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> Additionally, a lot of the constitution is actually phrased as limits on the government rather than rights as citizens. This is because the Constitution is s

> Additionally, a lot of the constitution is actually phrased as limits on the government rather than rights as citizens. This is because the Constitution is supposed to be an enumeration of what the government is allowed to do. The limitations are there to narrow the scope of those enumerated powers. In this context, enumerating most rights of citizens would have been redundant. The enumerated citizen rights were those that could be affected by the powers the government was granted. Unfortunately, Commerce Clause abuse and the effective neutralization of the 10th Amendment has created the opposite situation where the government can do anything it wants as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, and citizens are only guaranteed rights if they are specified.

da_chicken 8y ago
> Unfortunately, Commerce Clause abuse and the effective neutralization of the 10th Amendment has created the opposite situation where the government can do anything it wants as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, and citizens are only guaranteed rights if they are specified. I mean, that's true, but it's also true that it's extremely difficult to get 50 states to jump forward at the same time, particularly when corporations comparatively have no hurdles at all over the same geographic region. Getting 50 of anything to do something at the same time is nearly impossible. If we want to do something about many significant, widespread problems, we need the power of a centralized Federal government. As the saying goes, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Our Constitution wasn't written with the management of 50 states and citizens numbering nearly 350 million in mind. Our founding fathers expected that there would have been multiple constitutional conventions by this time. It's easy to see the dilution of individual voices[0]. Our founding fathers though that one representative for every 40,000 individuals was inadequate, and changed it to be closer to one for every 30,000. Today, it's one for every 700,000 on average. No, I don't think that adding more representatives would help the problem, but our political system, invented in the 18th century, is nearly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people in this nation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap...
- whoopdedo 8y ago
  No, I don't think that adding more representatives would help the problem I think it would. Along with creating more slots for minority candidates to get elected in. There's also the matter of the cost of lobbying. Right now lobbying is dirt cheap because you can spend a very little amount of money to influence one representative and that one vote in congress can have a huge effect. If there were more people voting in congress the value of that one person would be reduced. The lobbyist would have to work to get multiple congressmen to have the same influence which makes bribery less cost effective than it currently is.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Well then, how does the EU (whose central authority is extremely limited in scope compared to the US Federal Government, and whose member states are still meaningfully sovereign separate countries) manage to thrive so well? Why couldn't a similar system work well in the US?
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    Have you not heard Europeans talk about the EU? Pretty much everyone agrees that it's slow, cumbersome, and doesn't address a lot of problems quickly enough. It's also significantly more complex[0] by further dividing the executive position, compared to the American system, and it's only got 28 states. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#/media/File:Organs_of_the_European_Union.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#/media/File:Org...
- jeffdavis 8y ago
  For most issues, there is really no need for all 50 states to act at once. In practice, the federal government exercises it's extraconstitutional authority for all kinds of things which could be done much better at the state level. For instance, making drugs illegal (accounts for most federal prisoners) and running social welfare programs (accounts for most federal spending). If something really is an important power the federal government must have (maybe some kinds of environmental regulation powers?), then make an amendment that clearly scopes the boundaries of that new power.
gamblor956 8y ago
This is because the Constitution is supposed to be an enumeration of what the government is allowed to do. This is simply not true. The Founders lived through the Articles of Confederation, in which the founding document explicitly enumerated the only powers the government would have. The Constitution was an explicit rejection of that philosophy, and was intended to create a government with broad powers. The point of the Bill of Rights was to place limits on those broad powers. Unfortunately, Commerce Clause abuse and the effective neutralization of the 10th Amendment has created the opposite situation where the government can do anything it wants as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, and citizens are only guaranteed rights if they are specified. This is also not true. A great many of the Founders considered the 10th Amendment to be meaningless fluff added only to mollify the slave-owners who wanted restrictions on the Federal government's ability to curtail their ownership of slaves.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Can you provide some evidence for your last paragraph?
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    The Sedition Act, passed by the First Congress (consisting of many members of the Constitutional Convention), for starters, which was a huge restriction on free speech. The multiple attempts by former CC members to pass anti-slavery legislation in Congress in the many decades leading up to the Civil War. There are a number of other examples, well covered by a number of primary and secondary sources.
- int_19h 8y ago
  That's only true if you use the definition of "broad powers" that was used back when the Constitution was written - which is very different from what it is today. And all of those broad powers they wanted the government to have, were explicitly written into the text of the Constitution. Sometimes it was deliberately vague, like the Commerce Clause (although if you showed our modern jurisprudence on that to people who wrote it, they would be horrified). And in the Federalist Papers, there are several instances where some bit in the Constitution is explained as, "yes, this is rather broad, but the government needs it for real world reasons". But it is always enumerated.
User23 8y ago
Sadly most people, who lack a grounded understanding of Anglo-American legal tradition, revert to their native frame of reference where the law is just another tool of the local powers to inflict their will. It is only in the Anglo-American tradition that law is understood as a restraint on the power of the sovereign, rather than a tool of the sovereign. This is the primary philosophical distinction between the common law and the various civil codes.

