The constitution?
brandon10
Posts: 1,114
I asked this in another thread. I don't understand the obsession with a document that was written so long ago. My grandparents can barely work a remote control, why would I want to let the words from so long ago dictate the way society is governed today?
Americans get so worked up about the constitution. But if this document is so great, then why all the amendments?
I guess I'm just looking for answers from my American friends on either side of the political spectrum. What's with the obsession over the constitution?
Americans get so worked up about the constitution. But if this document is so great, then why all the amendments?
I guess I'm just looking for answers from my American friends on either side of the political spectrum. What's with the obsession over the constitution?
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(2) What's "so great" is that it's lasted for centuries, while standing as the foundation for pretty much the most powerful, successful, innovative country on Earth.
i think people cling to it in certain circumstances, such as the second ammendment, when they can not logically and rationally justify their need to own 11 ak-47s. most of them when you asked "why do you need those sorts of firearms?? " they say something like "because the constitution says i can have them." instead of giving a real, honest, and compelling argument for why they should be allowed to buy those weapons. it is always "because the second ammendment says i can"..
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
Another question, why is it brought up so much in political debate? I do notice that both sides of the aisle seem to find it useful.
In Canada we have something similar called the "Charter of rights and freedoms". But I don't notice it being debated a whole lot during uncertain political times. It's basically just a document making sure everyone has equal rights when pertaining to voting, criminal justice, and language. I find it odd that the American constitution pertains to things like guns, slaves, and abortion. Those certainly aren't issues I'd want my great great great grandparents deciding.
Another question, why do some candidates claim do be more constitutional than others? And is it always such a bad thing to not follow every word of the constitution?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to understand a little better.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
That's sort of the way I understood it as well. I thought it was a way for Americans to separate themselves from an oppressive British Govt. But I find it a little odd that so many Americans are fearful of their Govt after all these years.
It definitely makes you think about the true power of law. What is the benefit of having so many laws? If laws could solve all of our problems, with millions of laws, we should have no problems by this point. What we have are too many bad laws, an over-abundance of lawyers ready to milk them for all they are worth. These same laws give incrdible power to politicians (mostly former lawyers who write more bad laws to keep their friends paid) by representing special interests, all while the people beg for these laws to pass since their titles (and little else) imply that they are for "the common good." We have agencies being run by the same robber barons, who are appointed, not elected, to police the industry they just exploited and defrauded. It is important to beware the regulations when you can't trust the regulators-- that which should be illegal becomes legal all too often, and to me that IS big business policing itself in a far more dangerous way than the free market ever could: Goldman Sachs running the Treasury / SEC / The Fed / etc... to use one example.
So, considering that the SUPREME LAW of the land can be read that the laws which screw us over the most all are null and void, since they aren't explicitly allowed in the Constitution, I have to like that document, and urge others to see it the way that I do. I also like how there are checks and balances between branches as safeguards against unjust laws being passed or enforced. I think people who often feel betrayed by the law, and how politicans and businessman both have no respect for the law / or play by entirely different rules all together, have a friend in that document. Considering it can and should be interpreted as a document which restrains government while attempting to protect life and liberty, I'm not surprised that more people aren't using it to strike down more unjust laws.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
You said a lot in there. A very good read. A couple things struck me. I notice you want very limited federal government. And that you would like to see more decisions being made at the state, county, or even city/town level. That could make for some very fucked up towns I imagine. But if that's what the locals would want, then who am I to stop them. In this scenario who would be paying for infrastructure, education and that sort of thing? I imagine this ending up in some very different belief systems from State to State. Would the States stay very "United" in this scenario? And if a local community decides they want to ban everyone from owning firearms, then is it the federal governments right to overturn that because of the constitution? Even if the majority of the people want to ban the arms in their community?
Well, I can't imagine the towns being too fucked up (or any worse than they already are) if they are held to the same standards as the federal government in terms of not being able to restrict people's fundamental rights. In the case of arms banishment, no state should be allowed to restrict people from owning all forms of arms since it is their fundamental right to protect themselves. But maybe they can dis-allow certain types of arms to be sold there? Possession of the arms not eligible for sale would be a different issue. Some towns / states may ban them outright, others would only stop people from buying or selling guns within their locality, but could own them if bought elsewhere. Private property is yet another form of governance. If you don't like guns, you shouldn't have to allow guns into your house or place of business.
That to me, is the beauty of it-- more choices in governance, a freer flow of ideas to choose from, all with respect to the same basic guidelines that the federal government is to adhere to. Overtime, I believe the states would approach a certain uniformity as the states would learn from each other and try and implement the best ideas. I think progress works best through freedom of choice, not through coercion.
Funding should be decided and raised as locally as possible. Will projects be financed through savings? Bonds? It's for them to decide. Same for education. Some may take on a more socialized approach, others may decide that if you don't have kids in school, you don't pay the school taxes. No matter how much government intervention there is, some states will always have more money than others. The fact that money is printed with debt attached to it to federally fund a lot of local projects doesn't mean it's right or even a good idea. Nearly every state and the federal government are horribly in debt-- which means none of these governments have the money to be doing things on the scale in which they are currently doing them. Every dollar of debt is representative of money that is printed or borrowed and owed to someone else.
