this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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Uhhhh, I don't think a document that outlines the basis for a type of democracy is anti democratic. There are plenty of things wrong with it though, maybe talk about those parts instead to build a stronger case against the constitution
The supreme court is 9 ppl appointed for life, so that's antidemocratic. The Senate is 2 ppl per state regardless of population, that's antidemocratic. Amendments need 3/4 of the States, not people, to go through, that's antidemocratic. The federalist papers specifically discuss the desire to prevent the people ("the mob" they called us) from having much power.
Why are these things anti democratic? If you want to go down this path you first need to establish a clear definition for what is and isn't anti democratic. Is a doctor anti democratic because he wasn't elected by popular vote? The supreme court is appointed by the current sitting (democratically elected) president. Should every government position require a nation wide popular vote? Is that really the only way to have a democracy?
You and I can disagree about our minimum level of democracy, but how will we actually change society if we don't change how the decisions are made in society?
For me, the most possible democracy is when the people affected by a given decision (and only those people) are the ones who make the decision in a way they consider fair (however fair is defined) and are empowered to do what they decided on.
If the same group of people instead choose, via 1 person = 1 vote, one or more among them to make the decision, it's less democratic in my view, but at least they each had an equal vote.
If the same group of people instead choose, via any voting system that changes 1 person = 1 vote (e.g. x amount of votes for each parcel of land), one or more among them to make the decision, it is even less democratic, because they did not all have an equal vote due to variations in how many people live in each parcel of land.
The current US Constitutional system has us here, between the above example and the below one, because land parcels in large part determine relative voting power and then the electeds make appointments of further decision makers, such as the Supreme Court.
Zero democracy is when the person/people making the decisions are not chosen by the people affected by the decision and the people affected by it have zero say in the decision.
I'll preface by stating that I'm not an American.
I think society is too interconnected and any decision in any area could be argued to have an effect on the entire population. I also think it's good to have competent people in positions of leadership. I don't think that most people are capable of choosing who is well suited for a given task. In that sense I somewhat agree with what you said here "people affected by a given decision (and only those people) are the ones who make the decision" though I believe I'm arriving at this conclusion from a different perspective than you. I would also point out that in both cases it is inherently less democratic than the current us government (as in less people are given more power) though I think this is partially desirable since a true perfect democracy won't select who is most capable, but who is more popular.
Just to clarify, do you mean that you just don't think most people are informed enough as to every person who is an expert in something, or are you meaning that people are not intelligent enough?
What is the difference
Pretty damn big.
Not being able to name every expert in every field doesn't make you unintelligent.
"[in]capable of choosing" could either mean "at this time, without full facts", or it could mean "intrinsically". The former is fine, but any rhetoric that only our "betters" should be voting, whether that be measured by wealth, intelligence, ethnicity, gender, or anything else, is at best elitist, and at worst bigoted and authoritarian.
Yeah we just disagree. I'm not gonna pretend I'm not more authoritarian than some people. I am very much in favour of a strong powerful government over a week one. And I do think that participation isn't universal and should be limited. I'm pretty confident in saying that most people agree on some level. Every democracy today has a minimum voting age, it's common for criminals not to be able to vote, citizenship is a requirement. All of these things can be viewed as authoritarian and elitist but i think that's okay and governments are better off for it.