How dare you try and change an amendment
Up until about a hundred years ago we were doing it all the time.
More amendments were ratified in the latter half of 20th century than the entire 19th (6 vs. 4).
Reminds me of this classic Jim Jefferies bit
Why? Because a lot of their ideas were good. Creating a system of government that is immune or even resilient to corruption is very difficult, but the US has done pretty good all things considered.
I would say the Swedish constitution is substantially better, yet I never see anybody cite it as a supreme authority of morality. We have also changed it regularly since its total revision in 1974. I am not saying that the American one is necessarily bad, but I am saying it is just a law and should not be worshipped.
Edit: if you want to give it a read, the official translation can be accessed here (pdf)
Treating the constitution as if it cant be changed because it is “perfect” is wildly different than not wanting the government to boundary test how it can skirt the constitution to get what it wants. When the US government doesnt follow the rules that it was supposed to be bound to via the constitution, it is almost never a good thing.
The constitution set rules for how to change it legitimately. It was designed to be changed over time not flagrently ignored.
That’s the problem, it cannot be changed anymore, the base problems with the system itself prevents it from doing so.
Sounds like you have an issue with these “base problems”, not the Constitution itself
Who are you and why does it benefit you to support this narrative worshipping of the constitution? Because every response you’ve made in this thread is either trying to support the constitution as infallible or mock anyone making arguments against it.
None of you idiots understand how the US government actually works and it annoys me.
Haven’t seen you make any attempt to prove you know otherwise. You just seem like an idiot debasing other people’s arguments rather than making any arguments of your own.
Hell the very post I was responding to you didn’t even make an argument, just tried to argue the person wasn’t talking about the constitution, when it would obviously be part of the base as a foundation of the country.
If it annoys you and you can’t actually provide anything, you should just leave. If you can provide something, then don’t waste people’s time.
100%. The only people that are gungho to overhaul the constitution at this point in time mean to do it irreparable harm. It’s a tough thing to navigate when you don’t believe the politicians involved have anything but the public’s unquestioning obedience in mind.
The constitution was designed to be vaguely descriptive, so that in the case that society does change, then statements can be interpreted in a way that supports the new view of the modern country.
For instance, while not in the constitution, the government set up no offical state language or religion, in the case that society had changed making what they said redundant.
The constitution provides for its own improvement by allowing itself to be amended
Constitutions form the foundation on which everything else–laws, the economy, public services, politics, culture, national security–is built.
It’s one thing to look at how a new constitution might solve our current social ills, or to demonstrate how the old one is imperfect, it’s another thing to really consider the side effects of a change in constitution. What things we would lose that we take for granted, and to do so honestly, and critically?
Would America still be an imperialistic hegemony with a swedish constitution? If no, are Americans really truly ready to give up the benefits they enjoy that come with being a global hegemony?
We won’t really find answers to these questions in a tweet.
Who is the head of state of Sweden? How are they selected? What is their term of service in the role?
On paper it is the hereditary monarch, but they have no real power, so de facto it is the prime minister. Their role is to lead and to appoint ministers in the government, which is considered Sweden’s leading body.
The prime minister is selected by the parliament, the representation of the Swedish public, which is also responsible for deciding on laws and holding them and the government in check overall.
The prime minister has no term limit but they tend to lose support from the parliament (which gets elected every four years) sooner or later. For instance, the last prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, stayed less than a year.
Edit: fixed typo
So why maintain the hereditary monarchy, even in a limited capacity? What role does it serve?
Good question. Since 1974, the monarch’s role has been reduced to a purely ceremonial one because of common sense, but then and still today a lot of people think they’re valuable for our shared identity as a people. However, an ever-growing amount of Swedes such as me whole-heartedly disagree and advocate republicanism.
One fine day, when the monarchy has been relegated to the annals of history, where will Swedes turn to find their national identity, assuming a national identity is worthwhile?
Another good question. We do have a shared language and culture, but overall, our identity as a nation is slowly eroding – because everyone speaks English anyway, English is used whenever there is anything international involved. Because our standards of living are so high and because we are just cogs in a giant economic machine, we no longer have to resort to traditions or religion for comfort and stability. Also, the realisation that we are ultimately all humans and that countries are quite arbitrary is quite inevitable.
I can say that I, because a perfect society is quite literally impossible and because ultimatly the only thing that humans want is the fulfillment of their desires, believe that the rationality that will eventually be forced upon us by thinking machines will ultimately lead to a historical end station of artificially created pleasure. My main logic is that everything we do is driven by some desire, which means that a perfect state in whch all desires are fulfilled also has no actions, which are required by societies, and that ever-accellerating technological development will show a way around this by artificially modifying the brain to be in this state.
