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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

newyorker.com

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#391

Post by vkou »

epicureanideal wrote: post #245
kritiko wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court can then strike down those laws via judicial review, a power not enumerated in the constitution.

> a power not enumerated in the constitution. But at least with two hundred years of general acceptance, so clearly there was something to it.

So, two hundred years of general acceptance (well, aside from that civil war thing where vastly differing fundamental interpretations of how the country can be governed were tested by the tried and true debating tactic of 'how many boys can we send over the trenches') is iron-clad.

But say, 80 years (FDR's expansion of executive power, which reactionaries in the courts are currently dismantling) is not?

Hardly anyone alive remembers it in any other way by this point, and everyone involved in setting that state of affairs has been dead and buried for a generation. And yet...

It's also strange how people seem to be fine to cherrypick a superset of (constitution + a bunch of other two-centuries old political babble), but exclude mountains of conflicting (two centuries-old political babble). It's almost as if the desired outcome is pre-determined, and we're just looking for fig leaves to justify it.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#393

Post by yread »

lettergram wrote: post #350
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court didn’t nullify the first clause of the second amendment until 2012. The thought that the right to bear arms was completely unrestricted didn’t exist for the first 200 years of the USA’s existence (including when the people who wrote it were still alive). That the Supreme Court was able to change the meaning of the amendment over time is a clear indication that literal interpretations of it really do…

^ clearly making my point that cultural opinions dictate more than amendments (particularly ones held by SCOTUS). Just to be clear, you're incorrect. The bill of rights was extremely clear, the intent was that every citizen should be armed. Recall at the time, the states had to call on citizens to defend their towns, states and country regularly. They didn't have money and needed the citizens to have their own weapon…

There was also almost no standing army at the time so organized militias made a lot more sense

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#394

Post by sanxiyn »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #278
sidewndr46 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

A conspiracy theory is, by definition, a secret. That the government routinely ignores the Constitution isn't a conspiracy, just a sad fact. How many wars have we been in over the last 70 years? Vietnam? Korea? Iraq? Afghanistan? Just to name a very few. Read Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. How many times has the Congress voted to go to war? Is this just a conspiracy, or another example of our government's d…

The Congress in fact voted to go to war with Afghanistan, 420-1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit... for details.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#395

Post by shrubble »

pasquinelli wrote: post #329
artificialLimbs wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with lettergram and disagree with naming capitalism as an 'enemy'. How do you think you're going to reduce poverty and create wealth without capitalism?

the ussr and china both developed from feudalism without capitalism and lifted a huge number of people out of poverty. not advocating their system, (not not-advocating either), but they are counter examples.

China:Four Pests campaign, other madness... total deaths over 40 million.

Russia: purges, torture then murder of 'kulaks', Holodomor, Virgin Lands campaign, etc. Total deaths, estimate at least 30 million; Solzhenitsyn said 66 million.

None of those combined 70 million+ made it out of poverty.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#396

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

rnk wrote: post #338
bitwize wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name the fucking enemy. Starts with a 'C' and ends in 'apitalism'. Read Richard Wolff's Democracy at Work . This is the way.

Quoted post unavailable.

First one is def a tool you don't want to lose, especially if your party loses. Second sounds like both U.S. conservatives and liberals. Third like primitivists, and fourth like any status quo supporting bipartisan neo-con. As is,the probably attempted strawman does not work.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#397

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #166
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 framers of the constitution did not intend for presidential election by popular vote. The intention was for state legislatures to nominate electors who would then vote for president. It wasn't until mid 1800's that states started elections (of electors) by popular vote. Note: still through an elector proxy. Also this is not a government run by popular vote, it is a mixture of state and population based government…

California could not win any popular vote about any matter whatsoever on its own.

The only thing that wins popular votes is ... having a majority of voters voting for it. Doesn't sound so bad does it? At least until you start to introduce the petty tribalism of "I don't want those folks who ain't from round here telling us what we can and can't do".

The real question is: there are obviously different "ideal sized bodies" for a popular vote controlled democracy, depending on the issue at hand. It probably is right that "folks from round here" get to decide a bunch of issues, without having to convince the whole country. And there are issues where you really should only be able to move forward with a popular vote across the whole country. So the question is: what's the right scale/scope of the voting entities for different kinds of issues?

I don't know the right answer, but I'm fairly sure that the states we have right now are not the correct choice for a lot of issues.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#398

Post by midoridensha »

Arainach wrote: post #247
midoridensha wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I just picked some representative examples out of that list. Check out the others: Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe for a few. None of these are what I'd consider stable, prosperous, well-run nations.

France, Portugal, South Korea, Ukraine, Romania, Costa Rica, Taiwan.....it's almost like you're intentionally ignoring all of the presidencies that meet your criteria.

None of those (except Costa Rica) are in the list of Presidential systems without a Prime Minister. France is in the list of "semi-presidential" systems. Look at the first list, the one the USA is in.

I also don't consider Costa Rica to be a "prosperous" nation. It's probably the only one in that whole list I'd consider living in besides the US though, because at least it isn't a war-torn or authoritarian hellhole, but it's not exactly an economic power either.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#399

Post by WalterBright »

dragonwriter wrote: post #216
WalterBright wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

So, by your standard, the Bill of Rights can’t be “broken” by a lawyer, that is, they can’t get a court to apply it in something other than the intended manner. But virtually every significant phrase in the Bill of Rights has been applied in multiple different ways by different courts over the years, so clearly lawyers have had no trouble breaking it.

The BoR has been under continuous and relentless assault for well over two centuries. It is battered and bloodied, but has held up surprisingly well.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#400

Post by jakeogh »

joshuamorton wrote: post #367
jakeogh wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

They cant outlaw guns (lets not pretend) because humans have the inalienable right to -defend- themselves. And that includes against a tyrannical government. The United States would not exist otherwise[1].

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-media.ogg/case_data/2007/...

You cant outlaw lathes and mills. Now guns are now printable. That train has left. DRM lost.

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