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Some of the complaints in the US Declaration of Independence are really quite pathetic. Straw-manning. The important parts are in the US Constitution and compr

Some of the complaints in the US Declaration of Independence are really quite pathetic. Straw-manning. The important parts are in the US Constitution and comprise the important core principles, particularly the Bill of Rights. Australia is pretty decent, because Australia is pretty comparable in that regard. The rest is a boondoggle, and frankly not worth responding to. Maybe the thinning out of American national mythology is something to be welcomed? Not if it's a veiled attack on the principles. I'm not against lampooning the Founding Fathers. However, let's keep an accurate account of how they furthered certain universal principles. Let's not throw them away, and somehow declare the US is filth from top to bottom. It's clearly not. It's clearly got a lot going for it, just like Australia.

skissane 6y ago
> The important parts are in the US Constitution and comprise the important core principles, particularly the Bill of Rights. Australia is pretty decent, because Australia is pretty comparable in that regard Australia's constitution doesn't have a Bill of Rights. And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration? The Constitution wasn't even adopted until 7 years after the Revolutionary War was over. > Not if it's a veiled attack on the principles. Which principles? In many cases, those who criticise America's founding fathers do so, not because they reject worthy principles, but because they see the contribution that those men made to those principles as being overstated.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration Because the Constitution — in initial form, the second adopted plan of government — represents more than the freestanding propaganda of the DoI, but real experience-based thinking about how to balance principles in tension with each other in practical government.
  - skissane 6y ago
    I don't think the US Constitution is anything particularly special. I've never understood how some Americans seem to be in love with the document. Thankfully nobody feels that way about Australia's constitution. Both constitutions contain racially discriminatory clauses, although in both cases they are either repealed, spent, or disregarded in practice. At least in Australia's case there is talk about removing the last of those. To fully remove those clauses from the US Constitution would require moving away from the "stick-amendments-on-the-end" model to actually changing the original text. And that odd approach of sticking the amendments on the end instead of changing the actual text is probably one of the most distinctive aspects of the US constitution today. It achieves nothing except making the document harder to follow. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if other legislation was maintained in that fashion? I think the decision in the US constitution to replace the Westminster parliamentary system with a presidential system was a step backward. Donald Trump is a good example of what a presidential system can lead to. Parliamentary systems like the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand avoid that because you can't become the leader of the country without a majority support from legislators, which makes it much harder for fringe/out-there characters like Trump (or Jair Bolsonaro). It is nothing about being a monarchy vs a republic. You can have a parliamentary republic in which you have a non-political president appointing a political prime minister who commands support from a majority of the national legislature – that's exactly the system used in Ireland, Germany and Israel, among other countries. It is also what was proposed in the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum, and I'm sure eventually Australia will become a republic and it will be a parliamentary republic not a presidential one–the failure was largely due to a dispute about how to elect the President, but I think everyone wanted a non-political President appointing a Prime Minister, not an American-style political President–the dispute was just about whether to have that President elected by Parliament, as in Germany and Israel, or elected by the general public, as in Ireland. (Israel did briefly experiment with something closer to the American system, in 1996–2003, with direct election of the PM, but the experiment was abandoned and is generally considered a failure.)
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      Both constitutions contain racially discriminatory clauses, although in both cases they are either repealed, spent, or disregarded in practice. At least in Australia's case there is talk about removing the last of those. To fully remove those clauses from the US Constitution would require moving away from the "stick-amendments-on-the-end" model to actually changing the original text. How does that even matter? That's like complaining that a log-structured file contains the old value. What, are you going to complain that blockchains have old transactions in them? This is the same false propaganda-logic people use to justify destroying statues.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  Australia's constitution doesn't have a Bill of Rights. Is this deliberate intellectual dishonesty? How is Australia not having a section named "Bill of Rights" even relevant? What's actually relevant once again are the human rights which are protected and how well they are protected. Those are the foundation: the principles. And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration? Again, those are the foundation. Those are the core principles: rights enshrined in the constitution. In many cases, those who criticise America's founding fathers do so, not because they reject worthy principles, but because they see the contribution that those men made to those principles as being overstated. The Founding Fathers stated the principles. It's up to us, now, to live up to them, better and better. Unfairly attacking the Founding Fathers doesn't really further that. That's just fodder for propaganda, for those who have an axe to grind against the United States. Only a fair and rational reading of history will get us closer to the truth. The important part are the principles themselves.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > Is this deliberate intellectual dishonesty? How is Australia not having a section named "Bill of Rights" even relevant. What's relevant once again are the human rights which are protected and how well they are protected. Those are the foundation: the principles. It is a very common criticism of the Australian constitution that it lacks anything comparable to a "Bill of Rights". It is not just that it doesn't have a section by that title, it is that the content is largely missing. The Australian constitution is largely lacking protections for individual rights. Australia had a referendum in 1988 to add a Bill of Rights to its constitution. It failed by a 69-31 margin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Australian_referendum#Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Australian_referendum#Rig...
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      It is a very common criticism of the Australian constitution that it lacks anything comparable to a "Bill of Rights". It's a very common criticism of the US Constitution, that there isn't a direct enshrinement of "innocent until proven guilty." Again, that's not what matters. Do you, or do you not have rights as an Australian? Again, it's the principles in practice. If you answer yes, you've lost your argument. If you answer no, I should think you're lying.

