seem shocking. Americans believe that the Constitution expresses America and its moral, social and political values. Where the United States of America differs greatly from the rest of the other Western countries with its historical legacy and political development. Many Americans believe that the American Constitution was, and still is, the firmest bond to which they refer, with their various political affiliations and ethnic roots, until it became a definition of their citizenship and inclusive of their unity. The emergence of the United States was a result of the design of this constitution and not the result of the development of human societies such as tribes and other human groups, as is the case with many modern countries of the world. Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous American Founding Fathers and the third American president, wrote the Declaration of American Independence in a draft that carried many human values ​​calling for freedom and equality. However, the American political reality indicates that these lofty values ​​were monopolized for long periods of time by a group of white Protestant men who maintained their political, economic and social supremacy after American independence, and the American Revolution only increased them social and political prestige after advantage. Black Rights and the American Constitution Here, the American political scientist Robert Dahl asks about the failure of the American Constitution to provide freedom to the millions of black slaves who suffered from the scourge of slavery and misery under the control of whites for nearly a century after the independence of the United States and the passage of the American Constitution. These slaves did not breathe American freedom as promised by the Constitution until after the American Civil War, which claimed the lives of more than 600,000 people, when Abraham Lincoln, the most famous American president in its political history, decided to end slavery in the United States of America in the year 1863 AD. ? But as soon as the war ended and the slaves gained their freedom, they found themselves facing hateful racial discrimination embodied in the racial discrimination laws approved by the Supreme Constitutional Court and became a law in force in the country giving state governments the right to prevent blacks from going to white public places and mixing with them, as well as denying them the exercise of their rights Politics in election and running for government office. Black Americans were only fighting again the next hundred years for their political and social rights in a famous civil revolution in the mid-sixties of the last century led by the African-American clergyman Reverend Martin Luther King and paid with his life for it. The African American minority is still struggling to this day to extract its civil and political rights, especially in light of the overwhelming feeling among its members that it has been targeted and the bloodshed of its members, who have long been targeted by the regular police forces in the states, which led to the emergence of a social movement called “Black Lives Matter.” In addition to ignoring the rights of the democratic black minority for two whole centuries, the American constitution also finds that the position of American women was not ideal, as the Constitution did not grant American women, who make up half of society, the right to vote and vote until the early twentieth century and after about a century and a half of The founding of the United States through the Nineteenth Constitutional Amendment. Democratic representation in US elections Likewise, if we look at the electoral mechanism for the American presidency, we will find that it is not really democratic, as American citizens elect their president indirectly through the electoral college consisting of 538 votes distributed over the United States of America and Washington DC, each according to its representation in the US Congress, and therefore the candidates are interested For the American presidency to visit swing states and spend campaign money in them to ensure their victory in the Electoral College. During the past two decades, George Bush in the year 2000 AD and Donald Trump in the year 2016 AD won the US presidency by winning the Electoral College, despite the fact that their competitors received the most votes from the American electorate. The same was the case with the election of members of the US Senate, which is the upper house of the US Congress, where the Americans continued to elect its members indirectly through their legislatures in the states until the seventeenth constitutional amendment ratified in 1913 AD, according to which the election of senators became American directly elected. If we also look at the representation of the American society by the US Senate, we will find that it is undemocratic, as each US state is given two seats in this assembly. Thus, the American citizen who lives in a small state in terms of population, such as Delaware, has a greater influence in the Senate than the citizen who lives In a large state like California. There is no doubt that the equality of small and large states in representation in the US Senate has its historical roots in maintaining a balance between these different states, but the whole matter is considered a democratic shortcoming in the US Constitution. In addition to the above, Professor Robert Dahl believes that the principle of judicial review referred to by the US Constitution has raised another problem that goes beyond what some designers of the US Constitution intended to achieve with regard to the principle of the separation of the three legislative, executive and judicial powers and giving the Federal Supreme Court the right to veto laws. Those authorized by the US Congress and signed by the US President to become laws in force, if they are contrary to the Constitution. Here, Professor Robert Dahl believes that the Supreme Court has bypassed this right of legal review to legislate the laws itself through case law, which may not have been in the minds of the designers of the constitution when writing it, and it also does not seem really democratic, as it gives the power Nine appointed people are not elected to decide many important issues in society. For Professor Robert Dahl, the Constitution and American democracy remains a purely American democratically imperfect experience that many of the emerging democracies in the Third World have not attempted to emulate and transfer it to. But this does not undermine the success of the American democratic experiment in overcoming many difficulties and obstacles throughout its course of more than two centuries. And our Arab societies, while seeking and groping their faltering steps towards democracy in some Arab countries, must fully realize the specificity of their historical and special circumstances, and not be blindly led towards bringing and applying the experiences of others. Perhaps this is the special secret in the survival of the American democratic experience more than Two centuries, despite its shortcomings in embodying democratic ideals, when the founding fathers of the United States of America refused to import the experience of the British Parliament for fear of concentrating all political powers in one political body. The refusal of the founding fathers of the United States to implement the British democratic experience came despite the historical and cultural commonalities between them.(Jamal Qassem)

US Constitution : Is really a democratic constitution?

