The Constitution

[Mac Attack]

I was doing my prison check and I noticed a thread on the constitution made by Jenks. Some of the stuff that he said was inaccurate however there was one point that he made that was quite interesting. Here is his post with that point bolded.

All that I've seen on the News today was about Donald Trump and Obama releasing his birth certificate and it was all rather childish. And I thought to myself, does someone really even need to be born in the U.S. to become President?

We already have non-U.S. born citizens in the upper echelons of our Government, what would it matter if our President wasn't born in America?

I think the U.S. Constitution is a primitive piece of paper, written by primitive people. I remember in H.S I had a great history teacher and she reminded us that the US Con. was written by slave owners and other sorts of unethical/immoral people.
Anyway, I just wanted to hear others thoughts on these matters.
I think the Constitution is obsolete and we are in need of new rules.
Republicans now a days use the Constitution as a crutch and reiterate beliefs that are a few centuries old which only prolong progress.

Republicans are really grasping at straws right now because they know Obama is undefeatable and he will be President for many more years to come.

Now I know some things in his post are untrue however the bolded section did get me thinking. Is the constitution a thing of the past? Should it truly be updated to fit the modern day ideals?

Personally I feel that the Constitution has withstood th test of time and has been amended to fit current day scenarios however the original 10 amendmants got me thinking should they exist or should they be revisited. I think it is an interesting thing to think about considering these men did believe in things that wouldn't be considered proper and these men di have the ideas of the past.

I was wondering what is your opinion on this while thinking of the bolded portion.

 

[mikeyboy]

No its not a thing of the past , this country was founded on certain core beliefs like freedom of speech , freedom of religion , etc. and for the most part those beliefs remain true today, amendments are added to the constitution to fit modern times , i dont think your allowed to totally remove something from the constitution but you are able to tweak it a bit with amedments. As far as our founding fathers being primitive and slave owners and such all i can say is thankfully we have grown as a nation and abolished such things in this country , all of us as we age our ideals tend to change , we live and learn , dont let the past hinder you , learn from it and change what you think is wrong , thats what weve done with the constitution.There are some great things in the constitution those things are the basics of our country that most americans believe in , thats the foundation of this country , its who we are, with all our problems in this nation imo we are still a great nation and i wouldnt want to live anywhere else , i do wish somethings would change but no matter where you go in the world youl find that to be true with everyone.

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

As far as our founding fathers being primitive and slave owners and such all i can say is thankfully we have grown as a nation and abolished such things in this country.

Perhaps slavery has been abolished in our Country; but unfortunately the hate and attitude still remain.

Our country has grown a lot in the last 100 years, but there's a long windy road ahead of us, well, at least until some of these older members of congress and our government start biting the dust; because lets face it, there are people in our government that grew up owning slaves, and that mindset doesn't get wiped out after one quick generation.

The fact that we still wont allow gays to marry shows just how far we haven't really come. We are oppressing basic human rights, and in this day in age that is absolutely ridiculous, it really wasn't that long ago that blacks and women had shit for rights, and that mindset is still a powerful one amongst the elders who run this country.

So unfortunately I don't see substantial changes being made until some of these geezers start biting the dust on a consistent basis, and the new generation is given a chance to run things; because it couldn't be more clear that there are a whole lot of ass backwards people running this country, and only time will truly change anything.

 

[Dwayne_Jason]

I was doing my prison check and I noticed a thread on the constitution made by Jenks. Some of the stuff that he said was inaccurate however there was one point that he made that was quite interesting. Here is his post with that point bolded.

Now I know some things in his post are untrue however the bolded section did get me thinking. Is the constitution a thing of the past? Should it truly be updated to fit the modern day ideals?

I was wondering what is your opinion on this while thinking of the bolded portion.

Well, its ironic because what he said about them being primitive and Immoral is stupid. Yes, they owned slaves but you have to understand this is the 1700's. Slavery was a daily part of the world, like pets almost. As far as primitive goes, the founding fathers were actually modern men. Really modern. So modern in fact that they predicted libel laws in the future and realized that there will be no consequences today and completely ripped off John Locke

Joking aside though, they were modern people. To put this into perspective, in 2011 if there was a country born you'd have people who would start writing about IPADS in the constitution (its a very general analogy but you understand the point I'm making).

So the constitution was extremely modern for its time but one must understand that not even the founding fathers predicted that we're great friends with the British now and the thought of them invading us is downright laughable.

While the original constitution has some symbolism and I don't think it should be changed radically (as the liberty laws haven't really changed much) we should modern things and eliminate the idea of a home grown president because being American is not something you're born with. Its something you are.

That being said they didn't predict muskets would turn into m16's so we need the gun thing amended.

We need to incorporate globalization, increased human rights, social mobility and education into the constitution.

Personally I feel that the Constitution has withstood th test of time and has been amended to fit current day scenarios however the original 10 amendmants got me thinking should they exist or should they be revisited. I think it is an interesting thing to think about considering these men did believe in things that wouldn't be considered proper and these men di have the ideas of the past.

