Mr. Frum

 I'm back at Mr. Frum. Under the title, “The Founders were Wrong About Democracy” he states his case: “the authors of the Constitution feared mass participation would unsettle the government, but it’s the privileged minority that has proved destabilizing.”  There you have it, the buzzword of today: Privilege.  Noteworthy only in the fact that he didn’t tack “white” onto it, although that is the implication. He opens his article and peppers it repeatedly with quotes from the Founding Fathers to make his case, the first from Madison: the mass of people would be susceptible to fickleness and passion, who labour under all the hardships of life and would secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings such that the major interest might under sudden impulses be tempted to commit injustice on the majority”.  His conclusion, obvious from the start and tainted through the prism of today’s equality politics, is that wealth and property is concentrated in an elite minority and the Founding Fathers saw to it that it would stay there, rather than being equitably distributed to the masses, by rigging our constitutional form of government.  Taking it one step further, he accuses the framers of erecting governmental obstacles, a “necessary fence against impetuous councils”.  What are those barriers? The Senate, “an elite few serving longer terms”, the federal judiciary, “confirmed by the Senate and serving for life” and of course the Electoral College, an “indirect election of the president”.  Well, if you put it that way, let’s just tear it all down. Right! And I'm still not quite through with Mr Frum; bear with me, more to follow.