TLDR: "All this democracy stuff would work so much better if I could just circumvent all those backwoods idiots who don't vote and think similarly to my clearly superior urban, progressive sensibilities"
The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
661–670 of 747 posts
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The framers were well before the Industrial Revolution They were well before radio, TV, internet, trains, automobiles, airplanes, nuclear power, and many other things that do not strictly respect state lines. "Leave most decisions to the states" made a lot of sense in 1789 but we live in a different world now.
I don’t really buy this. Somehow Europe manages pretty well with much smaller and more granular country level decision making units.
The EU famously makes a lot of policy!
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cap on the size of the House should be lifted, so that an approximately equal number of people are represented by each representative, no matter what state you live in. I don't see the problem in both California and Wyoming getting two senators, since that's (as you mention) precisely the point of the Senate. It's very deliberately built in to the American political system that the will of the half-plus-one major…
> It's very deliberately built in to the American political system that the will of the half-plus-one majority does not dictate the direction of the whole country. The problem that we have is the reverse - a half-minus-one minority can (and occasionally does) dictate the direction of the whole country. Tyranny of the majority is bad, but tyranny of the minority is even worse.
What are some recent examples of minority-backed policies that are controlling the whole country? Things like Dobbs v. Jackson merely moved controversial questions back to the states, which is clearly not at all something that affects the whole country. In what ways are the minority tyrannizing the majority?
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortunately, you still have those rights - whether you recognize them or not, and whether or not the government recognizes them. They're inherent to being a human being - those "inalienable" rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. The US Constitution did not create those rights, it recognized them.
> those "inalienable" rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence /me not subject to USA law. I've already said that I think "rights" are a fiction; so to me, inalienable rights are an inalienable fiction. Just because they've been written down doesn't make them real. What are these rights? (I'm not asking for their enumeration; I want to know where they come from, what they're made of, if you like). I did ph…
They come from human nature. The evidence comes from how well a society thrives, or fails to thrive, under particular sets of rights. The US has thrived, so its concept of rights is more accurate than, say, communist rights, under which people do very poorly.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's how you can tell if a set of rights is more correct or less correct - how well a country organized around those rights thrives, or fails to thrive. The US has thrived, meaning its definition of rights is reasonably on the mark.
Yeah, well I don't see a country that's thriving, except in terms of wealth (for some). I see a country lurching towards another Civil War. Anyway, my point was that I don't think these rights exist, and that framing things in terms of rights is arse-over-tit. I'm not interested in arguing whether the US chose the right set of rights; I'm saying I have no idea what a "right" is, other than a privilege granted by law.
> I don't see a country that's thriving
Americans love to wallow in "oh, woe is us!" whereas if one reads history books, the US is in a golden age.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." So the law can override it as they please? I prefer the US version that says "Congress shall make no law ..."
For a long time now I have tried to sum up the differences between the US and Canada in our founding principals. Canada's is "Peace, Order, and Good Government". Contrast that against the "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" and the fundamental differences in our approaches to government make a lot more sense. We're much more like the UK than the US in the function of government and the construction of laws,…
> The US is a free speech extremist country
Jeez, it is hardly extreme. BTW, free speech does not include libel, slander, specific threats, or inciting riots.
> we rank higher on the press freedom index
Canada does? Based on what? Note that no matter how extremely negative the press was about Trump, never once did the government make any legal threats against them about it.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A state's senators should be representing those settled views. why? how is this superior to the alternatives?
I feel like I have repeatedly stated my case on why the Senate representing state governments is superior. So, it is your turn for justification. How is a Senate elected by the people superior to one selected by state governments? How does expanding the Senate to look like the House maintain the bicameral legislature?
I consider the role of any elected form of government to make decisions in accordance with the wishes and choices of the people, subject to the limitations of however those wishes/choices are established.
If we were to ignore the many costs of direct democracy for everything, the best way to fulfill this role would be ... direct democracy (i.e. ask everybody everything all the time).
However, those costs are real, and I consider representative democracy to be an acceptable substitute most of the time. Nevertheless, stacking layers of representative selection on top of themselves reduces the acceptability of this. Choosing the people who will choose the people who will choose the people who will choose the people who will make decisions is, I think, obviously absurd.