However, in the turbulence of modern society, I fail to see what the way there is going to look like – what is going to happen to nations, language, culture and the like when rationality renders them obsolete – there are just too many factors at play. I don’t think it is going to be pretty.
The West Wing S06 E14 - The Wake Up Call is a pretty good episode about the US constitution as a model.
We’re aware there are better constitutions, especially more modern ones. But if the US were to rewrite our constitution today, we’d be the United States of Bank of America. We have to appreciate what we do have or it’ll be gone.
The reverence for our constitution is important because it helps to enforce it. The piece of paper doesn’t do much on its own.
Yeah but a lot were also bad which is why it’s stupid when people act like the opinions of the founding fathers should matter more than the opinions of contemporary Americans when the same founding fathers were smart enough to realize the constitution should be a living document and not a holy totem to use as a club to stifle any progress.
I think there were only a couple bad ideas, which have been mostly fixed by amendments. It is a living document, it has changed over time. You could argue that it should be easier to change, but there would be consequences for that too.
I think we can find a middleground between “fuck em” and “their word is law”
In fact most of the time the people trying to make their word out to be law are using the most loose and self-pandering interpretation they can.
Like you said, the same founding fathers did not want it to be this way. I wish we’d argue harder how unamerican it is that people are treating the founding fathers with zealotry.
They literally designed the Constitution to be the foundation of all law in the country.
Their words (at least the specific ones in the Constitution) literally are law.
Yes, the ones specific to the constitution
Because those words can be changed. They were made to be changed. They were intended to be changed.
They’re not meant to be worshipped, they’re meant to do their job, and change as needed to keep up with the times.
The founding fathers had their fears, and the constitution was made to repel those fears. And little by little we use their name to draw those fears side by side what they created.
They’re not meant to be worshipped
I think the central problem here is a lot of kids conflating “this is literally the ultimate law of the land” with “I have a religious reverence for this document”.
Fine. If you can get agreement across the states as to which of those ideas are bad - you can amend them away.
I know, but my point is that the founding fathers acknowledged they weren’t infallible which makes appeals to tradition and authority that many use to prevent progress in the US are extra dumb.
…which has nothing to do with the Constitution.
Unless the appeal to authority is a literal appeal to literal legal authority.
…But it does have to do with what NOT_RICK was discussing prior to that post, which had to do with the constitution.
Not really. Apparently, some people are acting like idiots because they think the founding fathers would have thought a certain way. Sure, okay, sounds like a problem.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Not a problem.
Two separate things only conflated by the uneducated.
Okay well, you sound uneducated to me. And since you can’t finish a single…single post in this entire thread without insulting people, I don’t see any point to arguing here.
Just…be mad I guess. Just try not to think you sound as smart or as mature as you think you do.
One of their ideas I personally think would be amazing: allegedly, Thomas Jefferson predicted the Construction would only last less than twenty years before we would completely overhaul our core document of governance. I believe rebuilding the specific details every couple decades would’ve helped tremendously…
Can’t even imagine rebuilding constitution in our current political environment.
~Every single generation since the founding of this country
I agree though. I can think of many times in history that a rewriting of the bill of rights would have excluded free speech. Imagine if the current supreme court had the authority to revoke the separation of church and state, and mandate that all public schools have a Protestant focus.
Thus back to the wisdom of the founding fathers.
“Wisdom” like the 3/5ths compromise. They were writing it specifically because they were completely terrified of strong central governments and autocracy. They didn’t give one shit about anyone other than themselves and their rich compatriots. You used to have to be a landowner to vote. They had some good ideas but the fact a functional system of government came out of them that has any usage in the modern day is more of a happy accident than any real forethought.
The 3/5ths compromise is an interesting and often misunderstood one. Slave owning states wanted their slaves counted in the state’s population, because more people means more representation in the House of Representatives, and more electoral college votes. Since slaves didn’t have any say in politics, this solely benefited the people who owned them. Free states didn’t want slaves counted towards the census for that exact reason, and the 3/5ths compromise came out of that disagreement. It was never about how much of a person slaves are, and the bad guys got their way by exploiting their slaves for even more political power.
I will take accidentally being right (and tested over time) over thoughtfully being wrong.
Sure, but that isn’t wisdom, it is luck.
One party is seeking a constitutional convention. In order to install a permanent Republican dictatorship.
That’s a pipe dream. Laws have weight because the constitution says they do, but the constitution only matters because it’s pretty much universally agreed upon. No constitution the Republicans would write will gain that kind of acceptance, or even the acceptance of a majority.
