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Interesting, this is a very jaded take. A this point it seems most of the constitution has been changed with amendments and legal precedents. That said, what co

Interesting, this is a very jaded take. A this point it seems most of the constitution has been changed with amendments and legal precedents. That said, what constitution do you consider to be better written than the US?

Turing_Machine 4y ago
I don't know about most of it being changed, but yeah, a number of things have been changed. The argument there is that you need to strike a balance between making changes too difficult and too easy, and of course there are arguments on both sides. One point of comparison might be France, which is currently on its fifth attempt at a republic (with intervening reigns of terror, emperors, restored kings, anarchies, and Nazi collaborationist regimes), while we're still on our first one (or second, if you want to count the Articles of Confederation). Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. have all had multiple attempts as well.
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  The fact the same document survived so long, with a population so large, makes me think that they succeeded where other governments continuously failed. The US constitution was certainly a unique document with a number of power checks we've certainly (as a nation) worked hard to erode. Most founding documents seem to be more focused on maintaing the rights of the rich from the start (i.e. no free speech or protesting allowed), the US seemed to focus on it's citizens more.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    For sure. I wouldn't argue that it's optimal (given that it's been amended 27 times, obviously it is subject to improvement) but it's clear that they did a really, really good job.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    If you look at the German one (it's the one I know best) it took in learnings from a) failures of previous iterations in German, but also b) from constitutions like the American as the Allies consulted and had to agree on it. Maybe the American survived for so long as for one it changed quite a bit over time, via amendments and via interpretation. And mind: America had a civil war ... but then found a way to reunite under the constitution (with three amendments) that could also have torn it apart easily.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Have you read many other founding documents? Flowery language about the people and claims about rights are common even amongst states which are - in practice - the worst oligarchies or dictatorships, and I can't think of any democratic constitutions containing as an egregious a provision in favour of the rich as the Three Fifths Compromise. (In fairness to the US Constitution, claims about inalienable rights were relative novelty at the time, and a lot of the flowery language and claims about rights in other countries' constitutions are borrowed from it and its Enlightenment inspirations) The one feature of its design which has helped it persist is that it's quite heavily weighted against change (federal structure, separation of powers, supermajorities for amendments) but in some contexts that looks more like a bug than a feature. But overall I'd say its continuity is primarily the result of simple fact the US has existed for longer and under less external pressure than most states than anything particularly outstanding about the text or polity design. That and the Confederacy losing. The quasi-Biblical reverence most Americans treat it with doesn't hurt either, but then some of us Brits get misty eyed at the thought of the Magna Carta, and that's a load of waffle about Cinque Ports and Earls' heirs!
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      >I can't think of any democratic constitutions containing as an egregious a provision in favour of the rich as the Three Fifths Compromise. Ah yes, yet another person who presumes to pontificate on the Three Fifths Clause without actually having thought about the actual consequences. The clause reduced slave states' power.
      - notahacker 4y ago
        It didn't reduce slave states' powers as much the alternatives of not permitting slavery (which would have been actually consistent with the preamble...) or not counting slaves towards the level of representation their masters got in Congress at all
        TMWNN 4y ago
