7 ms·

Let's Give Up On The Constitution

41 points by mehrshad 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago
Giving up on the Constitution right now would guarantee that the rethinking of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendment would be a lot worse than they currently are. I wouldn't risk that.
archgoon 14y ago
This would be a very bad idea. If you note, his list of quotations of people saying "Let's just ignore the constitution" basically ends with the abolitionists. Shortly after them, the bloodiest war in American History (form our point of view) was fought. The Constitution came out of that war as a document that all states were basically locked into. You weren't allowed to quit. If you were to dissolve the Constitution, and brought 50 states back to he negotiating table (especially in this time of hyperpartisanship), I doubt you'd get 50 states walking back out together. For all it's flaws and bits of archaic pedantry, it's the one thing that you can get the majority of Americans to swear their allegiance to. Also, I rather like the fact that today, people feel that you can't ignore the Supreme Court. This wasn't really the case 150 years ago.
- learc83 14y ago
  To your point, here is another of his absurd claims. >the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states The states haven't been able to "check" the Federal government since the Civil War.
  - natrius 14y ago
    I'd put the date a little later: 1913. The ratification of the 17th Amendment got rid of the states' representatives in the federal government. Most citizens don't care about the particular divisions of power between levels of government, and now that state legislatures can't effectively defend their purview, it shrinks by the day.
    - jrs235 14y ago
      This is also why the Senate can't start tax authorizing bills... The states weren't suppose to be able to raise taxes on the people for feudal matters, only the people should be able to do so through their representation in the federal government, the House of Representatives. I think we could fix a lot of issues by repealing the 17th amendment.
      - jrs235 14y ago
        *feudal -> federal
greenyoda 14y ago
"This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation. Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president's term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor." So the author is advocating for an arbitrary system in which we decide in ad-hoc ways which parts of the Constitution we want to follow. Unfortunately, this already seems to be happening, as our government sees fit to disregard various provisions of the Bill of Rights, e.g., warrantless wiretapping, or the President's assertion that he can dispatch drones to kill even US citizens without due process.[1] It seems that the government proves to us every day that it needs the Constitution to keep it on a short leash. Since the Constitution contains a process by which it can be amended, why don't we just follow that? Over the years, amendments have given us some very fundamental changes: the abolition of slavery, the right of women to vote, presidential term limits, etc. Granted, it's a slow process that the author may be impatient with, but it's probably preferable to having a government that can arbitrarily dispose of people's rights. [1] https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-kill-list-is-unchecked-presidential-power/2012/06/11/gJQAHw05WV_story.html https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-kill-list-is...
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It's not like the president violating the Constitution is a new thing. Didn't Lincoln limit freedom of speech and disregard habeaus corpus for Confederate sympathizers?
  - hakaaak 14y ago
    The more laws are bent and disregarded, the less any law (not just those laws) will be followed. Ask any parent. I think that we may be better off if those that are willing to give up all power to the government to disregard the constitution would just run their own country, and leave the rest of us out of it. For someone that writes for an organization that makes its living off of the 1st amendment to advocate throwing out that which provides it that 1st amendment is moronic at best, and suicidal and murderous of a free press and a free people at worst.
learc83 14y ago
The proposal is to ignore the Constitution and give congress unlimited power to congress and the executive branch to enact whatever laws/executive orders they like--with no oversight? Or does the supreme court still have the power to overturn laws that we "respect?" Who decides what rules we "respect"--do we make up a list every ten years? Additionally, this suggestion is completely infeasible. The Constitution may have been eroded slowly over the years, but if the Government declared tomorrow that we were no longer bound by our founding document, there would most likely be a rebellion or maybe even a military coup. Every member of the United States military is sworn to "...support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...", and most of them take that oath very seriously.
logn 14y ago
Pretty weak article. He suggests ignoring the Constitution because only the House is supposed to present revenue measures. I was hoping he would detail every way the Constitution has been eroded and sidestepped and conclude that it's an ineffective document in need of updating: more teeth and more specifics.
adventured 14y ago
Our core system of government - which has done pretty well for 200+ years despite all the undermining Congress & the Executive branch have done - is still better than the rest. It has done so well because it's a system built on principles that are eternal, it was specifically not built for any given time, but rather for all time. The only problem we have, is we need to return to a constitutional system of government, not be an extraconstitutional system, where the government intentionally ignores its limitations when it feels like it. We need to be a Republic again, not a mob rule Democracy that eats itself alive as is occurring right now. The biggest problem America has is a vastly overreaching government, and it's overreaching in every regard possible, from privacy to fiscal to military to general freedom. The only people advocating for an end or change to the Constitution, are those interested in various forms of authoritarian rule. Their goal is always, one way or another, to give more power to some central authority, and to limit freedom of the individual.
- ameister14 14y ago