In my city, we renovate a courthouse because we were getting some federal funding to do it, both grants and loans. It wasn't necessary, but it was a nice idea if it was carried out properly. It wasn't. It went way over budget, the only reason the city decided to do it was because it was going to relatively "free" with the federal government's money. Well, it's not free anymore, and it is one of the reasons that the taxes in my city are now 72% higher than last year. 72%! And that's after they were raised 28% the year before! Compounded, that's 220% higher than the year before. Receiving funding from other states or the federal government is not always a blessing. It can certainly be a curse, too. In hindsight, our city should have decided against the court house, because now we are all on the hook for it.
Don't really agree with the "lackluster involvement" comments and "nation is spiraling down". It suggests that there was this ideal time in America's past where the people had the power and were all actively involved. Seeing how women couldn't vote until 1920, you could say that half the population was completely shut out of the process, as well as other minorities. Thankfully, we have amendments.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
there isn't a whole lot to add to this thread from my perspective other than to reiterate that the Constitution is there to show the framework for how our Union is supposed to work. The explicit and implied powers within the document have set a frame work for a very successful type of government. Unfortunately, like with any good idea, there are those that abuse the system for personal gain at the expense of the union...this happens at the local level, but unfortunately it happens with more grave consequences at the national level. That isn't the fault of the document, but the fault of those that spit fire and lies in its name. The Union itself has become a state and that was never meant to happen. Basically one clause, the interstate commerce clause, is the reason the federal government has become so involved in local and state governments. But fortunately or unfortunately the document, which was written surprisingly well 200 plus years ago, is open for interpretation and things like the interstate commerce clause end up interpreted so the federal government can regulate all sorts of other things that end up not really supposed to be federal powers...like drugs for instance. The police powers are supposed to be reserved for the states, in which they are granted the power to make laws protecting the people...Drugs should not be prohibited by the federal government, but by states themselves.
But that is my interpretation
I guess if I could get enough people to agree with my interpretation of the document I could do something about it...and there in lies its beauty...the country can look a lot of different ways and remain constitutional...doesn't mean I have to agree with the interpretation...and the document itself has set protections guaranteed to everyone to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. I just wish more people would take an active role in the people's job...which is simply to be involved and vote. I actually have come away from typing this appreciating the document even more.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
The Constitution as written, as ratified, was for the sole purpose of forming a national government and does not contain any of the amendments commonly known as the Bill of Rights. These ten amendments were collectively ratified as part of the Constitution in 1791.
These initial 10 amendments were to serve as a buffer for the people and states against a federal government becoming dictatorial. The first 8 amendments are the ones most targeted to strip and water down the power of the Constitution and the civil liberties of the people.
Well put. We barely use it anymore anyway, so I don't see what the OP is complaining about. Just ask Nancy Pelosi. She uses Constitution toilet paper.
What do you mean by "we barely use it anymore"?
I think you're making a lot of assumptions where you're revising the past, and you're also not looking at things that are better, things that are pretty much the same, and things that are worse. You're saying these things are worse and lumping them on to one downward arrow on the graph of the U.S. I'll try to touch on several of your points:
"the average person in our nation is now far less aware of the world and nation around them" I would have to disagree with this, both factually and anecdotally. There's a chunk of people who can't find Iraq, there was also a chunk who hadn't even heard of Vietnam, and before them, Japan. I would say that people are more informed than they were in the past. There's always been a large group of non-voters.
"failure of the family structure to create a young generation inspired to fix the future," This is just an opinion that you often hear from older generations about the next, when in fact, the next generation is always better than the previous, always smarter, always more inventive. Why do they recalibrate IQ tests every 10 years or so? Why is the level of math that I learned now taught a year earlier?
Corporations have been involved in government from the get-go, so this is nothing new. What I see is more awareness of it, and more opposition to it in the last 10 years than there was before. Electing those who respond to this will happen, but it takes time because of the oh-so-wonderful older generations.
We don't need to change the way we operate as a nation drastically to balance the budget. Just downscale the military, return tax levels to how they were in the past, and then some other smaller cuts.
I'm not sure how you're measuring moral decay of our country, but you do have to look for the good beyond the dramatic news story of the day of some mom killing her kids. Violent crime has been decreasing steadily for years, teen pregnancy is falling after and uptick in the 00's, teen sex and drugs has been pretty much the same levels for 20+ years (if you use those as indicators). I see good things in people everyday. Most of the 300+ million of us got along pretty well today.
If you've lost your hope, it doesn't mean everyone else has.
