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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#401

Post by yieldcrv »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #385

United States unamendable national and state borders are also a factor. Whatever one thinks about Brexit, it allowed EU to continue with countries that are committed to EU and for UK to consider what's best for UK, including welcoming Hong Kong residents not enthusiastic about takeover by China. If California and Texas go their own way and borders between states are adjusted to accommodate red and blue area, maybe cu…

> can be still part of Nato and have a free travel arrangement with each other, changes do not have to be extreme

I've spent the last past decade pointing that out to people. People act like a state being separate from the US and independent is soooo absurd, logistically.

But the US can still assist on a natural disaster just like it does in all of the Americas. Common defense can occur, as you point out. Visa and waivers could be easy.

I always like to imagine what level of state tax would I tolerate if I was only paying income taxes to just California. Since California doesn't get much/anything back from the Federal Government from its remittances, I bet California wouldn't even need to raise its states taxes.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#402

Post by kepler1 »

meowkit wrote: post #323
kepler1 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Consensus Failure is the issue that underlies all your listed examples, and many more important ones. Gridlock, over an >extended< period of time, indicates there is a problem. Its like an engine seizing.

And consensus failure means that we should codify into the basic law what you believe is the consensus on that topic? Or change the rules to reflect the lack of consensus? How odd.

A change to the Constitution isn't going to save you from people fundamentally disagreeing on things.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#403

Post by Nursie »

jliptzin wrote: post #373
Nursie wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter suppression in the US appears to take on other forms, reducing the number of polling places in urban centres such that it can take several hours to cast a vote, restricting their hours, making it illegal to provide water for those in the queue, that sort of thing. Multi-pronged attacks which try to ensure only 'your' people get to participate. As an Australian resident and a British citizen, it seems outrageous…

Upvoted and also amazed that you know so much about what’s going on in US politics!

Thanks, it's fascinating and a little scary to watch! The US has a huge influence on the world, particularly on the other western, anglophone democracies, so it feels important. I also have family and friends in various states.

My generation in the UK grew up with America being this shiny, free, wonderful, aspirational land over the sea, the land of Baywatch and Miami Vice and Disneyland and CocaCola all the other things. It really did appear to be the mythical shining light on the hill. I love visiting the US and have spent over a year there now, on and off. It is a varied land of contradictions and of very different values and lifestyles, a land of opulence, but also of left behind little places. But the politics ... it seems to have become pathological, and the population increasingly cynical about politicians, about the media and sources of information, to the extent that most trust seems gone and consensus reality seems to be frequently called into question (I'm not claiming this is unreasonable! Just observing).

These tropes are definitely present in the two countries I've called home, but to a much lesser extent, the poison doesn't seem to have permeated quite so far.

You do see stuff get thrown around on social media like "Make sure to take a pen to the voting booth so that they can't change your vote!" but it's fringe whackos. Even if the politicians themselves are disliked, the mechanics of democracy are usually pretty well trusted. IIRC in the last general election here one of the tiny right-wing parties tried some voter-fraud type rabble-rousing ahead of the poll, but they were largely ignored and pretty quickly contradicted by the Australian Election Commission.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#404

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Empact wrote: post #382
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 contr…

State reps have a much more informed and salient interest in maintaining their state’s sovereignty, as their power directly derives from it. Much of what the fœderal government does now to usurp state power is to simply bribe the states to change their policies (e.g. the drinking age, but many such examples). Would state reps willingly select senators who would bribe them to change their own policies?

> State reps have a much more informed and salient interest in maintaining their state’s sovereignty,

Bullshit.

The smaller the democratic unit, the more likely it is to be unduly influenced by local power and wealth. State reps are far more likely to represent the interests of the local power and wealth than they are "their state" (by which I mean "the people of their state")

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#405

Post by _-david-_ »

lupire wrote: post #240
johnthuss wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly Republicans have benefited greatly from the electoral college lately. Whether that is good or bad depends on your political leaning. As a centrist I appreciate that the USA California. I don’t know that it is possible to judge this issue in an unbiased way.

Why do you appreciate that the US = the rural parts? That is the current alternative to "California". Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the right wing, was governor of California.

The US does not equal the rural parts. Did the rural parts of America vote for Biden or support what he is doing?

California from decades ago is hardly comparable to modern day California.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#406

Post by CGamesPlay »

hedora wrote: post #275
cm2187 wrote: 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…

Population shifts mean an ever-shrinking minority of the population can block changes to the constitution. It’s barely even double digits at this point. Constitutional amendments were supposed to be easier than right to rebellion. That’s not really the case any more. At the same time, the supreme court is just ignoring the law, over the objections of 66-75% of the population (depending on the ruling). These are dark…

The Supreme Court is, in no sense of the word, ignoring the law. They are interpreting the laws in ways you disagree with and in ways which have historically not been how it was interpreted by the same court, but this is not what ignoring means.

Further, the objections of the population have nothing to do with the judicial branch and everything to do with the legislative branch. The courts are not and have never been democratically elected entities.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#407

Post by jakeogh »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #383
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A conspiracy is secret. A conspiracy theory is often very public.

Indeed. Hence the need to apply a meaningless psyop label to distract from the fact that conspiracies are a significant chink of US law.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#408

Post by tastyfreeze »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #380
tastyfreeze wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the Articles of Confederation all decisions were made by a vote of the states. The Constitution has a very different structure. Most of the power resides in Congress that the people control. The Electoral College is solely selecting the executive not deciding Constitutional questions. The people are represented by the House and assert their will that way. The apportionment of representatives should be changed s…

> Returning the Senate to selection by state legislature also solves the complaint of unequal representation in the senate. ?? Wyoming would still have 2 senators, just like California. How does that help in any way? > Representing the people isn't supposed to be the purpose of the senate. For many of us, that's precisely the problem. The role of the government is the representation of the people, and to the extent t…

The House is the representation of the people. The Senate is supposed to represent each state government. Regardless of population the state governments do not need more representation.

The role of government is to protect states from foreign or domestic invasion and to ensure no government tramples the rights of the people.

But, we are so far past what the government is supposed to do we have people trying to figure out how to get more power for themselves. The Federal government was meant to be inconsequential to your daily life.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#409

Post by jakeogh »

yread wrote: post #393
lettergram wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ 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

The SC opinion in Heller vs DC makes it clear that the 2nd is a personal right (-and- it was was long before the Declaration of Independence): https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-media.ogg/case_data/2007/...

"It was good to have a gun when the clansmen came" -Justice Anton Scalia

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#410

Post by zhoujianfu »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #197
dragonwriter wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Direct democracy does not work on a large scale. It maybe could with smart use of modern technologies, revocable proxies, and..., but that’s irrelevant because “adopt direct democracy for the US” is not even among the top 10 proposed alternatives to the current setup of the Electoral College.

I'm curious on what the current popular alternatives are. It does seem like most conversation focuses on direct democracy since it's fixated on respecting the popular vote.

see nationalpopularvote.com
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