  While I understand your statement and its origins in 19th century thought, you seem to misunderstand the foundations of our government. This is completely normal, as almost no-one really get what the founders thought or why they made the decisions they did. I'm one of those people that obsessively studied that period of history, however. Please, before you comment about the overreaching nature of our government, read Hume.
  - MordinSolus 14y ago
    If you're so well versed, perhaps you could provide a summary as to what is so wrong about the comment?
  - smsm42 14y ago
    Your comment would be much better if you actually outlined what is the correct approach here and summarized what Hume said that you think is important in this particular case. Somehow just saying "I know much more than you, so shut up" and "Go read the Internet^W^WHume" is not very convincing by itself. I personally am willing to believe you spent a lot of time studying the relevant history and possess major insights which other people do not. But why don't you share some of them instead of just claiming you have them?
n3rdy 14y ago
Lets just scrap the government altogether. We're all adults, lets act like it. We don't need to elect a bunch of people to tell us what to do and what not to do. "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato
- lucian303 14y ago
  True. But does a better alternative to rule of law exist? Perhaps. I'd love to hear thoughts on this.
  - daeken 14y ago
    Better is arguable, but I really do recommend The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom) for an alternative. It's well thought out and very detailed.
    - lucian303 14y ago
      I have to check it out. However, if the book really does argue from a utilitarian POV, it fails right there. Utilitarianism by itself is hardly the basis of any human's thought. Otherwise we'd all be vegans thanks to Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation." Still, I'm not going to take Wikipedia's take on it. Thank you for the first book recommendation of the new year.
    - nacker 14y ago
      Sounds interesting, but I have doubts about utilitarian arguments too. Why not check out Rothbard's "For a New Liberty"? It's in audio form for free here: https://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87 https://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87 Chapter 12. The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts is particularly impressive. EDIT: Here is Rothbard's amusing argument against utilitarianism: "Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation—so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: “While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads,achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads.” The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon non-aggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders — depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure — would not influence such a libertarian, the “absolutist” libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being “doctrinaire,” to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines."
mynameishere 14y ago
Summary: "I hate the US's form of government, therefore let's replace the rule of law with the rule of dictate." Thank you nytimes for making your multi-decade anti-democratic, anti-legal, anti-American agenda more explicit than usual.
- icebraining 14y ago
  It's an Op-ed, not an editorial.
- desas 14y ago
  Where is anything said about the rule of dictate? The UK doesn't have a codified constitution - parts of it aren't written down anywhere at all. Any act of parliament can override any existing act or law, parliament can pass any new act it pleases. As anywhere else, we're not perfect but it's not a complete disaster.
lucian303 14y ago
We already have. That's why we're in this mess. The only time the constitution is invoked by politicians is to stall the other side because they know that the basic tenets are gone. The Bill of Rights? One or two amendments might still apply in reality. MIGHT! If you don't like the constitution, get your officials to amend it. That was built into the constitution as the exact fix for this kind of problem, and it's the way to "modernize" the constitution. Good luck with that!
charonn0 14y ago
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.[1] [1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washingtons_Farewell_Address https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washingtons_Farewell_Address
bmmayer1 14y ago
Yeah, the fact that money bills have to originate in the House has nothing to do with an 800-year-old fundamental principle of the people having a vote in their own taxation. It's clearly an inconvenient constitutional loophole that Madison put in to let John Boehner obstruct Obama and the Democrats. What a joke.
alan_cx 14y ago
Out of interest, what is the comparison between a constitution and a religious book, like the bible or Koran? Im not saying there are no differences, but I see a lot of parallels, and I see lot of the same down sides or mistakes. US folk do seem to worship and argue the meaning of the constitution like people do with religious texts. If the parallel works, the main issue I see is that religious groups and US citizens do seem to waste time and become paralysed by arguing meaning and intent, while action gets neglected. Again, from an out side POV, it look like the US constitution makes the US its self politically seize up, while US international policy seems wild and uncontrolled. My out side assumption is that the US constitution says a lot about internal politics, but nothing controls or governs its foreign policy. And, in that respect, may I suggest the adoption of Star Trek's Prime Directive as a start? Lastly, does any one see a time when the US gets divided over how the constitution is interpreted? Will we see fundamental constitutionalists? Will we see something like a Catholic / Anglican split? Or different groups following different interpretations like with Islam? It seems that the right in the US is fairly constitutionally fundamental, could the extremes of them, with all their guns, become insurgents or terrorists to try to enforce their notion of the constitution? It seems to me, that the constitution actually allows for that. I mean, they do seem to see the centre right, or what the US might call the democrat left, as an internal threat to the US and its constitution. OK, perhaps laughable now, but what if this nasty vicious election process continues to get worse and worse? What if people begin to believe the lies? At what point might that tip over in to a violence the authorities can and wont suppress? Could US troops really fire on US citizens fighting for the constitution? Just a New Years Day thought......

