6 ms·

The founding fathers would tell you that this is a feature, not a bug. They really didn't want it to be easy for the federal government to do much. The states

The founding fathers would tell you that this is a feature, not a bug. They really didn't want it to be easy for the federal government to do much. The states were meant to hold most of the power as they were closer to the people.

Dig1t 3y ago
Which seems good to me. California has been leading the way on this, passing laws ranging from requiring diversity quotas on corporate boards to its own privacy legislation. To me, it doesn't make sense to have very many laws that apply nationally because people lead such completely different lives depending on where they live in the country. e.g. a person living in San Francisco leads a wildly different life than someone in rural Montana, and passing laws that both people actually _want_ is difficult. The more granular and narrowly scoped laws are, the better, in my opinion.
lapcat 3y ago
> The founding fathers would tell you Why should we care in the 21st century? The founders weren't omniscient, benevolent gods. They were just wealthy landowners looking out for their own interests — it's crucial to note that they ignored over half the population of the colonies, i.e., women and black people — and they borrowed the majority of their (now long outdated) ideas from 17th century British philosopher John Locke. The US Constitution is woefully unprepared for the present and future.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and compromise so that it benefits the country as a whole.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the past hundred years, it's only been amended eight times. One of those was to repeal a previous amendment (alcohol prohibition). Three of the eight are related to Presidential terms and succession. Another one, the last amendment in 1992, was about Congressional salaries. The last substantial amendment, over 50 years ago, lowered the voting age to 18. Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. > it benefits the country as a whole The Constitution never benefited the country as a whole, as I already explained in my previous comment.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      > Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. Why is that a bad thing? What specifically needs to be amended?
      - lapcat 3y ago
        Well, I would change a lot, but I don't think this is the place to have a long debate about that, and I doubt that it would be productive, since you seem to think things are basically fine as they are, so we don't have much common ground.
    - gameman144 3y ago
      > Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. It seems that you're taking this as a sign that the Constitution isn't still relevant. I'd ask you to consider that this might be a sign of the exact opposite, and that we can't get broad buy-in on the things that some groups see as obvious additions. If the MLB were trying to update the rules of baseball to make it more exciting, and one camp wanted to do that by increasing the number of home runs while the other wanted to do it by increasing the number of strike-outs, it makes sense that they should sort out which approach is best before passing rules (or allowing flip-flopping every year) > The Constitution never benefited the country as a whole For citizens, this is so demonstrably false that I feel like I must be misinterpreting you here.
nh23423fefe 3y ago
Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war. They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  I don’t think current times are playing out at all as they intended. The federal government is much too large and too powerful, and Congress is too insulated from their constituents. This emboldens their corruption and playing to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent. This is more an indictment of 20th and 21st century politicians than it is the founders.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    > Congress is too insulated from their constituents. +1 When you're running for a district you can slice the population up into various causes and then run on that. It doesn't matter if your platform is "far-X" because if you can scoop up 20% of the population that's a win at the ballot. Congress really needs to be larger than it is, the citizen:representative ratio should really be fixed at a ratio and not fixed at the #of representatives. Plenty of other countries have more representatives than the US despite a smaller population. Assuming that we picked say 150k citizens: 1 representative then you should also be able to forfeit your vote along with ~150k other people to select a representative.
  - nh23423fefe 3y ago
    This is more of what I said I don't care about. I don't care what you imagine the 15th-generation ancestors, of some minority of the living population, think. I don't care if you want to blame someone else for "not implementing the obvious vision of the founders." They aren't here and can't make any decisions for us that we couldn't better make ourselves. They aren't wiser than us. Our present state isn't some deviation from their potential utopia. Their intentions are completely irrelevant. Comporting our behavior and desires with whatever someone might imagine they would want is nonsense.

