Sample Essays—Essay Question #1

 

A.  It is axiomatic in America today that the people are the source of all government power and that were it not for the consent of the governed, the national government would not long stand.  That said, it is also evident that the noble ideals of the framers of the Constitution have been abandoned to a large extent as the nation has progressed through its history.  Evidence of this can be found in the degree of power and influence the media have over the common citizen, the usurpation of the states’ sovereign authority by the national government, and the proliferation of government programs that ostensibly serve liberty and the common good but inevitably foster a sense of dependency on the government for the provisions of daily life.

            Madison warned in Federalist #10 that the influence of factions within a republic was similar to the corrupting effects of disease.  Accordingly, he argued that the best way to control factions was either remove the causes, i.e, to destroy liberty, or to control its effects through the implementation of a representative government in which the majority would control minority factions, and majority factions would be controlled through geographical size, population size, and the creation of a legislative body that would act as a filter of popular views and ideas.  With the growth of the mass media—radio, TV, and now the internet, controlled by special interest groups or in some other way inherently biased and often full of substance-less emotionalism—information travels swiftly across the country in a matter of moments, regardless of the nation’s size and population. 

Of course, Madison and the other fathers could not be blamed for not foreseeing mass media, but it may be legitimate to blame mass media for nurturing a factious spirit among the people.  How do people in this nation today access their information about political matters if not through some form of mass media?  The only alternative way to access crucial information would be to be a first-hand observer or participant in the governing process.  Through the open-door policy of most American government institutions, the people do have direct access to the governing process, but most people do not take advantage of this right.  Therefore, what most people believe about crucial issues is largely determined by what they hear or see in the news, and have gut-reactions for or against what they glean from a 10-second soundbite or a 20-line article.  They do not have accurate or well-informed views because they are receiving mediated, second-hand information.  If we cannot trust hearsay in a court proceeding, why should we tolerate hearsay in the political process that more closely affects our everyday existence? 

At the same time, members of Congress seem to be more concerned about the daily opinion polls than about crafting good law for the benefit of the common good.  If they look good on television and can provide a good soundbite, then they can win votes.  They are not thereby acting in the role of a disinterested filter between the masses and the government; they are pandering to popular perception.  Worse yet, it seems they are not rallying the masses for the sake of soliciting their advice.  Rather, it appears that they are doing so to preserve their own political careers, giving the most support to the will of the most popular faction.  Perhaps it would be best if the representatives of the people were not seen nor heard during their tenure in office, but only accepted comments and advice from their constituents in the form of direct correspondence.  In that way, they could be divorced enough from the need to please the crowds and focused enough to perceive what really is in the interest of the common good.

With regard to the rights of the states, it is important to remember that the Anti-Federalists were in the majority during the time of the creation and adoption of the Constitution.  That meant that even in the newly created federal system, there would be more power given to the states than to the national government.  Even the Federalists conceded that there were merits to dividing sovereignty amongst various levels of government, with the local and state levels dealing with the more minute and intimate workings of citizens’ daily lives.  But if one stops to consider the extension of federal government power to abortion rights, for example, it is evident that what was once a simple matter of a state’s police power for the health, welfare, morality and safety of its citizens, has now become a matter of federal government intrusion into the private lives of every citizen.  It does not seem to matter much anymore that citizens of Nebraska are more inclined to want to restrict abortion access while citizens of Massachusetts are likely to be supportive of a woman’s right to choose.  When the Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade decision, it marked the effective end of at least one of the states’ primary police powers, and thus the end of community interests being the standard by which moral issues are judged.  The federal government overstepped its obligation to provide for the life, liberty, and property rights of its citizens vis-à-vis itself, and started dictating to the states to protect these same rights in the exact same ways, thereby weakening the federal system’s natural advantage of experimentation with policies on a local level and diversity of rules and regulations from which national citizens may choose when weighing the options for and against living in a particular state.

Lastly, it is important to remember that the founders wanted to maximize liberty and to minimize citizens’ dependence on the government.  But if one examines the national welfare system in place today, is it legitimate to say that government does not foster dependency?  Arguments can be made that the government’s welfare programs are designed solely to help people get back on their feet, back to the level at which they can exercise their full liberty.  However, the conditions under which one may receive welfare funding are a hindrance to self-fulfillment and independence.  If a single mother can receive more welfare money for having another child, what is to stop her from becoming pregnant again?  And if that child further depletes the mother’s resources because it needs food and clothes, does that not put the mother in a position of even greater dependence on the government for help than before she had that child? If it is difficult for someone with compassion to deny funding to such a one as that, how else can we solve the catch-22?  It is inevitable that the system serves to perpetuate itself.

When the framers of the Constitution created the new government in 1787, they expected a few virtuous citizens to govern the rest.  That meant that the national government had to retain a considerable degree of distance between itself and the average citizen.  The state and local governments were designed to be the primary venues for citizen participation, precisely because they were the governments that were most in tune with the popular will.  The mass media today has instead turned the national political scene into a circus arena in which people of competing ideologies are portrayed in an emotional, popularly-driven manner, with little concern for the virtues and ethics of the nation’s founders.  The states have become little more than rubber stamps of the national government’s policies, the results of federal court decisions, unfounded federal mandates, and the doctrine of national pre-emption.  And the federal government has disguised itself as a benefactor of the common citizen, a preserver of liberty, all the while it secretly destroys independence and the very liberty it was created to protect.

                     

                   

B.  The immensity of the task of creating a new government should not be taken lightly.  Just as the framers of the American Constitution sought to provide a balance between all the interests represented across the new nation, in constructing a new frame of government for Iraq, it is imperative that all sides are heard and all interests are accounted for in the governing process to be set up. 

