The question is whether your democracy is working or not. It isn't. It is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. You are facing a crisis of either autocracy from the radical white minority on the Right or the breakup of your country. The question then becomes whether either outcome can be averted by changing or even getting rid of your constitution. (There are democracies that don't have a formal constitution.) Is the constitution part of the solution or part of the problem?
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
Agreed 1000%. For starters, in regards to the Second Amendment, bullets weren't even invented until approximately 50yrs after it was written. All they had was muskets lol.
And the people trying to stop a person with a musket also only had a musket. So it was a level playing field. If one person had a few flintlock pistols and a musket with a bayonet on it they could easily kill several people if no one else had one. Even if other people did have one, they could still kill several people before they are stopped. And if they were able to get away for about 60 seconds in some room they could reload and do it all again.
The difference back then was people had a little more respect for one another (maybe because there were consequences to being disrespectful) and someone else probably had a gun in the near area and would quickly shoot any bad person who was trying to kill people. You don't really hear about the stories where someone opens fire on someone and another person kills them right away. You hear the stories when someone with a gun is able to fire shot after shot because no one in the area has a gun to stop them with. Sounds like we need either more police or more people with concealed carry.
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
To come up with a new constitution you're going to need founding principles and agreement on things.
I would argue most of those things we're in agreement with are already in our constitution.
One of the best points of our constitution is built in a process so that it can be amended. So that is the route to go in my opinion to make changes.
The question is whether your democracy is working or not. It isn't. It is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. You are facing a crisis of either autocracy from the radical white minority on the Right or the breakup of your country. The question then becomes whether either outcome can be averted by changing or even getting rid of your constitution. (There are democracies that don't have a formal constitution.) Is the constitution part of the solution or part of the problem?
Your takes are so bad.
Dems and progressives had no problem with the senate, electoral college or SCOTUS for the 40 years that they held most of the power.
Now that they are out of power, they want to say that the system needs changing? Maybe it’s not the system, maybe it’s you and the people in your party. Dems have moved more to the left and people don’t like it. All this social and cultural justice stuff turns a lot of voters away.
Polling shows that conservatives are more likely to have friends who have different political views than themselves. Progressives aren’t likely at all to befriend people of the other political side. They can’t relate to anything going on right now because they live in a bubble.
There’s nothing wrong with the constitution, just the mental toughness of a political party who wants to take their call and go home, or worse yet, want to turn the constitution into Calvin Ball.
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
Even though our constitution isn't perfect, I would hate to think what kind of constitution present day politicians would come up with. It would definitely be worse than the constitution we have now.
"We have to pass a new constitution so that you can find out what is in it — away from the fog of the controversy.” -Nancy Pelosi, 2023
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
The millennial's lament. You sound like a true progressive.
The question is whether your democracy is working or not. It isn't. It is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. You are facing a crisis of either autocracy from the radical white minority on the Right or the breakup of your country. The question then becomes whether either outcome can be averted by changing or even getting rid of your constitution. (There are democracies that don't have a formal constitution.) Is the constitution part of the solution or part of the problem?
Our democracy is struggling right now, and I'd argue that it's because people have lost sight of the principles upon which this country was founded. See the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Obviously, this is on the Constitution, but the principles of equal moral worth and individual liberty are key to understanding why the constitution structures government in a particular way. Such ideas also led to lots of social progress: the end of slavery, which was a clear violation of the nation's founding values, suffrage for women, etc.
The problem is that most people no longer learn about these principles in depth. You seem to focus on Rightwing extremists, but I'd argue that Leftwing extremists are more dangerous right now because they have captured so many important institutions, and because Americans don't seem to have a good grasp of how destructive authoritarian leftwing ideology is; we know Hitler but not as much about Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Both leftwing and rightwing extremists are illiberal; they don't believe in these principles of equal moral worth, freedom, and equality before the law.
I have very little confidence that people proposing a new constitution would write a better document than the current one. And as others pointed out, we can amend it and have done so in the past.
Dump it and start over with something for the world we live in today. Makes no sense at all to go with anything from way back when.
Do something about guns, the whole way it's done now is stupid.
What we need is a fluid document, sorta like gender fluidity. The document could just change based on your feelings that day, like a mood ring. That’s the only thing that would fit the world we live in today. Nothing wrong with the current document, just with peoples ability to understand it and not get their feelings hurt.
The whole thing is broken. We are not a democracy, certainly not one that citizens deserve.
Every state getting two Senators, an effing joke.
The Jim Crow Senate itself, worthless.
Nine unelected judges holding seemingly unlimited power? Offensive.
All of them working from a relic document written 240 years ago, by a gaggle of slave owners whose primary driving belief was in utterly unfettered capitalism?
If you believe we have a well-working representative democracy than you aren't paying attention. This country is in decline and if it works for you then you're probably one of those 1% riding merrily along on the shoulders of the rest of us.
