Why? You have your Senate, which is essentially the same thing with a little democratic veneer slapped on overtop. An august body of effectively ‘appointed for life’ rich people that is deliberately distorted to value land more than individual people (which is why North Dakota has as many Senators as California).
Sure, occasionally a Senator loses an election, but the rich stay in power regardless. The primary purpose is to make sure that the rest of government, who might favour the unwashed rabble, doesn’t get out of hand and do anything about the rich and their power.
From what I can see it is working exactly as described on the box. (This is much more interesting than a discussion about that awful movie).
The odd barbarian in the lord’s court isn’t really enough to refute @rocketpj 's point, I think.
The senate, as a body, does value land more than people, and is by and large made up of rich people who spend a lot of time being courted by very rich people.
The Senate, like many examples of representative government, is structured in such a way that the interests of rich people are grossly over-represented.
The House of Lords, like the monarchy itself, is literally based on the premise that some people are inherently better than others by virtue of heredity.
A reminder that Cats may yet be considered slightly less wacky than Starlight Express, wherein Mr. Webber wanted to do Thomas the Tank Engine but could not get the rights. Except in this case, when he was taken aback by the state of the long-running German production, he apparently resolved to fix it. Have we seen the last of it? Probably not.
Yeah, well, consider yourself lucky. Because in Hamilton’s original conception of the Constitution, Senators would have in fact been appointed for life.
As it was, until 1913 and the 17th Amendment, the Senate wasn’t even directly elected. (Something that, when I learned it way after college, I found absolutely amazing.)
I do consider myself lucky, but not for that reason as I’m a Canadian and our Senators are:
Appointed by the sitting Prime Minister - i.e. not elected at all.
Appointed until they are 75. It used to be for life but there were too many examples of families wheeling grampa’s hospital bed into the Chambers a couple of times/year to keep the cheques rolling. There are still examples of Senators who live out of the country and show up the minimum amount to keep the seat.
The only mitigating factor is that it is extremely rare for them to do anything other than rubber stamp legislation.
You’re not going to get a defense of the Senate from me. However….
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The Senate’s a disaster for representative democracy and we’ll get closer to our idealized democracy once it’s reformed, but the US Constitution is intentionally aspirational; it’s our role as citizens to ensure that it is constantly evolving toward the ideals it fails to meet currently.
It’d be nice if we could get those originalist blowhards to grok that… also, that although the first 10 amendments are largely great (depending on interpretation), they were put there for the enslavers in the south. They were meant to reassure enslavers that they would get to keep enslaving.
“Originalist” is shorthand for “I’ll cherry pick ahistoric anecdotes out of context to validate my foregone conclusion about what the ALL HOLY FOUNDING FATHERS meant; which I alone can interpret correctly.” Which, in practice ends up being some version of…
(substitute any oppressors for “enslavers” and any number of regressive concepts for “enslaving”)
