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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

newyorker.com

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#171

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #167
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's have fifty vibrant laboratories of democracy. They'll need to stop trading with each other, then. cf. current CA legislation that will make it hard/impossible for other states to sell pork in CA that was not raised in accordance with CA law. Now, I happen to agree with the CA legislation, and would love it to cause a change in pork rearing nationwide. But you have to see the writing on the wall: with the leve…

Or people just don't trade with California and California doesn't have any pork.

This is not how it normally works, and I suspect you know that.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#172

Post by abigail95 »

ausbah wrote: post #92
prottog wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! The constitution by its nature should dictate things that the overwhelming majority of people agree on, not the usual fifty percent plus one person slim margin that a lot of controversial policies end up being.

there are some things that no amount of a majority ever makes moral

if you think this, democracy is not the type of government you want to live in.

given how poorly the alternatives have gone though, i think i'll be staying put.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#173

Post by OrvalWintermute »

sokoloff wrote: post #99
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #60

I consider myself a patriotic American, but I don't know that the government even follows the Constitution in the first place. NSA has been hoovering up data of innocent Americans, and the IC in general, works with foreign ICs, to target Americans without reasonable cause, just blanket vacuuming. Much of the govt, including federal, state, and local, has been purchasing private data without a warrant signed by a judg…

Yes, it might not need to be re- written so much as it needs to be re- read .

You wrote something much better than I

I wonder if general knowledge of civics and an understanding of the US Constitution has escaped from much of school?

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#174

Post by WalterBright »

tptacek wrote: post #33

It's an interesting article and if you bounced off it because you had a visceral reaction to the premise, like I did at first, I'd recommend taking another whack at it. Jill Lepore, if you're not familiar with her work, is a historian with a reputation as a more rigorous version of people like Howard Zinn. I don't think it's a good article though. In particular, I don't think it coheres. It's about how the modern Con…

The US Constitution is still the best one in the world.

The 18th Amendment (Prohibition) is an example of what can go wrong with amendments.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#175

Post by rg2004 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46
johnthuss wrote: post #15

"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…

> It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. This requires clarification. If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. Since 1992 there have been 8 presidential elections. Republicans only won the popular vote once (2004) but also won the presidency in 2000 and 2…

> If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress.

They are playing a game to win the electoral college, expect if it were popular vote they would play a different game with different policies

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#176

Post by throw0101c »

nvahalik wrote: post #37
colinmhayes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise Not when refusing to compromise is your parties main platform.

> refusing to compromise Unfortunately the left has won in this regard. The left moves so hard and fast to the left that even the right can no longer "refuse to compromise." If they don't, they are bigots at worst and uncultured, out of touch imbeciles at best.

> Unfortunately the left has won in this regard.

Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats have to the left:

* https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polariz...

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#177

Post by WalterBright »

jfengel wrote: post #72
BitwiseFool wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Lepore talks about national abortion, immigration, and firearms policy and how they'd be impacted by a more readily-amended Constitution, but I think she should take a wider view and look at things like how speech and free association would be impacted." I feel like the author is looking at using amendments as a way to implement legislation that is permanent. Our Federal constitution is fairly concise, whereas some…

Our Federal constitution is fairly concise Concise to the point of vacuous. It says practically nothing. It describes only the barest outlines of government, and effectively all of the actual implementation has been a matter of legislation, judicial decisions, and tradition. Individual words are scrutinized as if they will somehow be unambiguous if we stare at them long enough, or bring in enough cherry-picked outsid…

The Bill of Rights is particularly brilliant in its conciseness.

A lawyer once said that "show me a contract that's one page, and I won't be able to break it. Show me one 20 pages long, and I'll break it."

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#178

Post by hammock »

tptacek wrote: post #80
jfengel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Federal constitution is fairly concise Concise to the point of vacuous. It says practically nothing. It describes only the barest outlines of government, and effectively all of the actual implementation has been a matter of legislation, judicial decisions, and tradition. Individual words are scrutinized as if they will somehow be unambiguous if we stare at them long enough, or bring in enough cherry-picked outsid…

I don't think this is true. For instance, compare US defamation law to UK defamation law. The distinctions, which are large, are entirely because of the structure of our constitution. Or look at the rules of evidence in Europe, where you don't necessarily have a right to avoid self-incrimination, or to exclude evidence gained unlawfully.

All distinctions which were created by amendments

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#179

Post by johnnyanmac »

tptacek wrote: post #33

It's an interesting article and if you bounced off it because you had a visceral reaction to the premise, like I did at first, I'd recommend taking another whack at it. Jill Lepore, if you're not familiar with her work, is a historian with a reputation as a more rigorous version of people like Howard Zinn. I don't think it's a good article though. In particular, I don't think it coheres. It's about how the modern Con…

> but I think she should take a wider view and look at things like how speech and free association would be impacted.

I feel like the first amendment is one of the few bipartisan issues of the constitution, though. The only issue seems to stem from those who misinterpret it as some almighty protection against being abrasive. It's simply meant to say that the government can't punish you for your speech or other association outside of a few cases where you are endangering others. I'm not quite sure if even the most diehard liberal or conservative wants to enable more of that from the government.

there are certainly topics within first amendment rights that can be interpreted, but that's a different matter than addressing the constitutional amendment.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#180

Post by WalterBright »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46
johnthuss wrote: post #15

"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…

> It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. This requires clarification. If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. Since 1992 there have been 8 presidential elections. Republicans only won the popular vote once (2004) but also won the presidency in 2000 and 2…

The answer is, it is a Republic, not a Democracy. It's set up to make it difficult for the majority to trample on the rights of the minority. More colorfully, having two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner.

It's still a good thing.

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