8 ms·

The law can't bind future lawmakers. That's a common feature of every legal system. Any legal system can pass a law saying "we revoke this previous law".

by edent 1y ago

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
This is what constitutions are for. When you have the support, you install a constitutional protection that says the government can't do this. Repealing the protection requires the same super-majority needed to pass it, so changing the law isn't just a matter of the tyrants needing to get back to 51% from 49%, they have to get from 33% to 67%. Then you layer these protections against multiple levels of government so they'd all have to be repealed together by separate legislatures before the government is allowed to do it, discouraging the attempt.
- brnt 1y ago
  Constitutions are amended all the time. The French even have a proces for reboots of the Republic. These are goods things.
  - puzzledobserver 1y ago
    The Indian Supreme Court introduced the Basic Structure Doctrine in 1970, allowing the judiciary to overrule constitutional amendments if they are found to contradict the "basic structure" of the constitution. It's original purpose, if I understand correctly, was to guarantee that fundamental rights were an essential part of the constitution and couldn't be amended away. Wikipedia says that multiple countries appear to have adopted the principle: Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Uganda.
  - landl0rd 1y ago
    No it's not. Constitutions are the bones of a republic. They are the framework that gives the government power and that checks that power. Letting it mess with that too much or too often is bad. Constitutions should be simple. They should delegate very little power to governments and focus mostly on constraining those governments. They should be changed very rarely. Adaptable government with changing scopes belongs at lower levels of governance (mostly very local) or nowhere.
    - maigret 1y ago
      France disagrees. They iterated 5 times on it and it fixed big flaws each time. What keeps a country in check is not a constitution but a politically informed and active population. The US shows us right now that the constitution is just a piece of paper.
      - landl0rd 1y ago
        France had a vastly bloodier path to that constitution as you know. And france’s constitution today is pretty bad. It fails to protect basic freedoms like speech and arms. It moves too much responsibility to the feds. Etc.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > The US shows us right now that the constitution is just a piece of paper. A constitution isn't just words, it creates a structure that exists in actual reality. The day before the tyrant comes you have multiple branches and levels of government. That stuff doesn't instantaneously cease to exist if they try to rip up the piece of paper, and its purpose is to fight against anyone who tries to rip it up. If it fails at that purpose, your constitution contained insufficient checks and balances.(Notice that several of the ones in the original US constitution have been removed, and that was a mistake.)
        brnt 1y ago
        Another way to view the US constitution is that parts were amended away in roundabout ways (e.g. through state legislation) and precisely because it is so set in stone that we now have the problems that we see.
  - tekla 1y ago
    Constitutions that are easy to amend are basically universally a piece of toilet paper.
- greyw 1y ago
  In Switzerland you can change the constitution with popular votes. That only requires for 50% of the voters to agree and half of the cantons.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    Then get half the voters to agree to make it two thirds. After you put the other protections in, naturally.
    - philistine 1y ago
      You’re arguing for massive changes to a very unique country with the oldest democracy in Europe. Unless you’re Swiss, or have credentials related to Swiss law, I don’t think you’re arguing anything realistic.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Countries can be as unique as they want to be, but they still need a system for preventing authoritarianism. The existing system is fine if it's effective and not fine if it isn't.
        kragen 1y ago
        Switzerland has been preventing authoritarianism since before it was cool. Like, for 700 years. (With a brief interruption when they were invaded and overthrown by Napoleon.) So their system for the first 600 of those 700 years was the best system for preventing authoritarianism; a lot of it survives today.
        glenstein 1y ago
        Switzerland also has amassed hundreds of constitutional amendments over that time. So perhaps the ability to frequently pass amendments has been instrumental to their success, and they should be on the lookout for new opportunities to bolster their democracy, such as constitutional safeguards against certain forms of state surveillance.
- timeflex 1y ago
  And then you make it so when the tyrants do get back to 51% that they can just ignore the constitution instead. And might as well make sure there are only two major political parties so even though the tyrants ignore the constitution, that the other 49% will stay busy stuffing their pockets with foreign donations.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    These are independent problems. To prevent the government from ignoring the constitution, create remedies in each of the other branches of government. The US doesn't make this as strong as it should be. Constitutional challenges in the judiciary get shut down as a result of standing or sovereign immunity when that ought not to happen, and there should be a better mechanism for states to challenge federal constitutional violations. The two-party system in the US is caused by first past the post voting. Use score voting instead. Not IRV, not some other nonsense, a rated voting system that removes the structural incentive to avoid spoilers by limiting the number of parties. "The existing system isn't perfect" is why you improve it, not why you give up.
    - nerdsniper 1y ago