        >It didn't reduce slave states' powers as much the alternatives of not permitting slavery (which would have been actually consistent with the preamble...) Gosh, it would have been nice if the US had never had legal slavery. Thank you for that keen insight. >or not counting slaves towards the level of representation their masters got in Congress at all As you yourself said it was a compromise, between what the free and slave states wanted. Just like everything else in the Constitution, such as the Electoral College being a compromise between the large and small states. Such compromises made the Constitution possible, which in turn made possible the Bill of Rights and the post-Civil War amendments that ended said legal slavery. The larger point is that the clause was not the means by which slaveholders wrote into the Constitution what their view of the value of a slave's life was, again because the clause reduced their political power.
themagician 4y ago
It's really not a jaded perspective, just an honest one—and one that everyone else in the world largely recognizes except Americans. American's today hold up the US Constitution as some kind of divine and immutable document. They treat it like The Bible, where all the "bad" or ambiguous parts are just kind of forgotten about or supposed to be interpreted a certain way. I mean, the 3/5ths compromise is literally in Article 1. That's how important institutionalized racism was. "… a horrible mess of weird ideas and compromise and intentional ambiguity," actually describes the US Constitution quite marvelously IMO. It's purpose was to unite a group of states that had no unity and no singular identity. The binding force was a common enemy. People read into all this mystical nonsense about what the "Founding Fathers" would think about this, that, or the other thing as if they had some kind of divine wisdom. No one was really thinking that far ahead. A quarter of them were willing to sign anything that let them keep their slaves. It's just a document with a few good ideas. That's it. That's all it is.
- nradov 4y ago
  Americans hardly consider the Constitution to be immutable. Are you familiar with the amendment process? https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-article-v--2 https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
yamtaddle 4y ago
It's such a common view in poli-sci I'd consider it practically standard, to the point that it doesn't come up much because everyone just assumes everyone else thinks the US constitution's kinda crap. It's such an old discussion and views on it are often-enough in line with one another that it's a boring topic. > That said, what constitution do you consider to be better written than the US? I think the usual poli-sci answer would be "there's a reason most new democracies—including the ones the US sets up—tend to model the Westminster system rather than the US". Even US officials helping nascent democracies generally don't try to push anything like our constitution on them, because it's widely regarded as pretty bad.
- nradov 4y ago
  That's why in the real world no one takes poli-sci seriously. It's largely an irrelevant field, populated by ivory tower academics who lack the intelligence to contribute to a real science.
LatteLazy 4y ago
One of the weirdest things to me about the US constitution is how rarely the amendment process is used to actually amend it. Instead it is mostly used to pass unrepeatable laws. The only big changes to the constitution were allowing federal taxes on the general population and making the Senate semi democratic. And even the other amendments are the same format: ambiguous and very open to interpretation. Take the bill of rights. Nothing there specifically changes how the constitution works. It just adds some laws about what congress can or can't do. And it does so in very broad strokes. "The right to bear arms" has been litigated and re-litigated 1000 times and seems to be almost entirely down to the preferences of the day. It's been left up to judges to decide what parts to ignore entirely (the militia bit) and what it applies to (no surface air missiles or fireworks, rifles are ok). Yet everyone acts like the 2nd amendment is settled and either has to be accepted as it is today or repealed entirely. I don't know who has a better constitution. I just find it really weird that Americans think so highly of their one despite it breaking or failing all the time. Don't get me wrong, we all have our national blink spots. :)