It pains me to admit I see your point. If we had developed some mechanism early on where problematic passages or even sections could be democratically identified, as well as a system to propose possible changes for vote…but now? Yikes.
Somehow, I want to believe it is possible to revolutionize our government, but without the usual bloodshed. I just wish I had any clue how… :p
Please for the love of God tell me this is satire
It has done a horrible job of it all things considered. Basically all the fabled checks and balances have turned out to be based on nothing but good faith. The founders refused to consider that partisanship would evolve at all, let alone to the extremes it has turned into today.
Lots of other Western democracies are doing a lot better job at it, not least because they have been allowed to evolve and change with the times, while the core of the US political system has petrified in all its archaism.
Creating a system of government that is immune or even resilient to corruption is very difficult, but the US has done pretty good all things considered.
Really? You think so, even tho we are essentially an Oligarchy with a huge amount of corruption, especially in the Supreme Court
Okay, but consider the fact that you are able to write that, and even take to the streets vocally demand change. Things might be bad, but you truly have no idea what it means to live in fear of your government.
You must not be a minority.
I mean you easily have 50 countries in the world where that’s possible. So it’s a pretty low bar you’ve set there.
Creating a system of government that is immune or even resilient to corruption is very difficult, but the US has done pretty good all things considered.
What cave were you living in between 2016 and 2020?
I think it’s honestly a testament to the system’s resilience that it managed to hold up for 4 years and not completely crumble.
Our institutions held on for 4 years. I don’t think they’ll hold on for another 4 though.
Cool, so about the other 98% of US history
Right, let’s lead with that next time
Wow this is an America that is immune to corruption?
More than others. There are mechanisms for change. Most old world change meant conquer and then you might change things. If you don’t die first.
More than others, but definitely not more than other Western democracies, considerably less than them in fact.
More than other Western nations in 1787 though, that’s for damn sure
We made it less than a century before the first civil war. That’s an epic failure in my book.
Is your book a picture book?
Because the constitution is the document that lays out the foundation for all of our legal rights and the limitations placed on the government that are intended to keep it accountable to the people. It’s not perfect, but it does cover a hell of a lot, even more gets expanded on through legislation and the courts, and when necessary it can be (and has been) amended.
But it’s also just ink and parchment. It can’t do anything if the government decides to ignore it. It’s the people who give power to the constitution. The more it is valued by the people across the country, throughout the political spectrum, both inside and outside the halls of power, the more likely it will be that those protections are respected. And when those protections are violated, people are far more likely to push back. And many within the government are also more likely to push back. That’s literally the only reason we didn’t have an overturned election, because numerous people at all levels of government said no, many despite being aligned with the assholes that were trying to stay in power.
So yes, I would very much prefer it if everyone would treat the constitution with some reverence if that’s what it takes. The alternative is not pretty.
Maybe.
But we don’t have people storming the capital in an attempt to overthrow elections here (UK) and we don’t have a formal constitution.
The two things might be unrelated.
And we did have some guys trying to storm the Reichstag in Berlin, we do have a constitution, but we don’t call it constitution and it’s also more of a permanent draft.
IMO the constitution is that important to Americans, because they don’t really have tradition or culture to draw from. The USA is a very young country. Yes I know that technically modern day Germany, Italy and others are younger. However, those countries have many centuries of tradition and culture to draw from.
Pretty much every country has some form of ‘the highest law’, which is intentionally kept rather abstract. Afterall it is the framework for more specific laws to fill in and regulate daily life. But an identity and feeling of self for the USA pretty much started with the civil war. Which lead to the writing of the constitution, their ‘highest law’. The constitution is part of the creation mythos for the USA. A marking point of when people start to think of themselves as Americans, a sovereign entity. Since the USA, compared to other countries, doesn’t have much more culture to draw from, the relative importance of that one piece is inevitably higher.
Given the state of the country thanks to the Tories, maybe you should.
Honestly, it’s been in continual decline my entire life. Thatcher put an end to any sense of social responsibility, New Labour ushered in the era of post-truth politics, Boris and his bunch didn’t even have to pretend that they were acting in the interest of the country.
Anything short of full political reform will only end up being the next phase in this hell spiral.
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That is not the issue at all though, you can change the constitution and still hold it in reverence, in fact it would probably be easier to have reverence for it if that was possible.
The problem is that all political constructs does become antiquated over time. It needs to be updated and modernised through amendments or even a rewrite, but the way the US political system is dictated to be makes it virtually impossible to do now. Even mundane legislation cannot be passed any longer, let alone amendments. It is a problem which should have been taken care of long ago, but now it is basically too late for even the slightest attempts at tweaking it.