      Approval voting is also worth considering, where you put a checkmark in the box for any candidate you’d be okay with. Advantage over ranked choice is that communicating the scoring to citizens is simple: “$CANDIDATE received the most checkmarks.” Whereas with ranked voting, the person who gets the most #1’s might not win and that can confuse some citizens. Approval voting would result in “the okay-est” candidate winning rather than anyone towards an extreme winning in the primaries. Works well when there are a lot of fairly similar milquetoast candidates that split votes, like the Republican primaries of 2015.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > Whereas with ranked voting, the person who gets the most #1’s might not win and that can confuse some citizens. Not ranked voting, ranked voting is still very broken. Rated voting. Approval voting is a rated voting system. Score voting: Rate each candidate on a scale of 1 to 10. Approval voting: Rate each candidate on a scale of 0 or 1. Score voting (or STAR) is generally better and the argument that people are going to be confused by "that thing they use at the Olympics" is nonsense, but approval voting is fine if you want to silence the complainers while still using something that basically works.
- flir 1y ago
  That's how you ossify.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    If preventing the government from abusing the population is ossification then the government should be made entirely out of bones.
- Youden 1y ago
  I'd argue that this is unnecessary in Switzerland due to the existing referendum system. After the government passes a new law, opponents have 100 days to collect 50000 signatures. If they manage, the law will not take force until it's approved by a vote by the populace.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    The way authoritarianism work is they pick some enemy to rally against and convince people that the ends of stopping that evil justify the means of becoming evil. The problem with this is that it can garner 51% support within the population for temporary periods of time, so you need a system that can prevent it even in that environment. This typically means that violations of fundamental rights should require significantly more than 51% popular support or require changes in public sentiment to stick for a period of time before they can make foundational changes (e.g. only a third of the US Senate being up for election every two years).
  - j45 1y ago
    Or if there was a law clarifying not to tread on privacy if that’s what the population has latest indicated, this kind of effort wouldn’t always need yo be wasted. Asking the unpaid population to put in free labour all the time seems like a deterrent.
    - hluska 1y ago
      Democracy is fundamentally about putting in free labour. That’s just how it works, from the lowliest municipal elections up to federal. It’s a lot of unpaid labour. That system works and has worked for a long time.
      - refactor_master 1y ago
        I think that’s an oversimplification. You can’t take the “free labor of performing democracy” and put it to equally good use doing anything else I can think of. I guess you could work in soup kitchens, but that’s horribly inefficient welfare compared to just electing competent leadership, if the ultimate aim is to benefit The People.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  Hah, I was going to say that sounded needlessly heavy handed. Then I checked what the Netherlands does and found that changing the constitution doesn’t merely require you to get a majority, it also requires you to survive at least one election and keep that (super)majority before you can even begin.
  - AndrewDavis 1y ago
    Even that sounds easy compared to my country. In Australia a constitutional change requires a referendum, with a double majority condition to pass. Specifically it requires the vote in over half the states to be in favour, in addition to the overall national vote in favour.
    - klardotsh 1y ago
      That described Dutch system also sounds relatively easy compared to the US model, which requires 2/3 votes in each chamber of Congress (meaning the people-based one and the land-based one), *then* 3/4 of the states (so another land-based check) have to ratify it. Functionally this means that in the modern political climate, the US Constitution is fully frozen with no hope of amendment really ever again.
      - Aeolun 1y ago
        Yeah, I wasn’t clear enough. The first vote (before the election) requires a simple majority vote. The second vote (after the election) requires a 2/3 in favor vote in both houses. I’m not sure if that’s worse than 3/4 states since the Netherlands isn’t so politically localized.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > this means that in the modern political climate, the US Constitution is fully frozen Would note that this is a very modern phenomenon, with Nixon having considered pushing for abolishing the electoral college in the 70s.
  - beng-nl 1y ago
- dspillett 1y ago
  Constitutions can still be ignored, at least temporarily, by incumbent governments, as evidenced most recently by some actions of the current US administration. Also, the sort of majority needed to enact a constitution change to install a protection in the first place, can be very difficult to attain.
j45 1y ago
An existing law can be different to change, than where non exists and its greenfield for something half baked to roll in.
beeflet 1y ago
In the USA we have amendments to the constitution, which take considerable political effort to change. These amendments can restrict the types of laws that may be passed. This system works because the changes are not just recorded in the paper of some lawbook, but in the minds of the people.
Hard_Space 1y ago
This was my understanding, which is why I was so surprised to read of Trump's edict preventing state-level AI laws for ten years.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
_Algernon_ 1y ago
This is not true in practice. Inertia and international law / agreements bind future lawmakers. If one government joins the EU, the next still has to follow EU law even if EU law changes.