41 points by mehrshad 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

Giving up on the Constitution right now would guarantee that the rethinking of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendment would be a lot worse than they currently are. I wouldn't risk that.

archgoon 14y ago

This would be a very bad idea. If you note, his list of quotations of people saying "Let's just ignore the constitution" basically ends with the abolitionists. Shortly after them, the bloodiest war in American History (form our point of view) was fought. The Constitution came out of that war as a document that all states were basically locked into. You weren't allowed to quit. If you were to dissolve the Constitution, and brought 50 states back to he negotiating table (especially in this time of hyperpartisanship), I doubt you'd get 50 states walking back out together. For all it's flaws and bits of archaic pedantry, it's the one thing that you can get the majority of Americans to swear their allegiance to. Also, I rather like the fact that today, people feel that you can't ignore the Supreme Court. This wasn't really the case 150 years ago.

learc83 14y ago
To your point, here is another of his absurd claims. >the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states The states haven't been able to "check" the Federal government since the Civil War.
- natrius 14y ago
  I'd put the date a little later: 1913. The ratification of the 17th Amendment got rid of the states' representatives in the federal government. Most citizens don't care about the particular divisions of power between levels of government, and now that state legislatures can't effectively defend their purview, it shrinks by the day.
  - jrs235 14y ago
    This is also why the Senate can't start tax authorizing bills... The states weren't suppose to be able to raise taxes on the people for feudal matters, only the people should be able to do so through their representation in the federal government, the House of Representatives. I think we could fix a lot of issues by repealing the 17th amendment.
    - jrs235 14y ago
      *feudal -> federal

greenyoda 14y ago

"This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation. Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president's term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor." So the author is advocating for an arbitrary system in which we decide in ad-hoc ways which parts of the Constitution we want to follow. Unfortunately, this already seems to be happening, as our government sees fit to disregard various provisions of the Bill of Rights, e.g., warrantless wiretapping, or the President's assertion that he can dispatch drones to kill even US citizens without due process.[1] It seems that the government proves to us every day that it needs the Constitution to keep it on a short leash. Since the Constitution contains a process by which it can be amended, why don't we just follow that? Over the years, amendments have given us some very fundamental changes: the abolition of slavery, the right of women to vote, presidential term limits, etc. Granted, it's a slow process that the author may be impatient with, but it's probably preferable to having a government that can arbitrarily dispose of people's rights. [1] https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-kill-list-is-unchecked-presidential-power/2012/06/11/gJQAHw05WV_story.html https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-kill-list-is...

w1ntermute 14y ago
It's not like the president violating the Constitution is a new thing. Didn't Lincoln limit freedom of speech and disregard habeaus corpus for Confederate sympathizers?
- hakaaak 14y ago
  The more laws are bent and disregarded, the less any law (not just those laws) will be followed. Ask any parent. I think that we may be better off if those that are willing to give up all power to the government to disregard the constitution would just run their own country, and leave the rest of us out of it. For someone that writes for an organization that makes its living off of the 1st amendment to advocate throwing out that which provides it that 1st amendment is moronic at best, and suicidal and murderous of a free press and a free people at worst.

learc83 14y ago

The proposal is to ignore the Constitution and give congress unlimited power to congress and the executive branch to enact whatever laws/executive orders they like--with no oversight? Or does the supreme court still have the power to overturn laws that we "respect?" Who decides what rules we "respect"--do we make up a list every ten years? Additionally, this suggestion is completely infeasible. The Constitution may have been eroded slowly over the years, but if the Government declared tomorrow that we were no longer bound by our founding document, there would most likely be a rebellion or maybe even a military coup. Every member of the United States military is sworn to "...support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...", and most of them take that oath very seriously.

logn 14y ago

Pretty weak article. He suggests ignoring the Constitution because only the House is supposed to present revenue measures. I was hoping he would detail every way the Constitution has been eroded and sidestepped and conclude that it's an ineffective document in need of updating: more teeth and more specifics.

adventured 14y ago

Our core system of government - which has done pretty well for 200+ years despite all the undermining Congress & the Executive branch have done - is still better than the rest. It has done so well because it's a system built on principles that are eternal, it was specifically not built for any given time, but rather for all time. The only problem we have, is we need to return to a constitutional system of government, not be an extraconstitutional system, where the government intentionally ignores its limitations when it feels like it. We need to be a Republic again, not a mob rule Democracy that eats itself alive as is occurring right now. The biggest problem America has is a vastly overreaching government, and it's overreaching in every regard possible, from privacy to fiscal to military to general freedom. The only people advocating for an end or change to the Constitution, are those interested in various forms of authoritarian rule. Their goal is always, one way or another, to give more power to some central authority, and to limit freedom of the individual.

