The useless U.S. Senate-Why America is becoming progressively Socialistic.

Due to extensive research I am currently conducting for another project, I am learning some things about the history of our Constitution which I either didn’t know or had forgotten. Among those things which I had forgotten was some of the details concerning the Constitutional debates of 1787 which eventually gave birth to the U.S. Constitution.

When reading those debates, you learn exactly what it was that our nation’s Founding Father’s thought and how they believed our nation’s government should not only be structured, but what the purposes for each branch of our government are. While securing the purpose for each branch of our government, our Founding Fathers also attached each branch of our Federal Government to a different form of election to help preserve that purpose.

The House of Representatives was intended to represent the citizens of America, and therefore was to be elected by popular vote from the districts to which they would represent; members of the Senate represented the states from which they were selected, and were therefore to be elected by each state’s legislature; there was much debate over how to elect the President as his primary job(s) was to serve as commander in chief of our Nation’s armed forces and as a legislative check against both houses of our Congress. In the end, it was decided that so called “electors” would be chosen by popular vote, who would then "elect" our President in the Electoral College. This left the Supreme Court which was to be chosen by the President, with confirmation by Congress.

For over 120 years this is how all 4 branches of our Federal Government were elected and/or selected, as such they served their respective purposes (and electors) dutifully, allowing America to quickly (relative to its age) rise to become the most powerful nation on the planet due to the freedoms and responsibility assumed and espoused upon its citizenry.

But then a fundamental change was approved of to our Constitution in early April of 1913: Senator’s were now to be elected by popular election (the 17th amendment), and so 3 of the 4 branches of our Federal Government were to be, in some way, elected through popular vote (i.e. Democracy).

For students of Philosophy, what happened within the next 20 years, after the passage of the 17^th amendment, should be no surprise: First, the back bone of our economy essentially collapsed in the 1929 Stock Market crash which forced America into what became called The Great Depression. Shortly there after, Franklin Roosevelt was forced to take drastic measures to stabilize the economy and our society by writing a set of bills called The New Deal which established heretofore unacceptable socialist programs regulated from within the Federal Government. From this time on ward it is easy to trace the Socialistic progression of our Federal Government (especially when under control of the Democratic Party) to where it is today.

By now you may be asking what all this history has to do with my perceived “useless”ness of the U.S. Senate. It’s rather simple, really, if you understand how our nation was intended to be governed and what the purpose of each branch of our national government was.

Once our Senate began to be elected by the people at large, it no longer served its intended purpose. In the beginning-and for its first 120 years or so-the U.S. Senate’s purpose was to serve the states, not the people, therefore it’s members were elected by the state governments for which they represented and not the people at large. Once our U.S. Senator’s became elected by the people, this greatly skewed the balance of power, and how legislation was viewed, within our Federal governing body. With each state no longer having an independent say in how legislation was passed, the power of making and creating laws was shifted from one of balance between the people, the republics (i.e. the states) and the greater Federal Government to one nearly completely controlled by the public through Democratic election. By becoming elected through popular election, the purpose of the U.S. Senate became meaningless-they simply became 2 more popularly elected members of the House of Representatives, just under the guise of another name.

For student’s of Philosophy this is very relevant because Democratic elections by popular vote are viewed as not only a predecessor to chaos, but are also seen as base socialistic policy (i.e. Socialism), which is why the current state of our country, and the current socialistic agenda being so readily supported by our current Federally elected leaders, should come as no surprise.

With 3 of the 4 branches of our Government chosen through popular election (i.e. society) is it any wonder that our nation has become progressively socialist since the early 20^th century? With the natural checks and balances of our original Constitution now in large part removed, what was once considered a Democratic Republic (the United States of America), is now a pure Democracy and pure Democracies are doomed to failure due to their tendency towards chaos (and if you don’t see the chaos that dominates our country today, then you are in more trouble than our country is).

Is there a fix? Absolutely.

Is it an easy fix? Easy, no, but it is a simple one.

Will we fix it? Not likely.

Even average every day people like power, and the only power of any kind most people in America will ever experience is the power to elect their local and national leaders, so it would be unrealistic to think that they would ever give up their “right” to elect our Senators.

No, unfortunately, that right (to the states) is gone for good-unless Americans learn to understand what is supposed to make our nation great; why our nation has been losing that greatness over the last 100 years; and how to fix it.