 

[Dagger Dias]

The Constitution might be a primitive piece of paper, but it has been around for over 250 years now. They obviously did something right. It might have been written by unethical/immoral people, but is that really any different than the people running the country today? It's still run by rich jerks who think they are better than everyone else. The founding fathers knew what they were doing (or they just happened to get lucky and stumble upon something great) because the way it set everything up has worked for a VERY long time.

 

[Calderownz]

Truthfully, I think that the constitution was a great starting point. However, like anything else, it needs to keep up with the times. Amendments are needed in all other aspects of life.

The constitution gets treated like the Bible. As if it were flawless and beyond reproach. However, that's simply not the case. All things need to be examined.

The constitution should be really overhauled changed. The people that wrote it up simply wouldn't have an understanding of the way the world works at this point.

Let's put it this way. If you took Thomas Jefferson and brought him back to life now, he'd be lost. He himself would HAVE to write a different version of the constitution.

The problem is that I don't think it would be written with the hopes of improving society and would be ruined. So, it's a tough situation.

 

[Mike C.]

Are there specific elements of the Constitution that people here feel need to be revised?

There are fundamental things that the Constitution does right that make it unnecessary to rewrite/overhaul. Obviously as mentioned the ability to amend the Constitution when necessary has righted the sins of previous generations like the clause that slaves equaled 3/5's a person or the unequal footing between women and men in deciding what was to come.

Next though in keeping the Constitution relevant to a modern time is the ability of the Supreme Court to handle modern cases and apply precedent to determine how the framers would have handled issues like privacy, sexual discrimination, or whatever else comes along in a world the men who wrote the Constitution could have never imagined.

Because of those and a number of other things the Constitution is a living document. The flaw of the Constitution are individuals like Glenn Beck who attempt to freeze the document as an artifact that is precise and can have only one (their) interpretation. When you limit the Constitution to such a strict expression then perhaps yes the Constitution should be overhauled. Specifically manners related to the 14th Amendment, which needs to become much wider in scope than its original purpose.

 

[Gelgarin]

I oppose written constitutions in general. I simply do not see how they justify their existence. I wrote a short piece on this topic a month or so ago. Might as well just paste it down here.

Written constitutions are an error. No nation should have one. They do not protect against social regression and frequently stand as a barrier to development.

No country has ever been protected from a descent into despoticism by the existence of a constitution. Take Russia as an example and look at the ease with which Putin has been able to change and circumnavigate the constitution in order to secure his own power. Examples are for more rife when we look at the developing democracies. Once any nation descends to a point where the social order is threatened a written document is going to provide no protection.

In contrast, in more stable societies such as the United States, a written constitution actually hurts the nation more than it helps. Society needs to evolve over time, and a written document prevents this from happening.

To offer a random example, every ten years in the US there is a national census where everyone is counted. There are two ways of counting people, a door to door head count or by using sampling data. Using sampling data is universally proven to be significantly quicker, significantly cheaper and significantly more accurate with absolutely no disadvantage. Unfortunately it is technically unconstitutional (dictated by the same paragraph that values a Negro as three fifths of a person). In the US everyone has had to go through a fucking war in order to be able to do something that common sense dictates should have been done from the beginning.

Written constitutions don't stay relevant. Somebody pens a perfectly will meaning amendment aimed at keeping the British in check, and two hundred years later the entire country is unable to get serious about preventing the spread of deadly weapons. The highest gun crime rates in the western world cannot be effectively combated because of an outdated footnote on a document that isn't necessary.

Plenty of western democracies exist perfectly well without a written constitution. The UK for example does not really have one (although some idiots are trying to change this). We have a complex but efficient legal system and a political system built on a foundation tradition. The result is a society that is exactly as stable as those democracies governed under a constitution, but that has historically had a easier time pursuing reform than other nations.

Sweden is another good example. Technically Sweden does have a written constitution, but the system is set up in order to encourage constitutional reform were necessary. The result is something much more flexible and akin to the British system, in fact surpassing it in many ways because of the reduced emphasis on archaic tradition. The result is a country which leads to world in terms of social reform.

An unstable nation will not have its system of government protected by a written constitution. A stable nation does not need its system of government protecting by a written constitution. Not having one, or at least making sure that it is not set in stone, allows law, government and society to better adapt, develop and respond to changes.

So yeah; booo constitutions.

 

[Mike C.]

As a general curiosity, do you have other specific areas in which the United States Constitution would harm the US? Because sampling in the census is a disadvantage so minimal that I'm not sure it justifies the "hurts more than helps" thesis of the previous paragraph.

 

[Gelgarin]

Sure... I use sampling data because it's the most clearly unambiguous example, but there are dozens.

Gun control - as I detailed above.

Electoral reform - I dread to think how difficult it would be to pass legislation modifying to American electoral system.

Campaign finance - Free speech has been the go to argument against every single element of campaign finance reform ever passes, which consequentiality is not many.

Right to privacy - This one is particularly good; because privacy is not 'specifically' outlined in the constitution the right is taken not to exist. Once again an extensive war has had to be gone through in order to generate any level of concession

I'm sure I could come up with many, many more examples in the inclination took me. I haven't even scratched to surface of issues such as gay and womens rights where changes have been delayed by the existence of a written document. As it is you get whatever issues I can remember off the top of my head from West Wing episodes.