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As Royce says in "Hologram of Liberty" That is parchment worship. Attitudes do need to change...but to a certain extent people will always be the same....and perhaps your own attitude against any change also needs to change.Nothing to change. Attitudes need to be changed. There is nothing in the Constitution that abridges anyones right. Its about freedom, the FOUNDATION of this nation.If we dont change this constitution we are heading for a downfall.I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.
Probably most USMB members have some familiarity with at least some of the U.S. Constitution and most have strong opinions about what the Constitution does and does not protect/provide/accomplish.
It might be an interesting discussion to have our own little Constitutional convention here and discuss what we would want to retain and what we would change of the original Constitution if the people decided to write a new one.
For instance, the Preamble of the Original Constitution is this:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The problem with the wording, however descriptive and elegant, is that we might have trouble in agreeing on what a 'more perfect union' is, what components of justice the federal government should be involved in, or what constitutes 'domestic tranquility'. Certainly there are broad disputes as to what is included in the 'general welfare' and strong opposing views on what 'blessings of liberty' actually are.
My proposal for a preamble for a new constitution would be something more like this:
We the people, in order to ensure peaceful cooperation and commerce between the various states, provide for the common defense, promote justice and the general welfare without prejudice or favoritism, and secure the unalienable rights and blessings of liberty for every citizen, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
What would you want a new Constitution for the United State of America to accomplish that the old one does not seem to do?
Probably most USMB members have some familiarity with at least some of the U.S. Constitution and most have strong opinions about what the Constitution does and does not protect/provide/accomplish.
It might be an interesting discussion to have our own little Constitutional convention here and discuss what we would want to retain and what we would change of the original Constitution if the people decided to write a new one.
For instance, the Preamble of the Original Constitution is this:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The problem with the wording, however descriptive and elegant, is that we might have trouble in agreeing on what a 'more perfect union' is, what components of justice the federal government should be involved in, or what constitutes 'domestic tranquility'. Certainly there are broad disputes as to what is included in the 'general welfare' and strong opposing views on what 'blessings of liberty' actually are.
My proposal for a preamble for a new constitution would be something more like this:
We the people, in order to ensure peaceful cooperation and commerce between the various states, provide for the common defense, promote justice and the general welfare without prejudice or favoritism, and secure the unalienable rights and blessings of liberty for every citizen, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
What would you want a new Constitution for the United State of America to accomplish that the old one does not seem to do?
Separation of economy and state:
1. Congress shall not use tax or spending policies to manipulate behavior.
2. Clarify that the meaning of "General Welfare" is to contrast with "Specific Welfare" - to ensure that state spending is always for the general benefit of all, not targeted classes. Explicitly state what was made clear in the Federalist Papers: that the general welfare clause and the other clauses attached to the taxation power do not amount to a general power to spend or legislate. They are limitations on the power of taxation, to guarantee that taxes are only raised only to fund the implementation of the enumerated powers of government, not to fill state coffers or redistribute wealth.
3. Rewrite the Commerce Clause to limit it to regulating trade policy disputes among the states, and with foreign nations, with the express purpose of ensuring that the rights of the people to trade and travel freely are not infringed.
4. Extend the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment to explicitly cover economic freedom, making it clear that our financial decisions are as off-limits as our choices regarding religion.
When right wingers talk about changing the constitution, it's always about restricting rights of people they don't like. Minorities, gays, atheists and so on. Some how, the right wing thinks they are "better". They have this fantasy they built everything good in the United States. They freed the slaves and won WWI and WWII. They even know science better than scientists.
Federalism can work with the bulk of power being either national or state. If the later, how much power should be given to the states?
The Founders were concerned with no national established churches, not the states, which removed them over the following decades.
Most Americans today would go through the roof with a state church imposed on them.
The incorporation of most of the Bill of Rights by the feds is that the states failed to protect the liberties of all their citizens.
We either limit the federal government's authority or we do not. There is zero evidence that those elected to federal office are any better at governing or do so more honestly and honorably than do state and local governments. We either trust a free people to make and learn from their mistakes and eventually arrive at a society pleasing to all who share that society or we do not.