In terms Corporations and big business being just as involved throughout history, that is simply not true. Our society has moved vastly more to a Corporate Capital system in which lobbying, campaign finance and policy making is done with the strong if not direct influence of big business. Government serves our business interest and this system is so well entrenched, nothing will change it. The two party system only emboldens this relationship and minimizes the citizens access to change policy and the ways we want to run our society. To compare today's system to that of even of a few decades ago, it's gotten far, far worse and out of hand.. it's like comparing a puppy to a grown dog...and we're stuck with the crap.
As for your idea of how to change our economy.. you are offering something that makes sense theoretically, but in practice it's nothing more than a pipe dream. Our nation isn't gonna wake up one day and cut all of these billions of programs and jobs cause it's economically positive. There's many easy ways to fix our society and economy, but none of them are feasible because we are not willing to make those adjustments. Part of it is also related to big business wielding power to shoot down policy which is detrimental to their fields.
As for losing hope, seeing "good people" has nothing to do with anything. Our society has mostly checked out and doesn't participate, which is exactly why our government, big business and society is so screwed up and in the mess we see. There's no real signs of this changing but areas of worry keep growing and escalating. Nuclear weapons, wars, poverty, disease, environmental disasters, gradual breakdown of societal markers (bridges, roads, education, police, etc) and then you can add in the ever growing nuts (terrorists, crazy gunman, school shootings and access to guns).. you can see where I'm going with this. It's all headed in one direction..down. It may not be over-night, but things are slowly but surely spiraling and breaking down. It has little to do with "being good people" but more about people being self-interested and not doing their part to help build their future. People don't wanna hear it, but the simplest thing, like the American dream.. guess what, it's not good for our future. Having 2 children, 2 cars and a home, is not a feasible lifestyle in our modern times...cause guess what, public schools aren't all that good anymore (depending on your economic status this can change). And guess what, raising those kids means you don't have time to stay active or participate in government and politics the way our nation's founders actually intended (which is the only thing that keeps our system in check). People don't wanna hear that our lifestyles are too comfortable even if they think it's simple things that sound crazy. Wages are lower, working hours are greater, children need more and more attention and regimented activities. So in sum, as our population grows, guess what, less participation and activity towards the political climate around them. Our culture, how we think and promote our ways and the ways we consider "good" do not equate to a good, healthy (mentally, economically, socially or politically) society. People don't nor will never acknowledge this but is the red herring in our culture. Our way is not feasible for success.. it's polarizing just like capitalism.. and you end up with some have's and a whole lot of have-not's. And guess what, that's where we are, and it's only getting worse. You can hope it gets better, but you know the saying bout wishing in one hand and crapping in the other...see which fills up first.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
"Our education system has been failing and our nation's reading levels, math and science levels have been getting lower and lower."
They've been getting lower and lower compared to what? I'm always skeptical when U.S. test scores are compared to other countries, both because they are likely comparing different tests, but also a different population of kids taking the tests. It's like back in the day when Iowa always scored considerably higher on the SATs than other states. That was due to the population taking the tests, which were highschoolers definately going to college. Where in other states, it included more kids who were just thinking about college. In my state every child takes the standardized testing, that includes special ed kids whose math and reading are at third grade levels. Their results are mixed in with everyone else's. Do you think test results from other countries that were being compared to also include the special ed kids? Doubtful.
People just adopt the notion that our education system is failing, and after looking at some poll results that you suggested, I found that 77% of parents give the school their child attends a grad of A or B. They see the rest of the nation's schools as the failure. Maybe the reality is that a smaller number of schools are doing poorly than the consensus opinion suggests.
I'm not sure what "education and intellect is down from the generation before" means. The number of people with college degrees has been increasing, and enrollement has gone up since the economy has tanked. You would have to define "intellect" to make a case for it decreasing.
"Our nation isn't gonna wake up one day and cut all of these billions of programs and jobs cause it's economically positive" The government is currently discussing cutting programs, so I don't really think this is a pipe dream.
I agree that a shrinking middle class is a problem. There are periods where the middle class also makes gains, which means something is occuring that effects that, and it can occur again. I also agree that our consumer based economy put us in a moral double bind. This economy wont last and in the next 100 years or so will evolve into something else. First, everyone will need their electronic toys and convience items (globally) and find that it's not economically sustainable. At that point the World's population will decrease, and when that happens, the global economy will shift because a consumer oriented economy can't sustain a population that is top heavy with old people. I see this as a change, rather than a decline.
My reference to good people was in response to the moral decline in the U.S., but maybe you were referring to a different moral decline, but then in this post, you also refer to "ever growing nuts".
There's a couple interesting contradictions in your post. First, you criticize our consumer economy, but then you use the reference that this generation won't be better off than the one before it, which is strictly a reference to income and wealth. Income and wealth is what a consumer society uses to measure success and happiness. You have to change how you measure success if you want to distance yourself from the pitfalls of a consumer society.
You also say that this generation is apathetic, while at the same time saying there is nothing we can do to change the current state of the nation, and we're "spiralling down". You're criticising the current generation, yet it seems more like a projection of your own attitude, as you feel helpless to the problems in the U.S.
Nothing but toys invented in the last 20 years? I'm not sure how to respond to that.