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?
The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
251–260 of 747 posts
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#252Earlier 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?
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
#253Author 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.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#254Earlier 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...
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#255Author 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/
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#256Earlier 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.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#257Russia 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…
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
#258Earlier 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
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#259Author 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/
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#260Earlier 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?
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.