Turing_Machine 4y ago

I don't know about most of it being changed, but yeah, a number of things have been changed. The argument there is that you need to strike a balance between making changes too difficult and too easy, and of course there are arguments on both sides. One point of comparison might be France, which is currently on its fifth attempt at a republic (with intervening reigns of terror, emperors, restored kings, anarchies, and Nazi collaborationist regimes), while we're still on our first one (or second, if you want to count the Articles of Confederation). Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. have all had multiple attempts as well.

Xeoncross 4y ago
The fact the same document survived so long, with a population so large, makes me think that they succeeded where other governments continuously failed. The US constitution was certainly a unique document with a number of power checks we've certainly (as a nation) worked hard to erode. Most founding documents seem to be more focused on maintaing the rights of the rich from the start (i.e. no free speech or protesting allowed), the US seemed to focus on it's citizens more.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  For sure. I wouldn't argue that it's optimal (given that it's been amended 27 times, obviously it is subject to improvement) but it's clear that they did a really, really good job.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  If you look at the German one (it's the one I know best) it took in learnings from a) failures of previous iterations in German, but also b) from constitutions like the American as the Allies consulted and had to agree on it. Maybe the American survived for so long as for one it changed quite a bit over time, via amendments and via interpretation. And mind: America had a civil war ... but then found a way to reunite under the constitution (with three amendments) that could also have torn it apart easily.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Have you read many other founding documents? Flowery language about the people and claims about rights are common even amongst states which are - in practice - the worst oligarchies or dictatorships, and I can't think of any democratic constitutions containing as an egregious a provision in favour of the rich as the Three Fifths Compromise. (In fairness to the US Constitution, claims about inalienable rights were relative novelty at the time, and a lot of the flowery language and claims about rights in other countries' constitutions are borrowed from it and its Enlightenment inspirations) The one feature of its design which has helped it persist is that it's quite heavily weighted against change (federal structure, separation of powers, supermajorities for amendments) but in some contexts that looks more like a bug than a feature. But overall I'd say its continuity is primarily the result of simple fact the US has existed for longer and under less external pressure than most states than anything particularly outstanding about the text or polity design. That and the Confederacy losing. The quasi-Biblical reverence most Americans treat it with doesn't hurt either, but then some of us Brits get misty eyed at the thought of the Magna Carta, and that's a load of waffle about Cinque Ports and Earls' heirs!
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >I can't think of any democratic constitutions containing as an egregious a provision in favour of the rich as the Three Fifths Compromise. Ah yes, yet another person who presumes to pontificate on the Three Fifths Clause without actually having thought about the actual consequences. The clause reduced slave states' power.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      It didn't reduce slave states' powers as much the alternatives of not permitting slavery (which would have been actually consistent with the preamble...) or not counting slaves towards the level of representation their masters got in Congress at all
      - TMWNN 4y ago
        >It didn't reduce slave states' powers as much the alternatives of not permitting slavery (which would have been actually consistent with the preamble...) Gosh, it would have been nice if the US had never had legal slavery. Thank you for that keen insight. >or not counting slaves towards the level of representation their masters got in Congress at all As you yourself said it was a compromise, between what the free and slave states wanted. Just like everything else in the Constitution, such as the Electoral College being a compromise between the large and small states. Such compromises made the Constitution possible, which in turn made possible the Bill of Rights and the post-Civil War amendments that ended said legal slavery. The larger point is that the clause was not the means by which slaveholders wrote into the Constitution what their view of the value of a slave's life was, again because the clause reduced their political power.

themagician 4y ago

It's really not a jaded perspective, just an honest one—and one that everyone else in the world largely recognizes except Americans. American's today hold up the US Constitution as some kind of divine and immutable document. They treat it like The Bible, where all the "bad" or ambiguous parts are just kind of forgotten about or supposed to be interpreted a certain way. I mean, the 3/5ths compromise is literally in Article 1. That's how important institutionalized racism was. "… a horrible mess of weird ideas and compromise and intentional ambiguity," actually describes the US Constitution quite marvelously IMO. It's purpose was to unite a group of states that had no unity and no singular identity. The binding force was a common enemy. People read into all this mystical nonsense about what the "Founding Fathers" would think about this, that, or the other thing as if they had some kind of divine wisdom. No one was really thinking that far ahead. A quarter of them were willing to sign anything that let them keep their slaves. It's just a document with a few good ideas. That's it. That's all it is.

nradov 4y ago
Americans hardly consider the Constitution to be immutable. Are you familiar with the amendment process? https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-article-v--2 https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

yamtaddle 4y ago

It's such a common view in poli-sci I'd consider it practically standard, to the point that it doesn't come up much because everyone just assumes everyone else thinks the US constitution's kinda crap. It's such an old discussion and views on it are often-enough in line with one another that it's a boring topic. > That said, what constitution do you consider to be better written than the US? I think the usual poli-sci answer would be "there's a reason most new democracies—including the ones the US sets up—tend to model the Westminster system rather than the US". Even US officials helping nascent democracies generally don't try to push anything like our constitution on them, because it's widely regarded as pretty bad.

nradov 4y ago
That's why in the real world no one takes poli-sci seriously. It's largely an irrelevant field, populated by ivory tower academics who lack the intelligence to contribute to a real science.

LatteLazy 4y ago

One of the weirdest things to me about the US constitution is how rarely the amendment process is used to actually amend it. Instead it is mostly used to pass unrepeatable laws. The only big changes to the constitution were allowing federal taxes on the general population and making the Senate semi democratic. And even the other amendments are the same format: ambiguous and very open to interpretation. Take the bill of rights. Nothing there specifically changes how the constitution works. It just adds some laws about what congress can or can't do. And it does so in very broad strokes. "The right to bear arms" has been litigated and re-litigated 1000 times and seems to be almost entirely down to the preferences of the day. It's been left up to judges to decide what parts to ignore entirely (the militia bit) and what it applies to (no surface air missiles or fireworks, rifles are ok). Yet everyone acts like the 2nd amendment is settled and either has to be accepted as it is today or repealed entirely. I don't know who has a better constitution. I just find it really weird that Americans think so highly of their one despite it breaking or failing all the time. Don't get me wrong, we all have our national blink spots. :)