We do change the Constitution. 26 times so far. There is a process for it, laid out in the Constitution itself. But the process is designed to avoid being used for flavor of the week, and requires a broad consensus.
We do change the Constitution. 26 times so far.
Zoomers: head explodes
We REALLY need to fund our schools
This comment and this title are two separate things in my opinion. I don’t give a shit what the founding fathers wanted either. That’s why we’ve amended the Constitution several times. The originalist viewpoint of the Constitution is ridiculous and completely counter even to how the founders wanted the document to act, funny enough.
As for why it’s treated like a holy book – it’s basically a set of rules for our government and what laws are okay and which laws aren’t okay. Think of it like a social contract that everyone signed. It’s how we’ve agreed to live together and treat each other. Unlike a holy book though it can and has been changed.
It’s quite literally the legal foundation of the country.
I don’t give a shit what the founding fathers wanted either. That’s why we’ve amended the Constitution several times.
Repeating myself here, but, the founders wanted us to adjust the Constitution over time, to meet the needs of the current generation.
Right, and we have, but the bar being high seems reasonable.
Can we please not turn microblog memes into the new whitepeopletwitter where we just post unnuanced political opinions rather than funny memes? Microblogs are a bad platform for political discourse.
That’s a valid point, got it.
The Forefathers didn’t come close to living up to their own words. We are still striving to meet them hundreds of years later. It’s a good goal.
Equally however a lot of that stipulations make no sense.
For example the gun laws were developed back when firing a shot required about a 45-minute reload session. I somehow doubt that automatic rifles were predicted and considered.
I highly suspect they thought that the American people would be intelligent enough to make their own constitution when the current one became invalid, sadly not.
Just as the founding fathers intended
Own a musket for home defense, since that’s what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended
The “well regulated” portion seems to enjoy being ignored still.
District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) - the US Supreme Court decided that the Founding Fathers put that “well-regulated militia” bit in as a joke nvm.
“well-regulated” does not mean what you think it means.
Of course… it means whatever someone needs it to mean.
That’s not how words work.
Of course it is. 14th amendment has been twisted to meet one’s needs as well.
If you want to live in alternate facts land, Fox News is over there - - - - - - - - - - - >
Not to say that the 2nd amendment, as written, isn’t totally wild.
However I do want to mention that the Continental congress was petitioned by John Belton in 1777 to purchase his 16-shot musket. It also had a not-quite-magazine that could be replaced very quickly. The 16 shots could be fired as quickly as the user could pull the triggers (yes it had multiple).
Given this, it seems likely that the people writing the constitution ten years later had some idea of rapid fire weaponry.
Just 20 years after that, they sent Lewis and Clarke expedition out with a relatively rapid firing airgun.
It is reasonable to say that rapid fire weaponry was contemporaneous to the constitution writing era.
I was going to essentially say this same thing so I’ll just add there was also the Chambers ‘machine gun’ a flintlock naval gun able of firing 224 shots @ ~120 rounds per minute.
The technology we associate with periods of time isn’t reflective of the peak of technology but more often the median. In the last army rifle trials a company was trying to get a rifle with caseless ammunition in service. That technology has been around since the 1850s and still hasn’t been adopted by anyone despite it’s obvious advantages.
They were also written with the idea that the US wouldn’t have a standing army, but would instead rely on volunteers. You need to have your volunteers armed and at least somewhat proficient with a firearm.
Of course that’s also how you get the war of 1812 lol.
Well the very first and most important thing they wanted was to give you the right to say that or whatever you want about them.
Before they enshrined that concept in their document, saying such things about members of your government would get you jailed or executed.
Sounds like it was useful. Now it seems like it just differentiates us from countries that can do something about the spread of hate.
Not against the Constitution, but the Freedom of Speech **is **perhaps the most anachronistic freedom if you look at much of Europe.
Sounds like it was useful.
It still is? Unless you think someone should be able to go to jail for making a joke about a government official.
Not against the Constitution, but the Freedom of Speech **is **perhaps the most anachronistic freedom if you look at much of Europe.
Yeah you say that when a party you support is in power.
Before getting into line items, let me clarify that I’m talking about the “Freedom of Speech” in capitals, referring to the part of the First Amendment, not to laws that allow people free expression in general.
It still is? Unless you think someone should be able to go to jail for making a joke about a government official.
That’s an unintentionally leading question, in my opinion. In response, let me point you to the majority of Europe where untethered speech is not an inalienable right, and yet it’s still perfectly legal to make jokes about government officials. Yes, there are parts of Europe where you can’t. I’m not fond of lèse-majesté laws, but you don’t need untethered free speech to forbid just that one type of law.