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
Agreed 1000%. For starters, in regards to the Second Amendment, bullets weren't even invented until approximately 50yrs after it was written. All they had was muskets lol.
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Agreed 1000%. For starters, in regards to the Second Amendment, bullets weren't even invented until approximately 50yrs after it was written. All they had was muskets lol.
And the people trying to stop a person with a musket also only had a musket. So it was a level playing field. If one person had a few flintlock pistols and a musket with a bayonet on it they could easily kill several people if no one else had one. Even if other people did have one, they could still kill several people before they are stopped. And if they were able to get away for about 60 seconds in some room they could reload and do it all again.
The difference back then was people had a little more respect for one another (maybe because there were consequences to being disrespectful) and someone else probably had a gun in the near area and would quickly shoot any bad person who was trying to kill people. You don't really hear about the stories where someone opens fire on someone and another person kills them right away. You hear the stories when someone with a gun is able to fire shot after shot because no one in the area has a gun to stop them with. Sounds like we need either more police or more people with concealed carry.
Please dear God tell me you are joking. I don’t know how many times this “good guy with a gun” BS that the right spews has to be debunked before it stops getting brought up.
The question is whether your democracy is working or not. It isn't. It is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. You are facing a crisis of either autocracy from the radical white minority on the Right or the breakup of your country. The question then becomes whether either outcome can be averted by changing or even getting rid of your constitution. (There are democracies that don't have a formal constitution.) Is the constitution part of the solution or part of the problem?
Our democracy is struggling right now, and I'd argue that it's because people have lost sight of the principles upon which this country was founded. See the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Obviously, this is on the Constitution, but the principles of equal moral worth and individual liberty are key to understanding why the constitution structures government in a particular way. Such ideas also led to lots of social progress: the end of slavery, which was a clear violation of the nation's founding values, suffrage for women, etc.
The problem is that most people no longer learn about these principles in depth. You seem to focus on Rightwing extremists, but I'd argue that Leftwing extremists are more dangerous right now because they have captured so many important institutions, and because Americans don't seem to have a good grasp of how destructive authoritarian leftwing ideology is; we know Hitler but not as much about Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Both leftwing and rightwing extremists are illiberal; they don't believe in these principles of equal moral worth, freedom, and equality before the law.
I have very little confidence that people proposing a new constitution would write a better document than the current one. And as others pointed out, we can amend it and have done so in the past.
bzzzzt. wrong.
You are talking about communist authoritarianism, paranoid from the McCarthy John Bircher era. With the left you may have the issue of an overbearing majority. However, the right is much more prone to lean toward authoritarian rule with a strong-arm leader.
And the people trying to stop a person with a musket also only had a musket. So it was a level playing field. If one person had a few flintlock pistols and a musket with a bayonet on it they could easily kill several people if no one else had one. Even if other people did have one, they could still kill several people before they are stopped. And if they were able to get away for about 60 seconds in some room they could reload and do it all again.
The difference back then was people had a little more respect for one another (maybe because there were consequences to being disrespectful) and someone else probably had a gun in the near area and would quickly shoot any bad person who was trying to kill people. You don't really hear about the stories where someone opens fire on someone and another person kills them right away. You hear the stories when someone with a gun is able to fire shot after shot because no one in the area has a gun to stop them with. Sounds like we need either more police or more people with concealed carry.
Please dear God tell me you are joking. I don’t know how many times this “good guy with a gun” BS that the right spews has to be debunked before it stops getting brought up.
Please dear God tell me you are joking. I don’t know how many times this “good guy with a gun” BS that the right spews has to be debunked before it stops getting brought up.
It’s an older meme, but it checks out.
The “own a musket for self defense like the founding fathers intended” guy was posting an old copypasta. But the guy I replied to is serious as far as I can tell. At the very least it’s not an old meme that I’m aware of.
The primary thing I would change with a new constitution is to make it easier to amend the constitution. It is simply too difficult to get an amendment passed as the country is currently structured. Of the nearly 11K proposed amendments, only 27 have been passed. Half of those took place in the first third of the nation's existence. The primary reason we have this constitution is because the Articles of Confederation were too difficult to amend.
How to amend the amendment process? I don't know. You want it to be difficult, but not impossible. Maybe 2/3 of states instead of 3/4 to ratify? National referendum with 66% ratifying amendment?
As Thomas Jefferson said, “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
I don't understand why the US constitution is weirdly revered by people in this country. It was fairly forward thinking for its time... but it was written almost 250 years ago. I think it's safe to say the world has changed pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium.
"I think it's safe to say the world has pretty dramatically over the course of a quarter of a millennium."
Really! No Kidding! Who Knew? I'm Shocked....Shocked!
You are a true genius for letting the rest of us in on this revelation! With such acumen, you are the obvious person for the job of writing the New Constitution.
Can you get us a rough draft by Monday? Is that too soon?
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