Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Some notes from the consent assignment

I'm reading through the consent asignment and omoing across soem interesting comments. I'll share them:

- Consent means something different - in a democracy - to the majority and the minority. How does each offer consent? Is consent of the minority even necessary?

- Consent also means something different - in an electoral environment where candidates need funds - to wealthy contributors and rank and file voters.

- The constitutional system makes withholding consent very difficult. How high a percentage of the population must be dissatisfied with the system in order to change it substantively - like call constitutional conventions?

- Here's a question that occured to me: Was the original Constitution really based on the consent of the governed? Suffrage was limited, women had no political rights, and we allowed slavery.