Bill Maher Constitutionalism

On the November 4, 2011 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill had Delware's State Attorney General, "Beau" Biden, on to talk about how the banks are evil.  I was actually impressed with Biden III because he made the correct assertion that the recession was caused by a systemic failure of the market and even admitted to some governmental role.  But since this was only the latest of hundreds of discussions of banking on the show, it was not what piqued my interest.  Toward the end of the interview Maher, presumably looking to insult yet another guest, started berating Delaware for being a small state that the same representation in the Senate as California.  He did make sure to say that Delaware was not the worst sinner in his holier-than-thou eyes, but he said it was a wrong and stupid idea.  Beau Biden seemed, quite reasonably, taken aback by this and muttered something about how great the Founders were and how it seemed like a good policy to him.

Now, one does not have to be an astute constitutional scholar to know that the idea of a bicameral Congress was one of the great compromises that came out of the Constitutional Convention.  I am 90% sure that the problem is mentioned in the musical "1776," not to mention the numerous other media that cover that period of American History.  Indeed, when Bill Maher gets on his bully pulpit, he frequently bemoans the fact that the current Congress cannot get anything done.  So it seems to me that such an astute compromise should be looked at with great admiration.  But instead it is ridiculed and seen as one of the main reasons the Senate gets in the way of all "progress."

The oft-heard retort is that one of the Senate's main purposes is to be such a stumbling block.  That between the filibuster and the equal representation, the states with the largest populations would never be able to exercise their tyranny against the smaller states.  This argument is laughed at by those in Bill Maher's corner and reinforces their idea that there needs to be another Constitutional Convention to right these wrongs. [Continued after the fold]

One of Bill's guests, a newly minted MSNBC host, also went on record as wanting to erase the Second Amendment.  Devotees will note that this is the one about their guns.  She questioned why any of us need guns when we have the police officers to protect us, and said it just does not make sense to her why anyone would want one.  Another of Bill's guests provided the tired defense of: I need one to protect my home from the criminals, for safety!  An equally good response is that they like collecting guns and practicing with them at the shooting range.  I have never wished for Penn Jillette or any libertarian to be on the panel so badly in my life.

The appropriate response to those afraid of guns in the hands of the citizenry is that we need the guns to protect us from the police, from the army, and from the government.  One guest started to make this claim and fell short.  This was mainly due to his being cut off by Bill Maher who claimed that the notion of a citizen militia fighting the planes and bombs of the U.S. armed forces was laughable.  I think any person who really thought about it would wisely retort: "isn't that exactly what has been going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya?"  Further, to play a bit of Devil's Advocate, isn't the main problem with a citizen army taking on the might of America the federal ban on many types of weapons that would enable citizens to destroy tanks and planes?  And as for the police coming to protect you, ask how safe the poor people in neighborhoods the cops won't go to feel.  Try asking African-Americans, gay men and women, and any other group who has unfairly been abused by the police if they feel safe knowing that cops are just a call away. [NB: Of course the vast majority of police officers are upright citizens who would never abuse their power.]

There are many things I would change about the U.S. Constitution. and I could write another post about that.  [Off the top of my head: Simply clarifying the Commerce Clause and the Second Amendment would fix a lot of the perceived problems with the document.]  However, I think the people who share Bill Maher's view of the Constitution would greatly benefit from a thoughtful analysis of what the founding fathers were trying to do.  More on this topic tomorrow.