skissane 6y ago

> The important parts are in the US Constitution and comprise the important core principles, particularly the Bill of Rights. Australia is pretty decent, because Australia is pretty comparable in that regard Australia's constitution doesn't have a Bill of Rights. And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration? The Constitution wasn't even adopted until 7 years after the Revolutionary War was over. > Not if it's a veiled attack on the principles. Which principles? In many cases, those who criticise America's founding fathers do so, not because they reject worthy principles, but because they see the contribution that those men made to those principles as being overstated.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration Because the Constitution — in initial form, the second adopted plan of government — represents more than the freestanding propaganda of the DoI, but real experience-based thinking about how to balance principles in tension with each other in practical government.
- skissane 6y ago
  I don't think the US Constitution is anything particularly special. I've never understood how some Americans seem to be in love with the document. Thankfully nobody feels that way about Australia's constitution. Both constitutions contain racially discriminatory clauses, although in both cases they are either repealed, spent, or disregarded in practice. At least in Australia's case there is talk about removing the last of those. To fully remove those clauses from the US Constitution would require moving away from the "stick-amendments-on-the-end" model to actually changing the original text. And that odd approach of sticking the amendments on the end instead of changing the actual text is probably one of the most distinctive aspects of the US constitution today. It achieves nothing except making the document harder to follow. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if other legislation was maintained in that fashion? I think the decision in the US constitution to replace the Westminster parliamentary system with a presidential system was a step backward. Donald Trump is a good example of what a presidential system can lead to. Parliamentary systems like the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand avoid that because you can't become the leader of the country without a majority support from legislators, which makes it much harder for fringe/out-there characters like Trump (or Jair Bolsonaro). It is nothing about being a monarchy vs a republic. You can have a parliamentary republic in which you have a non-political president appointing a political prime minister who commands support from a majority of the national legislature – that's exactly the system used in Ireland, Germany and Israel, among other countries. It is also what was proposed in the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum, and I'm sure eventually Australia will become a republic and it will be a parliamentary republic not a presidential one–the failure was largely due to a dispute about how to elect the President, but I think everyone wanted a non-political President appointing a Prime Minister, not an American-style political President–the dispute was just about whether to have that President elected by Parliament, as in Germany and Israel, or elected by the general public, as in Ireland. (Israel did briefly experiment with something closer to the American system, in 1996–2003, with direct election of the PM, but the experiment was abandoned and is generally considered a failure.)
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    Both constitutions contain racially discriminatory clauses, although in both cases they are either repealed, spent, or disregarded in practice. At least in Australia's case there is talk about removing the last of those. To fully remove those clauses from the US Constitution would require moving away from the "stick-amendments-on-the-end" model to actually changing the original text. How does that even matter? That's like complaining that a log-structured file contains the old value. What, are you going to complain that blockchains have old transactions in them? This is the same false propaganda-logic people use to justify destroying statues.
stcredzero 6y ago
Australia's constitution doesn't have a Bill of Rights. Is this deliberate intellectual dishonesty? How is Australia not having a section named "Bill of Rights" even relevant? What's actually relevant once again are the human rights which are protected and how well they are protected. Those are the foundation: the principles. And why focus on the Constitution over the Declaration? Again, those are the foundation. Those are the core principles: rights enshrined in the constitution. In many cases, those who criticise America's founding fathers do so, not because they reject worthy principles, but because they see the contribution that those men made to those principles as being overstated. The Founding Fathers stated the principles. It's up to us, now, to live up to them, better and better. Unfairly attacking the Founding Fathers doesn't really further that. That's just fodder for propaganda, for those who have an axe to grind against the United States. Only a fair and rational reading of history will get us closer to the truth. The important part are the principles themselves.
- skissane 6y ago
  > Is this deliberate intellectual dishonesty? How is Australia not having a section named "Bill of Rights" even relevant. What's relevant once again are the human rights which are protected and how well they are protected. Those are the foundation: the principles. It is a very common criticism of the Australian constitution that it lacks anything comparable to a "Bill of Rights". It is not just that it doesn't have a section by that title, it is that the content is largely missing. The Australian constitution is largely lacking protections for individual rights. Australia had a referendum in 1988 to add a Bill of Rights to its constitution. It failed by a 69-31 margin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Australian_referendum#Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Australian_referendum#Rig...
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    It is a very common criticism of the Australian constitution that it lacks anything comparable to a "Bill of Rights". It's a very common criticism of the US Constitution, that there isn't a direct enshrinement of "innocent until proven guilty." Again, that's not what matters. Do you, or do you not have rights as an Australian? Again, it's the principles in practice. If you answer yes, you've lost your argument. If you answer no, I should think you're lying.