The law can't bind future lawmakers. That's a common feature of every legal system. Any legal system can pass a law saying "we revoke this previous law".

by edent 1y ago

The law can't bind future lawmakers. That's a common feature of every legal system. Any legal system can pass a law saying "we revoke this previous law".

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

This is what constitutions are for. When you have the support, you install a constitutional protection that says the government can't do this. Repealing the protection requires the same super-majority needed to pass it, so changing the law isn't just a matter of the tyrants needing to get back to 51% from 49%, they have to get from 33% to 67%. Then you layer these protections against multiple levels of government so they'd all have to be repealed together by separate legislatures before the government is allowed to do it, discouraging the attempt.

brnt 1y ago
Constitutions are amended all the time. The French even have a proces for reboots of the Republic. These are goods things.
- puzzledobserver 1y ago
  The Indian Supreme Court introduced the Basic Structure Doctrine in 1970, allowing the judiciary to overrule constitutional amendments if they are found to contradict the "basic structure" of the constitution. It's original purpose, if I understand correctly, was to guarantee that fundamental rights were an essential part of the constitution and couldn't be amended away. Wikipedia says that multiple countries appear to have adopted the principle: Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Uganda.
- landl0rd 1y ago
  No it's not. Constitutions are the bones of a republic. They are the framework that gives the government power and that checks that power. Letting it mess with that too much or too often is bad. Constitutions should be simple. They should delegate very little power to governments and focus mostly on constraining those governments. They should be changed very rarely. Adaptable government with changing scopes belongs at lower levels of governance (mostly very local) or nowhere.
  - maigret 1y ago
    France disagrees. They iterated 5 times on it and it fixed big flaws each time. What keeps a country in check is not a constitution but a politically informed and active population. The US shows us right now that the constitution is just a piece of paper.
    - landl0rd 1y ago
      France had a vastly bloodier path to that constitution as you know. And france’s constitution today is pretty bad. It fails to protect basic freedoms like speech and arms. It moves too much responsibility to the feds. Etc.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > The US shows us right now that the constitution is just a piece of paper. A constitution isn't just words, it creates a structure that exists in actual reality. The day before the tyrant comes you have multiple branches and levels of government. That stuff doesn't instantaneously cease to exist if they try to rip up the piece of paper, and its purpose is to fight against anyone who tries to rip it up. If it fails at that purpose, your constitution contained insufficient checks and balances.(Notice that several of the ones in the original US constitution have been removed, and that was a mistake.)
      - brnt 1y ago
        Another way to view the US constitution is that parts were amended away in roundabout ways (e.g. through state legislation) and precisely because it is so set in stone that we now have the problems that we see.
- tekla 1y ago
  Constitutions that are easy to amend are basically universally a piece of toilet paper.
greyw 1y ago
In Switzerland you can change the constitution with popular votes. That only requires for 50% of the voters to agree and half of the cantons.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  Then get half the voters to agree to make it two thirds. After you put the other protections in, naturally.
  - philistine 1y ago
    You’re arguing for massive changes to a very unique country with the oldest democracy in Europe. Unless you’re Swiss, or have credentials related to Swiss law, I don’t think you’re arguing anything realistic.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      Countries can be as unique as they want to be, but they still need a system for preventing authoritarianism. The existing system is fine if it's effective and not fine if it isn't.
      - kragen 1y ago
        Switzerland has been preventing authoritarianism since before it was cool. Like, for 700 years. (With a brief interruption when they were invaded and overthrown by Napoleon.) So their system for the first 600 of those 700 years was the best system for preventing authoritarianism; a lot of it survives today.
        glenstein 1y ago
        Switzerland also has amassed hundreds of constitutional amendments over that time. So perhaps the ability to frequently pass amendments has been instrumental to their success, and they should be on the lookout for new opportunities to bolster their democracy, such as constitutional safeguards against certain forms of state surveillance.
timeflex 1y ago
And then you make it so when the tyrants do get back to 51% that they can just ignore the constitution instead. And might as well make sure there are only two major political parties so even though the tyrants ignore the constitution, that the other 49% will stay busy stuffing their pockets with foreign donations.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  These are independent problems. To prevent the government from ignoring the constitution, create remedies in each of the other branches of government. The US doesn't make this as strong as it should be. Constitutional challenges in the judiciary get shut down as a result of standing or sovereign immunity when that ought not to happen, and there should be a better mechanism for states to challenge federal constitutional violations. The two-party system in the US is caused by first past the post voting. Use score voting instead. Not IRV, not some other nonsense, a rated voting system that removes the structural incentive to avoid spoilers by limiting the number of parties. "The existing system isn't perfect" is why you improve it, not why you give up.
