System corrections

“A Nightclubs listing in the March 5 Weekend section misstated the name of
a band performing Thursday at J.V.’S Restaurant in Falls Church. The band is
Johnny and the Rebels, not Johnny and the Relics.”

And here I thought the band maybe played classic rock. Or maybe, here in the
nation’s capital, it was a group of big-time players in government and
politics. Because this is certainly the place to find relics.

Take the Supremes. No, not the singing group — that’s what those of us who are
among the D.C. hip call the justices of the Supreme Court. Maybe, come to think
of it, that’s who the Post meant
by “Johnny (Chief Justice John Roberts) and the Relics.”

Not that the judicial branch is one, but certainly the views of Roberts and his
SCOTUS legal rationales — they speak the language of modern mores like Latin
does. The corporate campaign finance ruling that inspired the Sam Alito
sideshow at the State of the Union address is just one case in point.

For that matter, we can probably put the State of the Union tradition into the
“Relic” file. If it ever did serve any purpose, it certainly doesn’t
anymore. All it really does these days is offer a showcase of a system that
clings to out-of-touch ways that have been so distorted by modern-day hustlers
that nothing could possibly be accomplished.

The problem is the ones needed to make the change are the very ones who benefit
from keeping things they way they are now. They have dug themselves in so
deeply that they are as entrenched as the calcified setup they refuse to
update.

It means not only that solving modern-day problems has become impossible, but
that the people who are supposed to matter in a democracy feel like they don’t
anymore. With plenty of justification.

To be fair, we should include those of us in Newsbiz, who find it far too
comfortable to perpetuate the status quo with. Much has been made about how the
“mainstream media” have also become relics, and it has less to do
with technology and more to do with our predictable focus on boring irrelevant
blah-blah-blah.

So what we do to extricate ourselves from obsolescence? It’s too easy to say we
should jettison everything. On the one hand, we should move ahead forcefully,
but we should do so thoughtfully.

We need to consider the benefits of our traditions. Filibusters, for instance,
so vilified because they thwart the will of the majority in the Senate, also
protect against the “tyranny of the majority,” which may have become a cliché,
but it’s not a relic. We need to make sure we leave in some barriers against
mob rule. Those protections have ensured a remarkable stability for our nation.

So now comes the hard part: We can’t let reform mean wreckage. But we can’t
stay attached to anachronisms. They belong in a museum that marks the past,
while we create revised ways to address the future that are sensible and don’t
make things worse. If we don’t make that correction, the entire country is in
danger of becoming a relic.

Visit Mr. Franken’s website at www.bobfranken.tv.