So the question is: is there any way in which two layers of representation might be better than one? I can see none. I do not believe that the votes of a state's already elected representatives to pick the people who will in turn represent the state in the US Congress to be superior in any way than having the same people who vote for the state representatives also vote for the US ones.
In general, I view representatives with a wariness roughly inversely proportional to the number of people they represent. My county commissioner? Very low standing, but if they get something good done, great. My state rep? Not a bad person, but vulnerable to local threats. State senator? slightly better, but still very "local". US rep? Now we're talking. US senator? about as good as it gets, in a state-based system.
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it does. I think I was pretty clear about that. Help me understand where you're confused? Is it that you don't see the linkage between the text of Article III and Marbury 's famous line, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is"? Because jurisdictio literally means "to say what the law is"
You are doing this weird thing I see on this web site at times when someones takes a court case they like and accepts whatever the judge states carte blanche. No further reading required. The fact judicial review is not in the constitution is not controversial. Here's what Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts web sight says: "The best-known power of the Supreme Court is judicial review, or the ability of the Cour…
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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
> individual rights over everything else I used to admire the US constitution. I've grown up now. Who could possibly be opposed to human rights - i.e. human beings having rights? And indeed, the US constitution does appear to be largely about rights. Over the years I've increasingly leaned to the view that these rights are mostly a legal fiction, and that the things that are supposedly rights are highly subjective po…
> Who could possibly be opposed to human rights - i.e. human beings having rights? And indeed, the US constitution does appear to be largely about rights. What do you mean? US citizens have pretty much the most rights of any people in the world. Can you list the countries that guarantee freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and freedom to stay silent (not incriminate yourself)? (…
The USA — with the 'most rights of any people in the world' — incarcerates the most people, by far, in some of the most inhumane conditions (slavery is explicitly legal in such contexts) among the developed nations.
We're 'free' in an Orwellian sense. Freedom to be educated, have health care regardless of one's employment|wealth, welfare with dignity for those in need — none of these concepts come into consideration into what 'freedom' actually means in practice.
My political leanings started libertarian. Over the years, I have traveled and read, and came to see the US for the farce it is, and encounter the deluded population convinced America is 'the greatest nation ever'. It has potential for sure, but when will we unlock it and truly taste real freedom?
Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a nonsensical idea, at least as stated. The people who live within 500' of you do not have exclusive control over what happens in that 500' radius circle. Control is ceded to entities like your town, or county, or state, or federal government, in no particular way. The federal government controls, for example, what happens in the air above where you live; your state probably controls the building code for whe…
I believe one of the tenets of hacker news is responding to the best version of a comment, which I think you failed at in your pedanticism. Of course there are overlapping jurisdictions. However, again, the idea that the coasts should have control over a piece of land hundreds and hundreds of miles away that looks nothing like the coasts is undemocratic. People who inhabit a particular 'country' (used in the non nati…
> For example, if Wyoming were truly represented proportionally then resource extraction would be freer to damage the Wyoming environment.
In theory this would appear to be true. But in practice, the opposite seems more common in history. Wyoming's government is more beholden to its rich and powerful interests, and has less power to resist their beck and call. Consequently resource extraction interests are able to behave in ways that a federal government may not (and in many cases, does not) tolerate.
One of the central roles of government is to add balance to the struggle between the interests of the majority and the power of existing wealth. The smaller and more local the government, the less ability it has to add this balance. My county could not possibly effectively taken on a multinational corporation that was or planned to act in ways against our collective interests. In fact, even my state is having problems doing that right now (but it is certainly in a better position than the county).
In a world of gentleman farmers and homesteads, perhaps local governments would be enough to mount a steadfast defence of the interests of the many over those of the few. But we live in a world of gigantic and almost unimaginably powerful corporations, and local (even state) governments are not effective tools when we need to bend their behavior to our will.
The problem of people feeling unrepresented within the government does not go away by subdividing things down to smaller units and thus allowing the State of Jefferson etc. to exist. It might help, somewhat, but it would not eliminate it. When views on, for example, the correct response to a public health emergency (or even the actual existence of a public health emergency), become sufficiently polarized and divergent, different sides in such a scenario are always going to feel unrepresented by whatever action/inaction a government takes.
In addition, it is not clear to me that actively encouraging The Great Sort by creating politically-motivated jurisdictions is a great idea for the long run.