            Using the American Constitution as a guide, it would first be wise to divide Iraq into several self-governing, republican districts.  Iraq is roughly equivalent in size, both geographically and in terms of population, to California.  Therefore, it is unnecessary to divide the nation into more than five districts.  This number would allow for a fair division of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, perhaps creating three Shiite districts, one Sunni district, and one Kurdish district, so that no one district would contain more than one-fifth of the entire Iraqi population.  Within each of these districts, a republican legislative council, to be elected by a popular, at-large vote (further division into sub-districts as we have in America, would only reduce the number of qualified candidates), would exercise the right to legislate on the basic police powers—criminal laws, health standards, and moral issues.  Each district would also have an executive and a judiciary to perform functions similar to those performed by their American counterparts.  Each district would be permitted to establish its own preferred form of religion, within reasonable limits of guaranteeing the minorities’ rights to worship in designated places and at appointed times.  The national government would have no right to impose a religion on anyone or to prohibit any religious exercise.  This provision would allow each of the districts to be religiously self-determining according to the generally-accepted community standard.  Thus, the legislatures and the courts of the various districts could decide to use Islamic Shari’ah as a valid legal tool, but the national government would be restricted to a purely secular form of legislation and legal decisions so as to remain tolerant of Iraq’s religious diversity and to offer a counterweight to the districts’ more intense religious fervor. 

            Each of these five districts should be duly represented in a national legislative council, consisting of an Assembly and a House of Sheiks.  The Assembly will be elected directly from amongst the people in the districts, on an at-large and proportional basis of representation, every two years.  This term length is sufficient to gain some experience, but insufficient to develop a gap between the popular will and the assemblyman.  The encouragement of competing political parties will foster a democratic spirit, and the more political parties there are, the less likelihood that factionalism will translate into tyranny.  The best way to encourage a plurality of political parties is to promise legislative representation on a proportional basis.  Parties receiving fewer than 5% of the popular vote will not receive representation in the national Assembly, but because of the limited the number of seats available, anything else would be unfeasible.  Each district shall elect a total of twenty representatives for the Assembly, thereby making the maximum number of Assemblymen 100, a number similar to most state legislatures’ houses of representatives in America.  Given Iraq’s small size, this number is sufficiently representative.  The House of Sheiks shall be elected by each district’s legislative body, for a period of ten years, so that it remains the chamber in which the interests of the district as a whole are more adequately represented.  After ten years, the Sheiks become ineligible to continue in office and new elections must be held.  They hold their office for an adequate time to develop expertise on the major issues facing the nation, and insufficient time to become separated from the districts they serve.  The maximum number of Sheiks shall be set at 30, a number similar to most state legislatures’ senates.  Each district shall be afforded a total of six Sheiks.  

            This legislative body shall be vested with the simple powers of governing inter-district commerce, foreign trade, declaration of war, securing the common national borders, limited direct taxation on the people, creation of a common currency, regulation of standard weights and measures, and the creation of a post office/post roads.  Anything beyond those powers shall be reserved to the districts to exercise, for the closer a government is to the people, the less likely it is to tyrannize over them.  In America, the federal government was deliberately limited by the framers of the Constitution, and the states were given broad powers and rights to preserve the right of self-government, i.e., local control.  Iraqis, too, deserve this same power of self-government.     

            The Iraqi executive will perform functions similar to those of the American President.  He will have the power to command the military (as a civilian) and the power to conduct foreign affairs, enforce the laws of the national legislature, and to propose legislation for the legislatures’ action.  This strong executive will foster a cohesion amongst the various districts.  He shall be elected from a minimum of three candidates, at least one to represent each of the three major ethno-religious groups, and shall win only after he has attained a majority of all votes cast.  This will necessitate a run-off election in most instances, and will force compromise and cooperation amongst the competing interests.  His term of office shall be for no more than seven years, after which he must step down and new elections must be held.  History has shown that leaders in power for longer periods tend to drift from their popular mandates and become less acceptable in the eyes of the people. 

            Judicial power shall be invested in a Supreme Court designed to be strictly secular.  When disputes arise within the various districts over matters of Shari’a, those disputes can travel no higher than the district supreme courts.  The national Supreme Court shall have jurisdiction over all inter-district conflicts arising solely from out of a secular concern.  It shall have the power to declare acts of the Iraqi national legislative body unconstitutional and invalid, but it shall not transgress upon the rights of the districts to enact laws according to their own judgment.  This will prevent the national government from becoming an unbearable dominating power, and will promote freedom for the ethnic and religious minorities that have suffered under the persecution of Saddam Hussein’s regime. 

            While it must be acknowledged that Iraq is not colonial America, the situation it is facing is not entirely dissimilar.  The rioting and bombing and discontent amongst the general population is not going to go away without a highly flexible, yet stable and strong national government that allows its citizens full access to its inner workings.  Given the differences between the Muslim majority in modern Iraq and the secular-Deist-Christian majority in colonial America, it is also necessary to refrain from imposing the elements of the American First Amendment wholesale.  Division into relatively equal districts along ethno-religious lines seems to be a legitimate way of preventing a theocracy from tyrannizing the entire nation.  After all, even in colonial America and for nearly fifty years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, several states had established religions within their jurisdictions.  Such matters are best left to the local levels of government.  The remainder of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights should also be left up to the districts to enforce.  The founders of America lived by the maxim “divide and rule,” and for Iraq, it should be no different.  Anything that hints of centralization ultimately hints at loss of freedom.