Slavery?
Women can't vote?
Hispanics and Asians driven from their lands?
American local control does not have a good record.
It's a difficult exercise for the right wing. They always come up with things they "think" sound good, but are either impractical or total disasters. The deficit creating Bush Tax cuts. The Iraq fiasco (we will be treated as liberators), deregulation. Trickle down. They never seem to look beyond the surface. There is no depth. They have no sense of consequence.As you know, changing the constitution is very hard because of the votes and the time needed for approval. During this time congress and presidency could change several times. Even when the two parties were willing to work together on important legislation, it was difficult. Today, it would be impossible which makes this thread a bit of a waste of time and energy.Probably most USMB members have some familiarity with at least some of the U.S. Constitution and most have strong opinions about what the Constitution does and does not protect/provide/accomplish.
It might be an interesting discussion to have our own little Constitutional convention here and discuss what we would want to retain and what we would change of the original Constitution if the people decided to write a new one.
For instance, the Preamble of the Original Constitution is this:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The problem with the wording, however descriptive and elegant, is that we might have trouble in agreeing on what a 'more perfect union' is, what components of justice the federal government should be involved in, or what constitutes 'domestic tranquility'. Certainly there are broad disputes as to what is included in the 'general welfare' and strong opposing views on what 'blessings of liberty' actually are.
My proposal for a preamble for a new constitution would be something more like this:
We the people, in order to ensure peaceful cooperation and commerce between the various states, provide for the common defense, promote justice and the general welfare without prejudice or favoritism, and secure the unalienable rights and blessings of liberty for every citizen, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
What would you want a new Constitution for the United State of America to accomplish that the old one does not seem to do?
And yet here you are apparently wasting your time and energy. Perhaps it would be okay to allow those who might enjoy doing the exercise a chance to do that?
Look at the new Iraqi constitution. What a folly. You know there was much GOP influence and input.
Look at Republican platforms in states like Texas. Pretty much says what they would do if given the chance.
... and you seriously don't believe that the federal government is even more egregious????States rights, Frank, were used to deny civil liberties and rights because minority rights regarding the franchise were ignored for racial minorities and women. Majoritarianism correlates to the denial of rights for minorities or despised groups.
Constitution 2.0 does away with the concepts of States and individual rights or libertiesAhem. This thread is not about what is in the existing Constitution. This thread is about what we would want in a new one. Unless an existing clause is retained and ratified in the new Constitution, all existing constitutional law becomes null and void upon adoption of a new improved version as will all federal law that is overridden by the new version.
In effect we are completely reorganizing a new and improve federal government for the United States of America....IF....we retain the federal system of government.
I would say a more rational approach would be not to go backwards. If we are going to remove anything it should be the states. Rather than semi-autonomous governments, they should be provinces and all fall under federal control.
Why?
Because we no longer live in an 18th century agrarian economy consisting of 13 colonies with vastly different structures. People living in Maine have no different needs than those living in California, which was not the case in 1776. What happens in Oregon has a direct impact on what happens in Alabama. What states do is allow pockets of rights based upon local politics. In a modern nation, my rights should not change simply because I cross a state line. If we are going to change the basic legal document, then we should become a single nation.
My number one priority for a new constitution will be to place a blanket ban on all private funding of election campaigns.
If you want to run for office you need to collect a certain number of signatures on a petition (depending upon the office) and then you will be awarded a fixed amount of taxpayer funds for your campaign. You will be held accountable for the funds and if you spend over the amount provided you will automatically forfeit the office should you win or be held liable to repay the funds should you lose. No outside entity can campaign on your behalf. Doing so will be a crime punishable by imprisonment.
My next priority would be holding elected officials and lobbyists accountable to the people. All meetings must be done in public with video and audio recordings. If any violation of this rule is discovered all of the parties involved will serve jail time. That includes the son/daughter-in-law who was given a job.
In summary all forms of bribery and corruption are to be treated as crimes punishable by prison terms of at least 10 years without parole.
