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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

newyorker.com

251–260 of 747 posts

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's not. Constitution design is an academic field, a very niche area of political science, and nobody would ever implement anything like the US Constitution today. It would be like using ALGOL for a new project today instead of Python or Java. The US Constitution was very much a version 1.0 project, written before people even knew political parties would be a design constraint. Constitutions are on like ver…

If the newer versions are better why do they end up being so short-lived?

Because the constitution is nothing compared to the intent to follow it.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's not. Constitution design is an academic field, a very niche area of political science, and nobody would ever implement anything like the US Constitution today. It would be like using ALGOL for a new project today instead of Python or Java. The US Constitution was very much a version 1.0 project, written before people even knew political parties would be a design constraint. Constitutions are on like ver…

Elaborate on this. How do political parties affect the equation here, and what would the more modern approach be? Any texts you can recommend regarding this?

For a text, The Economist published a great introductory article (though paywalled) into modern approaches to national constitutions [1] this August, shortly before a failed referendum in Chile to change the country's constitution. An excerpt from the article notes that there is no "template for how to write the ideal constitution," with different approaches having reasonably good results (e.g. the UK's uncodified constitution versus the US's written constitution).

From The Economist's article: "[...] But academics have noticed patterns. Frequently changed constitutions are often a symptom of political corrosion, and tinkering can cause chaos in turn. Attempts to amend charters have led to violence in Burkina Faso, Burundi and Togo among others in recent years. The world’s longest charters, such as India’s and Brazil’s, are also among the most changed.

"There is a strong case for brevity, too, in which constitutions establish the ground rules of how a state functions and leave the specifics to politicians. Overly long constitutions often create conflicts between articles that can only be resolved with further tampering. And “if everything is highest law, then nothing is highest law anymore,” points out Dr Versteeg. Omnibus amendments require voters to balance the merits and drawbacks of many changes at once, making it harder to generate consensus."

The viewpoint by the writer of The Economist's article would actually conflict with the view held by the original commenter, as it notes that many more recently-written constitutions that have taken different approaches from older constitutions have contributed to political instability (though the writer also acknowledges that other factors have also been at play behind instability).

[1] https://www.economist.com/international/2022/08/25/dictators...

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#253
post #228
post #222

Author complains these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation. That polarisation is the very reason why those amendments shouldn't pass. You can only change the constitution if there is a consensus, by design. If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibust…

So one way or another, the population will reach its breaking point, and the Constitution will change.

No, more like one of the broken parts will create their own Constitution.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's how it works for San Francisco, which is turning out to be not so good for the SF citizens: https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-to-consider-toler...

Was the WSJ always this bad or did Rupert Murdoch’s purchase take it in a far right direction?

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#255
post #222

Author complains these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation. That polarisation is the very reason why those amendments shouldn't pass. You can only change the constitution if there is a consensus, by design. If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibust…

Exactly! In addition, the 10th amendment should prevent, but has not stopped Congress from passing most of the laws it has passed. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/

No post body was provided.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#256
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So one way or another, the population will reach its breaking point, and the Constitution will change.

If a population not significantly a majority of the country “reaches a breaking point”, that sounds like it would not go well.

It won’t. This is going to be a decade of strife and instability.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#257
post #43

Russia and China recently amended their constitution to ensure their respective leaders can stay in power permanently. Having some unchangeable bedrock in a country seems very valuable as we are all vulnerable to tyrants at some point in history.

You are factually wrong about Russia. The new constitution removes the loophole used by Putin which restricted presidency of a single person by two consecutive terms. Thus in past he has used Medvedev as a seat warmer for one term, while holding most of the real power. Because it's a new constitution, his old terms got "reset" (it's quite debatable whether such reset is legitimate or not). In theory, after the new tw…

> and ending with the creation of the central banking system, which arguably goes against the spirit of the Constitution.

I see you're not a fan of Alexander Hamilton. The (first) US bank predates the other items in your list, though.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliamentary systems are generally considered more stable than presidential systems and tend to more naturally express multiparty politics (Australia and UK not withstanding). Even while many people in the US might like the things a parliamentary system has to offer, there is no viable way to transition to one culturally. As much Americans hate how politics works presently, they hate the idea of replacing it even mo…

> Australia and UK not withstanding ..cites two of the most important examples

One of the key features of a lousy theory is when you need to ignore the most prominent data points in order to have it be applicable.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#259
post #222

Author complains these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation. That polarisation is the very reason why those amendments shouldn't pass. You can only change the constitution if there is a consensus, by design. If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibust…

Exactly! In addition, the 10th amendment should prevent, but has not stopped Congress from passing most of the laws it has passed. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/

The tenth amendment is certainly in effect. It's just that we have an expanded definition of commerce those days.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#260
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senators were meant to represent each state's government not the people directly. The Senate, by being once removed from the people, was supposed to take a longer more measured view on issues. The 17th Amendment[1] broke that and made senators elected by the people. The people have the House. The House has also been broken over time. In 1929 the House was capped at 435 members. Since then the number of people that a…

Why should the votes on the US be apportioned based on boundaries largely chosen by the English aristocracy of the 17th Century?

>”boundaries largely chosen by the English aristocracy of the 17th Century?”

There’s a vast stretch of land past the Mississippi River that the English Aristocracy had no say in the division of past 1776. You could broadly argue that the land West of the original 13 states up to the Mississippi was drawn by the English, but even after independence Americans chose the borders of states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and many more.

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