ameister14 14y ago
While I understand your statement and its origins in 19th century thought, you seem to misunderstand the foundations of our government. This is completely normal, as almost no-one really get what the founders thought or why they made the decisions they did. I'm one of those people that obsessively studied that period of history, however. Please, before you comment about the overreaching nature of our government, read Hume.
- MordinSolus 14y ago
  If you're so well versed, perhaps you could provide a summary as to what is so wrong about the comment?
- smsm42 14y ago
  Your comment would be much better if you actually outlined what is the correct approach here and summarized what Hume said that you think is important in this particular case. Somehow just saying "I know much more than you, so shut up" and "Go read the Internet^W^WHume" is not very convincing by itself. I personally am willing to believe you spent a lot of time studying the relevant history and possess major insights which other people do not. But why don't you share some of them instead of just claiming you have them?

n3rdy 14y ago

Lets just scrap the government altogether. We're all adults, lets act like it. We don't need to elect a bunch of people to tell us what to do and what not to do. "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

lucian303 14y ago
True. But does a better alternative to rule of law exist? Perhaps. I'd love to hear thoughts on this.
- daeken 14y ago
  Better is arguable, but I really do recommend The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom) for an alternative. It's well thought out and very detailed.
  - lucian303 14y ago
    I have to check it out. However, if the book really does argue from a utilitarian POV, it fails right there. Utilitarianism by itself is hardly the basis of any human's thought. Otherwise we'd all be vegans thanks to Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation." Still, I'm not going to take Wikipedia's take on it. Thank you for the first book recommendation of the new year.
  - nacker 14y ago
    Sounds interesting, but I have doubts about utilitarian arguments too. Why not check out Rothbard's "For a New Liberty"? It's in audio form for free here: https://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87 https://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87 Chapter 12. The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts is particularly impressive. EDIT: Here is Rothbard's amusing argument against utilitarianism: "Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation—so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: “While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads,achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads.” The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon non-aggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders — depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure — would not influence such a libertarian, the “absolutist” libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being “doctrinaire,” to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines."

mynameishere 14y ago

Summary: "I hate the US's form of government, therefore let's replace the rule of law with the rule of dictate." Thank you nytimes for making your multi-decade anti-democratic, anti-legal, anti-American agenda more explicit than usual.

icebraining 14y ago
It's an Op-ed, not an editorial.
desas 14y ago
Where is anything said about the rule of dictate? The UK doesn't have a codified constitution - parts of it aren't written down anywhere at all. Any act of parliament can override any existing act or law, parliament can pass any new act it pleases. As anywhere else, we're not perfect but it's not a complete disaster.

lucian303 14y ago

We already have. That's why we're in this mess. The only time the constitution is invoked by politicians is to stall the other side because they know that the basic tenets are gone. The Bill of Rights? One or two amendments might still apply in reality. MIGHT! If you don't like the constitution, get your officials to amend it. That was built into the constitution as the exact fix for this kind of problem, and it's the way to "modernize" the constitution. Good luck with that!

charonn0 14y ago

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.[1] [1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washingtons_Farewell_Address https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washingtons_Farewell_Address

bmmayer1 14y ago

Yeah, the fact that money bills have to originate in the House has nothing to do with an 800-year-old fundamental principle of the people having a vote in their own taxation. It's clearly an inconvenient constitutional loophole that Madison put in to let John Boehner obstruct Obama and the Democrats. What a joke.

alan_cx 14y ago

Out of interest, what is the comparison between a constitution and a religious book, like the bible or Koran? Im not saying there are no differences, but I see a lot of parallels, and I see lot of the same down sides or mistakes. US folk do seem to worship and argue the meaning of the constitution like people do with religious texts. If the parallel works, the main issue I see is that religious groups and US citizens do seem to waste time and become paralysed by arguing meaning and intent, while action gets neglected. Again, from an out side POV, it look like the US constitution makes the US its self politically seize up, while US international policy seems wild and uncontrolled. My out side assumption is that the US constitution says a lot about internal politics, but nothing controls or governs its foreign policy. And, in that respect, may I suggest the adoption of Star Trek's Prime Directive as a start? Lastly, does any one see a time when the US gets divided over how the constitution is interpreted? Will we see fundamental constitutionalists? Will we see something like a Catholic / Anglican split? Or different groups following different interpretations like with Islam? It seems that the right in the US is fairly constitutionally fundamental, could the extremes of them, with all their guns, become insurgents or terrorists to try to enforce their notion of the constitution? It seems to me, that the constitution actually allows for that. I mean, they do seem to see the centre right, or what the US might call the democrat left, as an internal threat to the US and its constitution. OK, perhaps laughable now, but what if this nasty vicious election process continues to get worse and worse? What if people begin to believe the lies? At what point might that tip over in to a violence the authorities can and wont suppress? Could US troops really fire on US citizens fighting for the constitution? Just a New Years Day thought......