The Role of Edward Durr in Constitutional Governance
We need more Ed Durr’s in government, not fewer. We need fewer lawyers, professional politicians and con men and more common people
There is an old story about a mechanic who was called in to repair a steamship’s engine. The engine was so reliable and it had performed so well for so long, nobody knew how to fix it once it failed. The mechanic came aboard, and after several minutes of study, pulled a small ball peen hammer from his tool bag and tapped the engine at a specific point, after which the engine started to run again. A week later, the ship’s owner received a bill for $10,000. Immediately upon receipt, the owner called the mechanic and wanted to know why, after only spending just a few minutes with the engine, he was charged so much. The reply was the tapping cost $2 but knowing where to tap cost $9,998.
American government is a little like that engine. It is run so long and so well that people have forgotten how to fix it when it does fail. But unlike that engine, the operation of our government has become so esoteric and complicated because those aspects have come to be used by government dependent “mechanics” as a defense mechanism.
That’s not unusual, in the business world for a person to make a task exclusively theirs is fairly common. Personally, I have seen numerous situations where a bad employee was protected from termination because they had a specific knowledge or a proficiency at a task nobody else in the company had, making that person exempt from disciplinary action.
Processes becoming both complicated and convoluted do happen by evolution, of course, but once people understand the protective benefits that accrue over time, they are often done by design because it assures that people who know how to navigate arcane and Byzantine processes will always be in demand.
New Jersey Republican Edward Durr's apparent victory over the second most powerful person in New Jersey state government, current Senate President, Democrat Steve Sweeney, brings something similar to the mechanic’s story to our attention, one I think sits at the crux of the issues with our governmental systems and brings them to the fore.
Note that I say "apparent victory" because in what has become a Democrat tradition, Sweeney now claims 12,000 ballots have been "found" by an as yet to be named county.
There seems to be a "How dare he?" sort of feeling within the ruling class with respect to Durr, a truck driver for a furniture company. "How can a simple truck driver be expected to understand the critical, important, and complicated mechanisms of government?" seems to be the question ricocheting around inside the bony brain boxes of the elite, especially within the Democrat camp.
And therein lies the problem.
Our governance, all of it from the local to the federal levels, was designed to be managed by common people, from truck drivers like Edward Durr to the janitor at your local elementary school to the owners of the mom-and-pop corner grocery. We are to be governed by the people who directly feel the effect of the decisions made inside the Halls of Government, not the people who exempt themselves from the very effects they create.
Our constitution was written in simple language with such clarity for a reason. America was designed to be governed by common people with common sense, not classes of ruling elites who know where to apply a ball peen hammer supported by a cadre of indispensable bureaucrats with special knowledge of ancient scrolls.
Our Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but it belongs to the citizens, it is not owned by any branch of government, and as James Madison indicated in Federalist #51, counting on a government to police itself is folly.
No document has value unless we give it value. The Constitution has meaning because we treat it that way. Ceding our own understanding of the words of our own Constitution to professional public servants subjugates our own self-governance to that of the elected elite, the entrenched bureaucracy and the black-robed shamans in the courts.
The people are in control of their government, not the other way around.
In a collection of Thomas Jefferson’s papers from 1798, there are his notes on the creation of the Kentucky state constitution (many of the Founders were tapped to help draft state constitutions). In these notes, Jefferson reveals what was commonly understood as the antidote to oppressive, unconstitutional government (If that was not the common understanding, for what purpose were state constitutions created?). Jefferson wrote:
“Resolved that the several states composing the US. of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style & title of a Constitution for the US. and of Amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”
The idea that citizens could refuse edicts that go against their own constitution was nothing new.
Even in the Magna Carta of 1215, a clause that has come to be known as Clause 61 or the “security clause”, states that a council of 25 barons would be created to monitor and ensure King John’s future adherence to the charter and if it were determined he was not in compliance, this council would seize the King’s castles and lands until, in their judgement, amends had been made.
The fact is, we need more Ed Durr’s in government, not fewer. We need fewer lawyers, professional politicians and con men and more common people. We need more people who understand where to hit the constitutional engine with a ball peen hammer when it chugs to a stop.