We’d be in a lot better place if this paragraph from the ECHR’s freedom of expression were attached to it:
The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. -cited
Yeah you say that when a party you support is in power.
Bingo. I say that the party in power, even if I somewhat support it, should not be Constitutionally empowered to lie to us from a position of authority. They should not be allowed to use their position to “freely express” things that hurt others. In fact, free expression in speech belongs with all other free expressions. I can throw my hands around unless I’m intentionally throwing them into innocents’ faces.
In most of the world, free expression means when I know I’m not lying, and when I’m not being grossly negligent or antisocial in my speech. I’m sorry, but I approve of the censoring of Naziism or any organized expression that seeks to eradicate or punish any ethnicity. I would support a law that forbids people from what the South did after our Civil War, targeted lies that have led to over a century of the country “expressing” the supposed inferiority of non-white people.
Because many of those men were flat-out geniuses. They penned a fine constitution and outlined ideals we should strive to achieve. That doesn’t mean they knew the best way to legislate modern issues though , like the internet. That brings us back to their genius. They outlined a process to revise, or amend if you will, the laws of the land. The biggest problem that they didn’t foresee is that America would regress into fervent tribalism, completely unwilling to amend anything that might benefit another tribe. So we’re stuck, locked in the year 1992 when the last amendment was written. Actually that’s not completely true. Many of them did foresee the dangers of a bicameral partisan system, and issued abundant warnings about it. Unfortunately they really didn’t anticipate just how insulated and shameless many of our politicians would become, probably because tar and feathers in the public square was still a possibility back then.
Thing is, yesterday’s geniuses are today’s average person, average intelligence is going up and there’s tons more people on the planet today vs back then, that’s a whole lot of geniuses that could create a much better constitution but that are unable to because some people at the other end of the spectrum act like some dude 250 years ago could predict the world we would live in today (when they in fact predicted that the Constitution would need to be amended in the future).
Yeah you said it yourself, the constitution is meant to be amended. We haven’t seen a new amendment in 31 years because our politicians are thoroughly dedicated to blocking each other.
That’s not a problem with the constitution, though. That’s a problem with the backstabbing nature of politics/culture wars in the USA.
The idea is supposed to be that we only update the structure of our government as needed when there’s broad support for it. That should be easy when we’re considering a change that’s obviously in the public interest.
But right now, if someone from the “wrong” party says that the sky is blue, the other party will come up with all sorts of reasons why They Are Wrong And Evil. You can’t cooperate when the only rule is to badmouth the other guy.
Exactly.
Nope, the political leaders that founded the USA were extremely well educated and would probably put the average modern person to shame on any topic or skill that wasn’t invented after their death. Motherfuckers these days can barely read and write.
The average dumbass knows how to Google stuff now, and feels like they are smart because they can operate a touch screen device and access information.
But if you take that same “smart” average modern dumbass back to colonial USA times and they would not know how to survive at all. They would be like “where’s my cheeseburger? Where’s my shower?” and just fucking die of bacterial infection from stubbing their toe probably. Those old dudes were building their own houses, farming their own food, writing long political essays and shit. They were out there inventing all the stuff we take for granted now.
And today there’s more and more very well educated people around. Heck, compare the number of women that had access to university back then vs today.
Take the founding fathers and send them to today’s world and they’ll end up homeless.
My point is that they might have been very smart and educated back then, people like them exist today and there’s much more of them, we just don’t listen to them.
average intelligence is going up
Not anymore. Average intelligence in Western countries plateaud and started dropping around 10 years ago.
That’s still how many years of it going up since the US founding fathers?
Take the founding fathers and send them to today’s world and they’ll end up homeless.wrong comment chainMy point still stands.
Only because they lack knowledge, not because they lack intelligence. They were extremely intelligent men.
Oh sorry, that seconds part (added as an edit) should have went in my reply to the other comment that mentioned sending someone from today back in time to the days of the founding fathers!
In any governing system, something has to be supreme. Something has to be the final word in settling disputes. There are basically three options: Fiat, convention, or consensus. Consensus is really only practical in small groups, so we can put that option to the side. What remains is the choice between rule by the whims of a person or group, and the rule of law.
Despite their many flaws, the founders of the American republic were at least smart enough to realize that there would be a constant temptation to set aside the rule of law and let a person dictate things. So the foundational law (the constitution) was made sacrosanct in the way that the king had been. To lose the rule of law is to lose the republic, and return to tyranny.
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Because according to our education system, we’re the only country that has a constitution, and we used it to beat the greatest evil: taxing rich people.
WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
Where is this narrative of intentionally forgetting that the grievance was specifically over having no say in the fucking matter despite being the ones who actually have to live with the decisions coming from‽ Westminster‽
This narrative is like calling the Haitian revolution an uprising against having to respect property rights!
Except you know the Haitian revolution was a slave revolt and the American Revolution was a slave owners revolt, so a little different.
The taxes they had grievances with were mostly for their “defense” against french encroachment… The colonial governments also had problems with the fact that Britain trying to balance peace with the natives didn’t plan to expand beyond the Appalachian mountains and they wanted more…
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america mostly carried out its own defense in the 7 years war, what Britain was citing as defense costs was their from england regulars fucking it up until American trained units were allowed to defend themselves again, and also
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the reason the expansion denial was so unpopular is because the brits sprung that out of nowhere when settlement had already been going on in the region for decades. The american front of the war was defending americans already living in the ohio country from the french and the brits just decided unilaterally to make them leave anyways. Also, that land wasn’t given to the natives, it was given to the quebecers who had been trying to kill all the Americans so they could take the land. Britain literally made America pay for defending itself after imposing “victory” conditions that were no different than if they had completely lost the war.
Again, you see that the fucking problem was without representation
You can throw whatever original sin you want at the issue, doesn’t change that the revolutionary war happened because the brits fucking refused at every opportunity to listen to the people they were making laws about.
Over and over again the crisis could have been resolved by just giving the colonists any opportunity to feel like they had a say in the decision making and were equal parts of the country they were required to view themselves as a part of.
The revolution started because the brits made tea cheaper but some colonial merchants got squeezed out. We would all be much better off if they never revolted, and got their independence a little bit later like Canada.
We would all be much better off if they never revolted, and got their independence a little bit later like Canada.
Why??
We’d have a more democratic parliamentary government and banned slavery earlier and without a civil war.
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and the American Revolution was a slave owners revolt
Not my half. I get to call John Adams and John Q Adams “my folks”. John Adams signed the declaration (we out of the country when the Constitution was signed) and his plan was always to wipe out slavery.
I like the constitution because I don’t want Matt Gaetz to be able to propose whatever nonsense he wants. It’s not a perfect document, but it enshrines certain fundamental protections that really shouldn’t be fucked with.
The forefathers had some of the most sensible ideology in the history of humankind. What other country established limits on the power of their government as a foundational document?
They’re still very sound principles to this day.
Unfortunately our current government doesn’t concern themselves with those principles.
But I will agree with what was likely the point of this post, which is that the Constitution is not and was never supposed to be timeless, and the founders would agree with that too.
Every country with a constitution?
Shhh, you’re screwing up their circle jerk.
Many constitutions of many modern liberal democracies are modeled or inspired off of the US Constitution. Though now newer ones are modeled instead of its derivatives (kind of lending credence to this thread’s message of, maybe we should update the constitution more).
established limits on the power of their government as a foundational document
I’d argue that’s a blessing and a curse.
The framers were coming off a monarchy. They saw government power as dangerous and thought that it had to be limited. But they didn’t really consider that other groups might gain greater power than governments.
Unfortunately, we have exactly that problem. Organizations with sufficient money often rival governments for power.
The checks and balances that were designed to protect ordinary citizens from government also protect large multinational corporations and ultra rich families and individuals. The result is often that those powerful non-government actors can often subvert government and ultimately cause the same, or even worse, problems.
The result is often that those powerful non-government actors can often subvert government and ultimately cause the same, or even worse, problems.
Only if we treat corporations like they are citizens/people, and money as speech.
We could legislate those away in a heartbeat, if “We the People” wanted to.
I sort of agree but I think it’s much more complicated than that.
Our current legal framework have any specific mechanisms for reigning in the power of powerful non-government actors. At best, a bunch of people can realize that such an actor is doing something shady, then ask their legislators to do something about it, then hope that enough other people have asked their legislators the same thing. People can try to accelerate that by creating awareness campaigns (essentially adopting some of the power of such actors).
The problem is the well heeled actors can do all the same things much faster. When some rich private organization decides that they want a change, they can speak directly to legislators across state lines, they can openly or secretly fund massive (dis)information campaigns. “We the people” are at a severe disadvantage against that.
Consider that there are several initiatives that the majority of US citizens support that US legislators still refuse to implement.
I sort of agree but I think it’s much more complicated than that.
Complicated doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
Our current legal framework have any specific mechanisms for reigning in the power of powerful non-government actors.
It does, they could re-enable Citizens United for a start.
Without going down the rabbit hole and getting stuck in the weeds, generally speaking, Congress can pass any laws it wants, and as long as they’re constitutional they affect us.
