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The Constitution is an obsolete document that should be trashed, but the entire judicial system in the US is completely broken and isn't going to be fixed.

andromeduck 4y ago
Why don't we just rewrite it in rust while we're at it.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Has been done, rewritten in rust belt framework, resulted in a opiod crisis. The problem is excess power liquidity sloshing around, corroding the system. The taxes were there for a reason.
- yeshap 4y ago
  Thomas Jefferson did advocate for provisions to rewrite it every 19 years, update it with contemporary philosophy. He might have been accepting of making it a blockchain technology. James Madison “won” though and no such provisions were included. Madison felt we owed perpetual deference to past achievers, which sounds pretty monarchic.
- malfist 4y ago
  I could do it in a weekend! We have too many legislators, it's a simple thing to govern a country! Congress is way too bloated
- pksebben 4y ago
  type safety in legislation would probably be a big win, actually
hotpotamus 4y ago
If originalists have succeeded in anything (besides their takeover of the judicial branch of the US), it's convincing me of the same - the constitution as it was written is inadequate to govern an industrial society in the 20th century and beyond. Pragmatic people somehow made it work for a time, but that no longer seems feasible.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Exactly my point. It's outlived its usefulness. In addition to that, it was never a great system of government to begin with; it only seemed like it because there wasn't much competition at the time for democratic governments. These days, we have lots of examples of nations with better systems of government, and as far as I can tell, they're all parliamentary systems. Having the Executive separately elected sounds like a good idea if you only have experience with monarchies, but in practice it doesn't work out very well.
LocalH 4y ago
I honestly don't trust people of the modern age, who would be in the actual position of making that happen, to do it without corrupting it even further than they already have through decades of bad law and bad judgment. Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution? Would you want today's politically appointed Supreme Court justices interpreting the Constitution? There's no difference. From the article: "The Supreme Court created qualified immunity out of thin air in 1967, just six years after the Court first recognized that people could sue police officers and other government officials for violating their constitutional rights." Having said that, a new American revolution that abolishes the Constitution would also presumably, hopefully get rid of today's politicians too.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    Most revolutions result in absolute dictatorship. See Russia, Cuba, Iran. We're quite the anomaly. Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > See Russia, Cuba, Iran. Before their revolutions, Cuba was a military dictatorship backed by the US, Russia and Iran monarchies (the latter also backed by the US). So the starting points were not great, to say the least. > Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself. I have higher degrees in philosophy and political science, so I think I understand the document pretty well, thank you. Ironically, a lot of the US Constitution was actually cribbed from a British philosopher, John Locke, who wrote 100 years before the US Constitution, which is now almost 250 years old itself. Imagine practicing medicine or science today based almost exclusively on 250 or 350 year old ideas.

andromeduck 4y ago

Why don't we just rewrite it in rust while we're at it.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Has been done, rewritten in rust belt framework, resulted in a opiod crisis. The problem is excess power liquidity sloshing around, corroding the system. The taxes were there for a reason.
yeshap 4y ago
Thomas Jefferson did advocate for provisions to rewrite it every 19 years, update it with contemporary philosophy. He might have been accepting of making it a blockchain technology. James Madison “won” though and no such provisions were included. Madison felt we owed perpetual deference to past achievers, which sounds pretty monarchic.
malfist 4y ago
I could do it in a weekend! We have too many legislators, it's a simple thing to govern a country! Congress is way too bloated
pksebben 4y ago
type safety in legislation would probably be a big win, actually

hotpotamus 4y ago

If originalists have succeeded in anything (besides their takeover of the judicial branch of the US), it's convincing me of the same - the constitution as it was written is inadequate to govern an industrial society in the 20th century and beyond. Pragmatic people somehow made it work for a time, but that no longer seems feasible.

midoridensha 4y ago
Exactly my point. It's outlived its usefulness. In addition to that, it was never a great system of government to begin with; it only seemed like it because there wasn't much competition at the time for democratic governments. These days, we have lots of examples of nations with better systems of government, and as far as I can tell, they're all parliamentary systems. Having the Executive separately elected sounds like a good idea if you only have experience with monarchies, but in practice it doesn't work out very well.

LocalH 4y ago

I honestly don't trust people of the modern age, who would be in the actual position of making that happen, to do it without corrupting it even further than they already have through decades of bad law and bad judgment. Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 4y ago
> Would you want today's politicians writing the Constitution? Would you want today's politically appointed Supreme Court justices interpreting the Constitution? There's no difference. From the article: "The Supreme Court created qualified immunity out of thin air in 1967, just six years after the Court first recognized that people could sue police officers and other government officials for violating their constitutional rights." Having said that, a new American revolution that abolishes the Constitution would also presumably, hopefully get rid of today's politicians too.
- Clubber 4y ago
  Most revolutions result in absolute dictatorship. See Russia, Cuba, Iran. We're quite the anomaly. Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > See Russia, Cuba, Iran. Before their revolutions, Cuba was a military dictatorship backed by the US, Russia and Iran monarchies (the latter also backed by the US). So the starting points were not great, to say the least. > Saying the constitution is obsolete really shows almost no understanding of the document itself. I have higher degrees in philosophy and political science, so I think I understand the document pretty well, thank you. Ironically, a lot of the US Constitution was actually cribbed from a British philosopher, John Locke, who wrote 100 years before the US Constitution, which is now almost 250 years old itself. Imagine practicing medicine or science today based almost exclusively on 250 or 350 year old ideas.