da_chicken 8y ago

> Unfortunately, Commerce Clause abuse and the effective neutralization of the 10th Amendment has created the opposite situation where the government can do anything it wants as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, and citizens are only guaranteed rights if they are specified. I mean, that's true, but it's also true that it's extremely difficult to get 50 states to jump forward at the same time, particularly when corporations comparatively have no hurdles at all over the same geographic region. Getting 50 of anything to do something at the same time is nearly impossible. If we want to do something about many significant, widespread problems, we need the power of a centralized Federal government. As the saying goes, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Our Constitution wasn't written with the management of 50 states and citizens numbering nearly 350 million in mind. Our founding fathers expected that there would have been multiple constitutional conventions by this time. It's easy to see the dilution of individual voices[0]. Our founding fathers though that one representative for every 40,000 individuals was inadequate, and changed it to be closer to one for every 30,000. Today, it's one for every 700,000 on average. No, I don't think that adding more representatives would help the problem, but our political system, invented in the 18th century, is nearly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people in this nation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap...

whoopdedo 8y ago
No, I don't think that adding more representatives would help the problem I think it would. Along with creating more slots for minority candidates to get elected in. There's also the matter of the cost of lobbying. Right now lobbying is dirt cheap because you can spend a very little amount of money to influence one representative and that one vote in congress can have a huge effect. If there were more people voting in congress the value of that one person would be reduced. The lobbyist would have to work to get multiple congressmen to have the same influence which makes bribery less cost effective than it currently is.
umanwizard 8y ago
Well then, how does the EU (whose central authority is extremely limited in scope compared to the US Federal Government, and whose member states are still meaningfully sovereign separate countries) manage to thrive so well? Why couldn't a similar system work well in the US?
- da_chicken 8y ago
  Have you not heard Europeans talk about the EU? Pretty much everyone agrees that it's slow, cumbersome, and doesn't address a lot of problems quickly enough. It's also significantly more complex[0] by further dividing the executive position, compared to the American system, and it's only got 28 states. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#/media/File:Organs_of_the_European_Union.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#/media/File:Org...
jeffdavis 8y ago
For most issues, there is really no need for all 50 states to act at once. In practice, the federal government exercises it's extraconstitutional authority for all kinds of things which could be done much better at the state level. For instance, making drugs illegal (accounts for most federal prisoners) and running social welfare programs (accounts for most federal spending). If something really is an important power the federal government must have (maybe some kinds of environmental regulation powers?), then make an amendment that clearly scopes the boundaries of that new power.

gamblor956 8y ago

This is because the Constitution is supposed to be an enumeration of what the government is allowed to do. This is simply not true. The Founders lived through the Articles of Confederation, in which the founding document explicitly enumerated the only powers the government would have. The Constitution was an explicit rejection of that philosophy, and was intended to create a government with broad powers. The point of the Bill of Rights was to place limits on those broad powers. Unfortunately, Commerce Clause abuse and the effective neutralization of the 10th Amendment has created the opposite situation where the government can do anything it wants as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, and citizens are only guaranteed rights if they are specified. This is also not true. A great many of the Founders considered the 10th Amendment to be meaningless fluff added only to mollify the slave-owners who wanted restrictions on the Federal government's ability to curtail their ownership of slaves.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Can you provide some evidence for your last paragraph?
- gamblor956 8y ago
  The Sedition Act, passed by the First Congress (consisting of many members of the Constitutional Convention), for starters, which was a huge restriction on free speech. The multiple attempts by former CC members to pass anti-slavery legislation in Congress in the many decades leading up to the Civil War. There are a number of other examples, well covered by a number of primary and secondary sources.
int_19h 8y ago
That's only true if you use the definition of "broad powers" that was used back when the Constitution was written - which is very different from what it is today. And all of those broad powers they wanted the government to have, were explicitly written into the text of the Constitution. Sometimes it was deliberately vague, like the Commerce Clause (although if you showed our modern jurisprudence on that to people who wrote it, they would be horrified). And in the Federalist Papers, there are several instances where some bit in the Constitution is explained as, "yes, this is rather broad, but the government needs it for real world reasons". But it is always enumerated.

User23 8y ago

Sadly most people, who lack a grounded understanding of Anglo-American legal tradition, revert to their native frame of reference where the law is just another tool of the local powers to inflict their will. It is only in the Anglo-American tradition that law is understood as a restraint on the power of the sovereign, rather than a tool of the sovereign. This is the primary philosophical distinction between the common law and the various civil codes.