By Joe Miller. Fareed Zakaria, the Indian-born CNN commentator, has suggested that because of the debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a European-style of parliamentary governance. In his August 17 column, “Does America Need a Prime Minister,” he writes:
“After the S&P downgrade of the United States, no country with a presidential system has a triple-A rating from all three major ratings agencies. Only countries with parliamentary systems have that honor (with the possible exception of France, which has a parliament and prime minister as well as an empowered president).”
Zakaria goes on to complain that, in the American system of governance,
“you have the presidency and the legislature, both of which claim to speak for the people. As a result, you always have a contest over basic legitimacy. Who is actually speaking for and representing the people?”
He hits it on the head that this leads to a weakened form of government:
“In America today, we take this struggle to an extreme. We have one party in one house of the legislature claiming to speak for the people because theirs was the most recent electoral victory. And you have the president who claims a broader mandate as the only person elected by all the people. These irresolvable claims invite struggle.”
Zakaria begrudgingly admits that these “checks and balances have been very useful on occasion.” But he insists that our world requires stronger central governments “that are able to respond decisively and quickly. In a fast-moving world, paralysis is dangerous.” He warns that our supposedly weak and indecisive government has caused other countries to “catch-up” and “over-take” the US.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Our lack of competitiveness is a consequence of dependency and overregulation bred by the domestic growth of European-like socialism. Our entitlement state has been built to its gargantuan size not by the weak federal government originally intended by our Founders but by the collusion of the establishment parties who don’t give a damn about the Constitution.
The fact that we have a debt crisis is a result of DC’s addiction to bigger and bigger government and away from the limits imposed by the Constitution.
American Exceptionalism is under broad attack from many quarters. Zakaria’s championing of a system of government, similar to his native India’s parliament, reflects his fundamental misunderstanding of the origins of this nation, the Founders’ fear of central governments, and the deliberate design of the intracompetitive tripartite government established by the Constitution. Not to mention his complete misapprehension of the cause of the debt ceiling crisis.
Mr. Zakaria, we need anything but a stronger federal government. Americans want to be freed from their regulatory overlords to compete in and once again dominate the world markets. They recognize that stronger, more cohesive government is not the answer; it’s the genesis of the current crisis and a certain catalyst to tyranny.
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Read the full commentary at WND HERE.