Consider that there are several initiatives that the majority of US citizens support that US legislators still refuse to implement.
Well if we voted in legislators who would implement the initiatives we wanted, then it wouldn’t be a problem, but that’s a whole different subject to discuss.
We can and should try but we’re going to be doing so against a much better funded lobbying group. Those lobbyists can fight that consistently while we try to maintain concentration across countless other political issues.
The Citizens United decision was years ago. Rage against it has moved on and many don’t even know about it. Remember Net Neutrality? We had the regulations and media companies still managed to get rid of it.
The Citizens United decision was years ago. Rage against it has moved on and many don’t even know about it.
Actually I still hear people talk about it now and then, and I mentioned it myself as well. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that people have moved on, it’s just on the back burner, waiting for the next Congress that hopefully has a more decisive percentage so more voting can be done.
And besides, my point in mentioning it was to show that you can affect change and curb individuals with excessive power who can corrupt the process for everyone else via new laws and brought back old laws.
Remember Net Neutrality? We had the regulations and media companies still managed to get rid of it.
Actually, it was the former president who installed a chairperson of the FCC that got rid of it.
Also, Net Neutrality is coming back, since the current President put in a new chairperson to lead the FCC.
Which party you vote for does matter.
Responding to your overall tone of your opinions, the thinking that change will never happen is not correct.
Things just go back and forth, because we’re divided nation, but things do get done, and everyone should have a voice and how that’s done, even if it means to change takes longer to happen.
It would be a herculean effort to change Citizens United. It was a Supreme Court decision. So it would require either swapping out several justices or convincing a large number of Republicans to join in on a legislative change. The Democrats had both chambers and the White House since then and either it was still out of reach or just not a priority.
I’ve also heard rumors that Net Neutrality is coming back but it hasn’t happened yet. We handle it at the regulatory level rather than the legislative level. So even if Biden does manage to get it re-instated, it will likely disappear again with the next Republican president. Policies like that need to be consistent or they don’t really work. Otherwise we’re essentially telling large media companies, “You can totally mess with competitors access capabilities but only every other presidential term.” That give them plenty of time to bankrupt competitors.
My tone isn’t meant to suggest that change will never happen. Change is inevitable. Any system will favor some changes over others. Powerful entities are pretty good at tilting the playing field in their favor. Citizens United is just one such example. Over time that creates an environment that favors those powerful entities over less powerful entities. It’s a self re-inforcing decision in that it makes it easier for groups like Citizens United to promote legislation sympathetic to it’s own power.
Which party you vote for does matter but it’s not everything. Democrats where happy to join with Republicans in passing the PATRIOT act. After Ross Perot had a non-trivial showing they were eager to join up with Republicans in pushing 3rd party candidates out of the debates.
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The checks and balances that were designed to protect ordinary citizens from government also protect large multinational corporations and ultra rich families and individuals.
How do you figure?
The constitution doesn’t recognize groups of people as anything more than a group of people. Even if they’ve set up mechanisms that greatly magnify their power. It also doesn’t recognize any power imbalance. It just lumps everyone together and treats everyone as equal. (Some exceptions may apply)
That’s a good thing not a bad thing.
It’s both. Any policy has downsides.
I’ll use one of the internet’s current favorite villains as an example. If the Lemmy admins decide to kick out some set of users, it won’t have much effect on the world. When Elon decides who is and isn’t allowed to have an account on his servers, it can have a massive impact on legislation and public behavior. Our laws mostly treat those the same.
Also, the US Constitution is a second attempt. Operating briefly under the Articles of Confederation outright did not work because the federal government couldn’t fund itself. They threw that away and created the present system which almost outright doesn’t work. That’s progress.
I will agree with what was likely the point of this post, which is that the Constitution is not and was never supposed to be timeless, and the founders would agree with that too.
This is a pretty ignorant take. We can change the rules whenever we want. This is the whole process of amendments.
I would be mildly surprised if there’s every another amendment again, very surprised if there’s one in our lifetime.
Nah, i would 100% believe term limits for supreme court eventually or maybe even repeal/revise of the 16th amendment… amendment to limit tax dollars used on foreign engagements… amendment to make funding to congress transparent… amendment to put limits on predatory loans… amendment to officially not allow sitting presidents to run businesses…
Idunno feels like theres still some bipartisan opportunities
When you say “eventually,” what are we talking about? Is this simply the passage of time or would something have to change, in your opinion?
Honestly i can only speculate but my best guess is that these changes could be driven after mass protests in the coming years and the senior citizens of our senate dying off.
We can change the rules whenever we want.
