The United States’ Unamendable Constitution • Hacker News Board

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#361

Post by ETH_start » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:58 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #219

ETH_start wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare Constitutions to programming languages in terms of the prevailing consensus on their utility. While the latter has a vast test bed of real world utilization that reveals PL efficacy, the former can only be evaluated from the standpoint of theory, with a heavy heap of ideology.

You don't think academics are constantly comparing the real world utilization of constitutional forms...? Allow me to introduce to you, comparative politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_politics Lest you think this is ideological or theoretical, no -- it's entirely about collecting data of real-world political operation, how similar or different constitutional structures result in similar or different o…

The real world data is extremely limited, given there are only ~200 countries in the modern era, and the huge span of time over which the full impact of a constitution is seen.

It's incomparable to PLs, which have perhaps billions of case studies on which comparative analysis can be done.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#362

Post by voltaireodactyl » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:58 AM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #335

voltaireodactyl wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed, although I know social media leans hard on them. If you truly feel those are the most pressing issues in your mind/spheres, I would urge you to remember that social media is largely an echo chamber designed to distract from the actual issues,…

> In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed How are they attacked? From what I've seen, all the "voter suppression" stories coming from the US are all things we have in place in other modern democracies like in Canada. We have voter ID, we have to make sure we are registered, we can o…

That doesn’t surprise me, honestly, because the reporting around this is often hard to parse. I suspect that difficulty is on purpose, at least in North Carolina where I am based.

If you would like to understand more about what I’m talking about, which goes far beyond the things like voter ID that you have mentioned, I would suggest beginning with stolen ballots in North Carolina during the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as gerrymandering policies during the same.

I would then go and examine the statements given by the leadership of each side when such criminal acts are discovered. How do they respond? That can often give you an idea of what a party’s intentions truly are.

Be advised: there is a strong conservative media push to keep the conversation centered around things like voter ID laws, which I agree with you are entirely acceptable. In the same way that they seek to focus on bathroom policies instead of focusing on women dying for their religious beliefs, they hope to muddy the voting issue until it is too late.

I appreciate your interest in understanding what’s going on, and I hope you will add your voice to mine in the future!

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#363

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:59 AM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #272

anonymousiam wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

There's a few reasons this broke down... 1. The 17th amendment (1912) - Electing senators by popular vote broke the state representation in the federal government. States no longer had representation to protect their sovereignty. 2. The federal reserve act (1913) - enables government to self-fund by printing money and enforces everyone onto a single, centrally controlled bank. 3. The 16th amendment (1913) - Federal i…

> States no longer had representation to protect their sovereignty.

Huh? Previously, state representatives elected senators; after the 17th, the voters did. How does either of these things end "state representation" ? You're insisting that "state representation" can only mean "representation of the people already elected by the voters", which is unjustifiably narrow.

> enforces everyone onto a single, centrally controlled bank.

Do you recall the situation before this?

> allows the federal government to directly tax citizens for the first time.

tricky to fight international wars without this, which obviously you could view as a plus.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#364

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:59 AM UTC

cvwright wrote: post #14

jeffbee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No rational person gives a damn what some guys who died 200 years ago would have thought about our present.

No intelligent person thinks that we got 250 years of relative peace and prosperity by random luck.

One hazards to guess that you are not native american...

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#365

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:00 AM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #339

pasquinelli wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, filibuster, presidential veto, high threshold of consensus for changing the constitution), as it should. which is why prohabition never happened.

Crime virtually disappeared after Prohibition was passed until the apparition of organized crime. At the time (and still to this day) alcohol and drugs made and destroyed empires. The Dutch Empire was based on Gin. The British Empire on Opium and Rhum. Russia on Vodka. France had Bourbon.

> Crime virtually disappeared after Prohibition was passed until the apparition of organized crime.

Is that a bit like "the sun stopped coming up, until the sun came up the next day" ?

