Controversial policy cannot and should not become amendments. There is very little that everyone agrees that the government should do and the government is already very powerful. That's why constitutional amendments are so rare.
The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#52I think the single biggest vulnerability of the constitution, which they had no chance of predicting, is mass media and the way it changed the dynamics of politics.
Today it is a mediacracy undergoing a violent phase transition from tv and newspapers traditional media control to social media and search algorithms.
At the root of the problem is that the media is owned by very few oligopolies, and they answer to no one. The potential power from controlling them outshadows their profits.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#53"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…
The US constitution could guarantee proportional representation, which would break the two-party hegemony and make compromise essential to success.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#54At this point, is the difficulty in amending the Constitution actually a bug? Seeing the polarization, I could see our Founding Fathers deciding that's actually a feature right now because it prevents one side from getting the upper hand and telling the rest to stuff it.
It absolutely is a feature. The government already has tons of power and there are few policies that everyone agrees on. No wonder we dont have new amendments.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#55No post body was provided.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Founding Fathers pictured the government as being democrats and republicans versus problems, not democrats versus republicans.
I remember reading about "factions" in the Federalist papers and I have a feeling that the Founding Fathers knew such partisanship was bound to arise. And indeed, it arose very early during George Washington's presidency. I don't think the development of political parties would have caught them by surprise, especially because many of them wound up joining them as time went on.
Federalist 10 describes factions as the nature of man, explains why they don't belong in government, and describes how the Constitution limits the sway of factions. But, the Founding Fathers never envisioned it would be possible to coordinated across a continent in real time. Rapid communication allows factions/parties to have continental spread.
https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-...
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#57The alternative is a Constitutional Convention. Considering that each state would have equal representation, I can't imagine anyone on the Left liking that idea.
The alternative is basically the same thing. It takes proportionally just as many states to call a Constitutional Convention as it does to propose an Amendment. You're not getting around 2/3s.
And once an Amendment is proposed, it still takes 3/4 of the states ratifying it in some manner.
The mechanisms are slightly different, but the numbers are the same.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise Not when refusing to compromise is your parties main platform.
> refusing to compromise Unfortunately the left has won in this regard. The left moves so hard and fast to the left that even the right can no longer "refuse to compromise." If they don't, they are bigots at worst and uncultured, out of touch imbeciles at best.
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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#59What are the amendements that they want to pass, but cannot?
A new user commented: excite1997 0 minutes ago | unvote | parent | next [–] This thread is likely gonna be a minefield and get canned, but the article takes a swing at the 2nd Amendment, for example, pretending to be impartial but calling it a "reinterpretation". I was surprised to see it go dead almost instantly. It's a fair comment (well, the minefield part is unnecessary). I wanted to reply with: Listening to the…
Weird. I have showdead on but was this actually deleted? I see no such comment, but see the other dead comment where someone said a poem or something in another thread.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#60I consider myself a patriotic American, but I don't know that the government even follows the Constitution in the first place.
NSA has been hoovering up data of innocent Americans, and the IC in general, works with foreign ICs, to target Americans without reasonable cause, just blanket vacuuming.
Much of the govt, including federal, state, and local, has been purchasing private data without a warrant signed by a judge. Or they tap incoming fiber. Am expecting the next shoe to drop around traffic buying, not just location, without a warrant.
Civil forfeiture is rife, violating the 5th and 14th. It is mainly targeting minorities
Likewise, traffic cameras proliferation, mainly targeting minorities.
US Govt, state govts are actively pressuring BigTech to censor, causing them to become state "actors", and "agents of the State" themselves
We're coming off multiple scandals of govt employees criminally pursuing regionally unpopular politicos and their allies, but escaping sanction through regionalized trials
Large govt decrees ended rent collection, closed businesses, and did untold damage to the US. I can understand this, but not the lack of compensation to all the landlords that have been ruined by this.
The problem we have is, the US Constitution isn't being followed in the first place.