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    Approval voting is also worth considering, where you put a checkmark in the box for any candidate you’d be okay with. Advantage over ranked choice is that communicating the scoring to citizens is simple: “$CANDIDATE received the most checkmarks.” Whereas with ranked voting, the person who gets the most #1’s might not win and that can confuse some citizens. Approval voting would result in “the okay-est” candidate winning rather than anyone towards an extreme winning in the primaries. Works well when there are a lot of fairly similar milquetoast candidates that split votes, like the Republican primaries of 2015.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > Whereas with ranked voting, the person who gets the most #1’s might not win and that can confuse some citizens. Not ranked voting, ranked voting is still very broken. Rated voting. Approval voting is a rated voting system. Score voting: Rate each candidate on a scale of 1 to 10. Approval voting: Rate each candidate on a scale of 0 or 1. Score voting (or STAR) is generally better and the argument that people are going to be confused by "that thing they use at the Olympics" is nonsense, but approval voting is fine if you want to silence the complainers while still using something that basically works.
flir 1y ago
That's how you ossify.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  If preventing the government from abusing the population is ossification then the government should be made entirely out of bones.
Youden 1y ago
I'd argue that this is unnecessary in Switzerland due to the existing referendum system. After the government passes a new law, opponents have 100 days to collect 50000 signatures. If they manage, the law will not take force until it's approved by a vote by the populace.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The way authoritarianism work is they pick some enemy to rally against and convince people that the ends of stopping that evil justify the means of becoming evil. The problem with this is that it can garner 51% support within the population for temporary periods of time, so you need a system that can prevent it even in that environment. This typically means that violations of fundamental rights should require significantly more than 51% popular support or require changes in public sentiment to stick for a period of time before they can make foundational changes (e.g. only a third of the US Senate being up for election every two years).
- j45 1y ago
  Or if there was a law clarifying not to tread on privacy if that’s what the population has latest indicated, this kind of effort wouldn’t always need yo be wasted. Asking the unpaid population to put in free labour all the time seems like a deterrent.
  - hluska 1y ago
    Democracy is fundamentally about putting in free labour. That’s just how it works, from the lowliest municipal elections up to federal. It’s a lot of unpaid labour. That system works and has worked for a long time.
    - refactor_master 1y ago
      I think that’s an oversimplification. You can’t take the “free labor of performing democracy” and put it to equally good use doing anything else I can think of. I guess you could work in soup kitchens, but that’s horribly inefficient welfare compared to just electing competent leadership, if the ultimate aim is to benefit The People.
Aeolun 1y ago
Hah, I was going to say that sounded needlessly heavy handed. Then I checked what the Netherlands does and found that changing the constitution doesn’t merely require you to get a majority, it also requires you to survive at least one election and keep that (super)majority before you can even begin.
- AndrewDavis 1y ago
  Even that sounds easy compared to my country. In Australia a constitutional change requires a referendum, with a double majority condition to pass. Specifically it requires the vote in over half the states to be in favour, in addition to the overall national vote in favour.
  - klardotsh 1y ago
    That described Dutch system also sounds relatively easy compared to the US model, which requires 2/3 votes in each chamber of Congress (meaning the people-based one and the land-based one), *then* 3/4 of the states (so another land-based check) have to ratify it. Functionally this means that in the modern political climate, the US Constitution is fully frozen with no hope of amendment really ever again.
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      Yeah, I wasn’t clear enough. The first vote (before the election) requires a simple majority vote. The second vote (after the election) requires a 2/3 in favor vote in both houses. I’m not sure if that’s worse than 3/4 states since the Netherlands isn’t so politically localized.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > this means that in the modern political climate, the US Constitution is fully frozen Would note that this is a very modern phenomenon, with Nixon having considered pushing for abolishing the electoral college in the 70s.
- beng-nl 1y ago
dspillett 1y ago
Constitutions can still be ignored, at least temporarily, by incumbent governments, as evidenced most recently by some actions of the current US administration. Also, the sort of majority needed to enact a constitution change to install a protection in the first place, can be very difficult to attain.

j45 1y ago

An existing law can be different to change, than where non exists and its greenfield for something half baked to roll in.

beeflet 1y ago

In the USA we have amendments to the constitution, which take considerable political effort to change. These amendments can restrict the types of laws that may be passed. This system works because the changes are not just recorded in the paper of some lawbook, but in the minds of the people.

Hard_Space 1y ago

This was my understanding, which is why I was so surprised to read of Trump's edict preventing state-level AI laws for ten years.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

_Algernon_ 1y ago

This is not true in practice. Inertia and international law / agreements bind future lawmakers. If one government joins the EU, the next still has to follow EU law even if EU law changes.