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#366

Post by hardtke » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #322

m-p-3 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If there is a strong enough popular support for taking more extreme actions, then there should be strong enough support to change the constitution the normal way. For people who want the constitution changed, thats the dilemma they have to deal with. If they don't have enough support to do it the regular way, then maybe the more silly and extreme solutions aren't justified either.

The primary flaw in the constitution is that smaller states have disproportionate power (Senate and Electoral College) and will never give up or dilute this power.

Even worse, equal representation for each state in the Senate is literally the only part of the constitution that cannot be amended.

So even with overwhelming popular support there is an absolute barrier to reform.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#367

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

jakeogh wrote: post #265

joshuamorton wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a bug, not a feature. A government that privileges certain arbitrary subdivisions over the citizenry is not great, and there's a reason that while many parts of the US constitution have been copied, that one hasn't.

Boundaries, states in this case, but it's a general principal, are exactly what give the people within them self-determination.

Only if those boundaries are individually self-governing!

And they are not, since California and New York cannot outlaw handguns due to the influence of Wyoming and Idaho.

And as soon as you say "well the voters in Wyoming and Idaho deserve...", you've dropped any pretense of the internal boundaries mattering, because we're now just talking about federal representation, where those citizens have disproportionately large representation.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#368

Post by pyuser583 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:05 AM UTC

theluketaylor wrote: post #330

pyuser583 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The v5 or v6 would be Canada and South Africa - which have widely praised (by legal scholars) Constitutions. But neither are really great or terrible. Canada didn’t really change much, and South Africa hasn’t been doing great. The “West German Basic Law” was widely condemned: * it was unrealistic to have strong privacy protections for a nation filled with refugee camps and few private homes * the protections for the…

As a Canadian I'd be surprised to learn our constitution was considered top notch by legal scholars. The amendment process is very onerous. 7/10 provinces haven't ever really agreed on the colour of the sky, let alone something as important as new constitutional rules. It took some very special backroom wrangling to pass it in the first place and I don't see a path to amending it during my lifetime. Meech Lake came c…

My source for Canada and South Africa is Ruth Badger Ginsburg.

She suggested insurrectionists in Egypt emulate the South African and Canadian Constitutions, rather than the US Constitution.

She wasn’t insulting the US Constitution, just emphasizing it’s the product of circumstances that didn’t apply to Egypt.

Seems like the Canadian Constitution is similarly constructed - taking the specific time, place, customs into account.

Not a bad thing at all.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/12/ruth-bader-ginsburg-taken-...

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#369

Post by raydiatian » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #335

voltaireodactyl wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed, although I know social media leans hard on them. If you truly feel those are the most pressing issues in your mind/spheres, I would urge you to remember that social media is largely an echo chamber designed to distract from the actual issues,…

> In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed How are they attacked? From what I've seen, all the "voter suppression" stories coming from the US are all things we have in place in other modern democracies like in Canada. We have voter ID, we have to make sure we are registered, we can o…

> voting machines are banned

I’m interested to hear your take on how voting machines are “less secure” than by-hand tallying. I’m unfamiliar with the process, so this goes contrary to what my intuition would tell me goes on

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#370

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #271

crazygringo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, checks and balances in the American constitution were founded on the idea that there would be no "factions" (parties), and so the three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) would balance each other without any single group ever taking over. In reality, when Democrats or Republicans capture all 3 branches, it utterly defeats the entire premise of the Constitution. The modern approach is generally a parlia…

>* Well, checks and balances in the American constitution were founded on the idea that there would be no "factions" (parties), and so the three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) would balance each other without any single group ever taking over.* I’m not a constitutional scholar but I take issue with that characterization. Federalist #10 by James Madison is all about factions, how they are inevitable, and…

Jamelle Bouie (NYT) is something of a constitutional scholar (albeit of the popular book based variety) and he would eviscerate your argument. Recent pieces by him in NYT explain specifically why Madison's ideas about factions are not ideas about political parties.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=bouie+s...