Dig1t 3y ago

Which seems good to me. California has been leading the way on this, passing laws ranging from requiring diversity quotas on corporate boards to its own privacy legislation. To me, it doesn't make sense to have very many laws that apply nationally because people lead such completely different lives depending on where they live in the country. e.g. a person living in San Francisco leads a wildly different life than someone in rural Montana, and passing laws that both people actually _want_ is difficult. The more granular and narrowly scoped laws are, the better, in my opinion.

lapcat 3y ago

> The founding fathers would tell you Why should we care in the 21st century? The founders weren't omniscient, benevolent gods. They were just wealthy landowners looking out for their own interests — it's crucial to note that they ignored over half the population of the colonies, i.e., women and black people — and they borrowed the majority of their (now long outdated) ideas from 17th century British philosopher John Locke. The US Constitution is woefully unprepared for the present and future.

lockhouse 3y ago
I disagree. They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. They weren't perfect, and some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments, but it is intentionally resistant to change to ensure proper debate and compromise so that it benefits the country as a whole.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > They had a lot of great ideas for the prevention of tyranny. c/had/borrowed > some parts of the Constitution as originally ratified were simply a product of reaching a compromise that both Northern and Southern states would both be on board with. A compromise that didn't even work well or last, as violently evidenced by the Civil War. > The beauty of the Constitution is that it can be changed via amendments In the past hundred years, it's only been amended eight times. One of those was to repeal a previous amendment (alcohol prohibition). Three of the eight are related to Presidential terms and succession. Another one, the last amendment in 1992, was about Congressional salaries. The last substantial amendment, over 50 years ago, lowered the voting age to 18. Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. > it benefits the country as a whole The Constitution never benefited the country as a whole, as I already explained in my previous comment.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    > Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. Why is that a bad thing? What specifically needs to be amended?
    - lapcat 3y ago
      Well, I would change a lot, but I don't think this is the place to have a long debate about that, and I doubt that it would be productive, since you seem to think things are basically fine as they are, so we don't have much common ground.
  - gameman144 3y ago
    > Amendments to the Constitution have become practically nonexistent. It seems that you're taking this as a sign that the Constitution isn't still relevant. I'd ask you to consider that this might be a sign of the exact opposite, and that we can't get broad buy-in on the things that some groups see as obvious additions. If the MLB were trying to update the rules of baseball to make it more exciting, and one camp wanted to do that by increasing the number of home runs while the other wanted to do it by increasing the number of strike-outs, it makes sense that they should sort out which approach is best before passing rules (or allowing flip-flopping every year) > The Constitution never benefited the country as a whole For citizens, this is so demonstrably false that I feel like I must be misinterpreting you here.

nh23423fefe 3y ago

Fetishizing the founders and imagining that current times are playing out as they intended makes no sense. In less than 100 years the system they set up resulted in civil war. They aren't smarter than us and they don't know anything about the present. I don't care what the founders thought nor what people today imagine they would think.

lockhouse 3y ago
I don’t think current times are playing out at all as they intended. The federal government is much too large and too powerful, and Congress is too insulated from their constituents. This emboldens their corruption and playing to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent. This is more an indictment of 20th and 21st century politicians than it is the founders.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  > Congress is too insulated from their constituents. +1 When you're running for a district you can slice the population up into various causes and then run on that. It doesn't matter if your platform is "far-X" because if you can scoop up 20% of the population that's a win at the ballot. Congress really needs to be larger than it is, the citizen:representative ratio should really be fixed at a ratio and not fixed at the #of representatives. Plenty of other countries have more representatives than the US despite a smaller population. Assuming that we picked say 150k citizens: 1 representative then you should also be able to forfeit your vote along with ~150k other people to select a representative.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  This is more of what I said I don't care about. I don't care what you imagine the 15th-generation ancestors, of some minority of the living population, think. I don't care if you want to blame someone else for "not implementing the obvious vision of the founders." They aren't here and can't make any decisions for us that we couldn't better make ourselves. They aren't wiser than us. Our present state isn't some deviation from their potential utopia. Their intentions are completely irrelevant. Comporting our behavior and desires with whatever someone might imagine they would want is nonsense.