Can we? The Equal Rights Amendment was supported by a majority of Americans but it never passed.
If only they supported it enough to actually show up at the elections that would have affected the chance of the amendment passing.
Hmmm, it’s been a while since ive read about read about that one, but wasnt there contraversy on the wording of that? Like it could adversely affect womens rights if that were passed or that it is the same protections under the 14th… but last time I checked something like 3/4 of all the states have already ratified the ERA in the states side. It is a weird one
The opposition of the ERA was almost entirely from the right and focused on scaremongering about the end of traditional gender roles.
Dont get me wrong, i know the opposition was coming from the right but im just saying what I remember the reasoning was. Places like New York and Oregon have codified it into their own state constitutions where as Oklahoma and Alabama havent.
I know it took many years to allow same sex marriage but it fell under the 14th. I would like to think that these sorts of rights are only bound to be given within my lifetime.
I think the take has more to do with the rather depressing amount of originalists stocking the courts of American Constitutional law. Like Justice’s Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Barrett. Originalism in Constitutional law practice draws it’s primary guiding light from the idea that Constitutional law should be adjudicated based on what the perspective of what the authors of the founding documents intentions were. Often this leads to extremely anachronistic takes on the document rather than a concern for the people whom it effects because it treats the country as though the greatest authority is to fictionalized versions of it’s authors rather than the needs of it’s living citizenry.
The constitution itself is an important document… but it is less important than the principles that guide how it is actively utilized by living justices.
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The issue with “following the constitution and the law” is that any law has sort of component parts. What a Justice values always becomes in some way an application of the law. An easy example is the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law.
It gets murkier than that. Say you have a law, let’s take a pretty straightforward one. “Killing someone is illegal except as a form of self defense to preserve one’s own life”. Seems pretty basic… But then you are not dealing with something that did happen (Killing someone) with something that only potentially could have happened but didn’t (that person killing you). Every single component peice in that law requires a definition Killing someone becomes a modifiable base where whether you are guilty is based on how one reads the intention and capability of someone who isn’t there to question because the defendant killed them. What if the defendant was legitimately in fear for their life but that fear was entirely misplaced? What if that person put themselves knowingly into greater danger to essentially unlock the ability to kill someone in self defense? The spirit of the law is often envoked to close loopholes the original writer of the law missed because they didn’t forsee every possible circumstance but those things are not written in those laws… So what did the writer actually intend? What are the consequences the different possible active applications of the law have? How does it interact with other laws in the system and if it falls between two competing laws which law is more important to be upheld? What, counts as the guiding authority in application of the law.
A raft of precedent is usually used to see how other Justices handled similar issues in the past but precedent is more a guideline than a hard and fast rule. Every individual Justice in a system shapes the law. Appeals may push it higher in the system challenge the law against other laws but every level of law you have the same battle. Spirit vs letter of law, reaching consensus on defining every single word mentioned in the law , establishing what component peice of the law is the most important bit and then ordering the other components into priority and then either trying to squash other interpretations of the law as presented by the defense into that existing mold or realizing that the law was written without an important part that was likely not intended and changing precedent to accommodate leniency after the fact.
That’s exactly the problem, it is impossible to change it now. The system itself prevents any more changes because it has become so archaic and corrupt.
Either the constitution has the ultimate authority in government, or our presidents do. And have you see the kind of people we elect president?
There are other forms of authority, even in the US.
No there’s not.
I don’t think OP is talking about the existence of the constitution, but rather it’s about how Americans cite it like it’s the Bible.
For example, instead of saying the plain-and-simple “I have free rights to express my opinion” I have seen people saying “The X amendment guarantees freedom of speech” or something like that instead.
It’s kinda weird.
There are three foundations an argument takes:
-Pathos - Emotion, e.g. “I believe in this argument!”
-Logos - Logic, e.g. “This is the logic behind this argument.”
-and Ethos - Authority, e.g. “This is the authority that backs this argument.”
Everyone in American politics has emotion behind their arguments and no one cares for logic. So if you say: “I have free rights to express my opinion,” or really any other argument, an American will counter with: “Who says that? That isn’t a universal given.”
it’s about how Americans cite it like it’s the Bible.
It is.
Our laws aren’t really organized like European countries. Every single law we have can be traced back to the Constitution. All legal authority for all government derives from it. That is literally how our legal system is designed. We don’t have to use some vague “I have rights” thing, we can go straight to the source.
No one can argue with the Constitution. If we amend the Constitution to say we must all carry rubber duckies on Tuesdays, then everyone will carry a rubber duckie on Tuesdays. It is the supreme law of the land. If the constitution says something and you don’t like it, you have to convince the population to amend it.