I'm just curious.
Why do some have so much confidence in government that they would advocate doing away with regional governments and entrusting a central government with all government power?
Can you put that into an easy-to-understand answer?
I have no confidence in government at all because I understand that government is just a collection of human beings. However, the smaller the government the more likely it will be subject to corruption and the whims of a few.
What liberties and rights do you say the States failed to protect?
Were you alive during the 60's and before?
I was alive then. And I am alive now. Despite the issues and problems with the 40's and 50's, all of which would have been corrected sooner or later so long as the people were free to correct them, I can say without question that we had far more liberty to be who and what we are than we do now. We have far less government intrusiveness, far more potential for upward mobility, and life was pretty darn good for most.
You seem to presume that we would not have had all the problems we have had as a nation with a federal government in charge. I only point you to every other country in the world that has had a central government of whatever form and ask you to show me the ones who have not had to deal with issues of economic downturns, social strife, violation of human rights, and other problems over their histories.
How free is a man hanging from a tree?
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
That supposition of liberty back beyond the fifties was for whites.
Let's be very clear that states had to be strong armed to granting the rights all whites took for granted.
No, I will not vote for a Constitution that fails to guarantee the civil liberties and freedoms from majoritarian oppression as we have seen historically at the state level.
Jake, it was the Fascist Progressive Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote up to and including LBJ until he became president and had to sign the "****** Bill"
The fact is that there is absolutely no justification for forced segregation, but I am absolutely old enough to have been living and witnessing it as community after community eliminated segregation without a single demonstration or protest or activist demand. That would include my own home town at the time. That's something you don't read in historical revisionism.
I am confident desegregation would have happened without the sweeping civil rights reforms of the 1960's. It would have been somewhat slower and more gradual in places, but it would have produced a voluntary society happy that they had a choice to do the right thing and we wouldn't have had so much racist resentment that persists to this day.
According to Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Starr Parker, and others who have studied black history in the 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans were the most rapidly advancing demographic economically right up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And then that began to stall and fizzle out. Coincidence or circumstance?
There is absolutely no justification for slavery or involuntary servitude of any kind or discrimination based on nothing more than skin color or other such criteria. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, is trying to make a case that such should be condoned or allowed by any society. But the fact is that such has existed in virtually every society since we have been recording human history--it has only been in quite recent history that anybody has seen fit to make it illegal. And because it is no longer a part of our current culture, I think we can all be assured only the teensiest fraction of folks would agree to return to those old cultural norms.
What some will not admit though, that the 'cure' has in some ways been worse than the 'disease' and those seem unwilling to correct those unintended consequences. It is indeed true that the road to hell is sometimes paved with the best of intentions.
Why should the people who were suffering under what you admit was an unfair and unjust system have to wait? Had states not existed, had we been under a purely federal system, the problem would have been resolved years before. States do not promote liberty. They stand in its way. So if we are talking about the creation of a new constitution, then it should be a purely federal system.
Why should they have to suffer more just because self-serving politicians didn't think through the legislation they passed and therefore created a new problem for every one they claimed to fix? Liberty in which the rights of the people are secured will always do less damage in almost every circumstance than will government acting in its own self-interest.
What liberties and rights do you say the States failed to protect?
Were you alive during the 60's and before?
I was alive then. And I am alive now. Despite the issues and problems with the 40's and 50's, all of which would have been corrected sooner or later so long as the people were free to correct them, I can say without question that we had far more liberty to be who and what we are than we do now. We have far less government intrusiveness, far more potential for upward mobility, and life was pretty darn good for most.
You seem to presume that we would not have had all the problems we have had as a nation with a federal government in charge. I only point you to every other country in the world that has had a central government of whatever form and ask you to show me the ones who have not had to deal with issues of economic downturns, social strife, violation of human rights, and other problems over their histories.
How free is a man hanging from a tree?
Ok .... we just turned onto Absurd Street.
change #1
voting is a privilege , not a right. and as such can be taken at any time if a person shows an inability to make good decisions.