To many American citizens who revere the US Constitution as the social and political contract that shapes American identity, this question posed by the eminent political scientist Professor Robert Dahl may seem shocking.

Americans believe that the Constitution expresses America and its moral, social and political values. Where the United States of America differs greatly from the rest of the other Western countries with its historical legacy and political development. Many Americans believe that the American Constitution was, and still is, the firmest bond to which they refer, with their various political affiliations and ethnic roots, until it became a definition of their citizenship and inclusive of their unity.

The emergence of the United States was a result of the design of this constitution and not the result of the development of human societies such as tribes and other human groups, as is the case with many modern countries of the world.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous American Founding Fathers and the third American president, wrote the Declaration of American Independence in a draft that carried many human values ​​calling for freedom and equality. However, the American political reality indicates that these lofty values ​​were monopolized for long periods of time by a group of white Protestant men who maintained their political, economic and social supremacy after American independence, and the American Revolution only increased them social and political prestige after advantage.

Black Rights and the American Constitution

Here, the American political scientist Robert Dahl asks about the failure of the American Constitution to provide freedom to the millions of black slaves who suffered from the scourge of slavery and misery under the control of whites for nearly a century after the independence of the United States and the passage of the American Constitution. These slaves did not breathe American freedom as promised by the Constitution until after the American Civil War, which claimed the lives of more than 600,000 people, when Abraham Lincoln, the most famous American president in its political history, decided to end slavery in the United States of America in the year 1863 AD. ?

But as soon as the war ended and the slaves gained their freedom, they found themselves facing hateful racial discrimination embodied in the racial discrimination laws approved by the Supreme Constitutional Court and became a law in force in the country giving state governments the right to prevent blacks from going to white public places and mixing with them, as well as denying them the exercise of their rights Politics in election and running for government office.

Black Americans were only fighting again the next hundred years for their political and social rights in a famous civil revolution in the mid-sixties of the last century led by the African-American clergyman Reverend Martin Luther King and paid with his life for it. The African American minority is still struggling to this day to extract its civil and political rights, especially in light of the overwhelming feeling among its members that it has been targeted and the bloodshed of its members, who have long been targeted by the regular police forces in the states, which led to the emergence of a social movement called “Black Lives Matter.”

In addition to ignoring the rights of the democratic black minority for two whole centuries, the American constitution also finds that the position of American women was not ideal, as the Constitution did not grant American women, who make up half of society, the right to vote and vote until the early twentieth century and after about a century and a half of The founding of the United States through the Nineteenth Constitutional Amendment.

Democratic representation in US elections

Likewise, if we look at the electoral mechanism for the American presidency, we will find that it is not really democratic, as American citizens elect their president indirectly through the electoral college consisting of 538 votes distributed over the United States of America and Washington DC, each according to its representation in the US Congress, and therefore the candidates are interested For the American presidency to visit swing states and spend campaign money in them to ensure their victory in the Electoral College.

During the past two decades, George Bush in the year 2000 AD and Donald Trump in the year 2016 AD won the US presidency by winning the Electoral College, despite the fact that their competitors received the most votes from the American electorate. The same was the case with the election of members of the US Senate, which is the upper house of the US Congress, where the Americans continued to elect its members indirectly through their legislatures in the states until the seventeenth constitutional amendment ratified in 1913 AD, according to which the election of senators became American directly elected.

If we also look at the representation of the American society by the US Senate, we will find that it is undemocratic, as each US state is given two seats in this assembly. Thus, the American citizen who lives in a small state in terms of population, such as Delaware, has a greater influence in the Senate than the citizen who lives In a large state like California. There is no doubt that the equality of small and large states in representation in the US Senate has its historical roots in maintaining a balance between these different states, but the whole matter is considered a democratic shortcoming in the US Constitution.

In addition to the above, Professor Robert Dahl believes that the principle of judicial review referred to by the US Constitution has raised another problem that goes beyond what some designers of the US Constitution intended to achieve with regard to the principle of the separation of the three legislative, executive and judicial powers and giving the Federal Supreme Court the right to veto laws. Those authorized by the US Congress and signed by the US President to become laws in force, if they are contrary to the Constitution. Here, Professor Robert Dahl believes that the Supreme Court has bypassed this right of legal review to legislate the laws itself through case law, which may not have been in the minds of the designers of the constitution when writing it, and it also does not seem really democratic, as it gives the power Nine appointed people are not elected to decide many important issues in society.

For Professor Robert Dahl, the Constitution and American democracy remains a purely American democratically imperfect experience that many of the emerging democracies in the Third World have not attempted to emulate and transfer it to. But this does not undermine the success of the American democratic experiment in overcoming many difficulties and obstacles throughout its course of more than two centuries.

And our Arab societies, while seeking and groping their faltering steps towards democracy in some Arab countries, must fully realize the specificity of their historical and special circumstances, and not be blindly led towards bringing and applying the experiences of others. Perhaps this is the special secret in the survival of the American democratic experience more than Two centuries, despite its shortcomings in embodying democratic ideals, when the founding fathers of the United States of America refused to import the experience of the British Parliament for fear of concentrating all political powers in one political body. The refusal of the founding fathers of the United States to implement the British democratic experience came despite the historical and cultural commonalities between them.(Jamal Qassem)

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