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That was exactly my thought. Who gets to decide which pieces get ignored? A pundit who has his favorite pieces? I agree the laws of the land, and, by extension

That was exactly my thought. Who gets to decide which pieces get ignored? A pundit who has his favorite pieces? I agree the laws of the land, and, by extension, the Constitution, need to be altered to reflect the times; but an ad hoc method is not the right way. An ad hoc method simply means the people with the most power get to decide, something the Founders were decidedly trying to prevent. One of the greatest accomplishments of the Founders was the recognized the need to change with the times and laid a foundation for it. As a country, we just seem to be too (lazy?) to follow the guidance.

hakaaak 14y ago
It isn't laziness. Change is disruptive. Disruption during instability (such as the economic condition of our country, political instability due to polarized nearly 50/50 political split of the people) is dangerous. But more importantly, estabilished lobbying powers inherently tend to equalize change unless one or more become significantly stronger and change the balance of power. And if those lobbying powers are not in favor of the change, it won't happen. Finally, change can lead to a great deal of uncertainty. Uncertainty is risk, and risk is typically bad when it comes to politics. Amendments to the constitution could happen of course, but this would be an unlikely time for them. It is more likely that the interpretation of the constitution would change. And that has changed very much over time.
- lucian303 14y ago
  It's not laziness, it's willful ignorance. Much worse.
lucian303 14y ago
Seriously. Ad hoc methods are for querying RDBMSs not for governing people.
csense 14y ago
> As a country, we just seem to be too (lazy?) to [amend the Constitution] The problem with passing Constitutional amendments right now is the highly partisan political climate of the last decade or two: The parties divide nearly fifty-fifty and often define themselves by their opposition to the other party. Many of the most commonly raised ideas for amendments -- getting rid of the death penalty, legalizing gay marriage, abolishing the Second Amendment -- are deeply divisive issues among the people. These factors make it very difficult for anyone to get the big majority necessary for a Constitutional amendment. Changes in US party politics will ultimately be forced by demographics. Minorities are increasing due to higher birth rates and immigration. The baby boomers will eventually start dying. Society as a whole is becoming more secular, especially among the young. Either the Republican party will redefine itself in order to steal some categories of currently Democratic voters, a new party will rise to prominence, or (IMHO the most likely scenario) when the Republican party ceases to be a threat to Democrats' political agendas in ~10-40 years, the Democrats will themselves collapse. The fault lines are already there: Liberals like Obama favor massive spending on ambitious social programs. Civil libertarians -- there seem to be quite a few here on HN -- want a reduced government presence and an expansion of individual rights. Centrists like Bill Clinton aren't opposed to overseas military intervention and support balanced budgets and the reform of social programs. It's easy to see this coalition disintegrating without the pressure presented by their current common political foe, the Republican party.
- philwelch 14y ago
  > The fault lines are already there: Liberals like Obama favor massive spending on ambitious social programs. Civil libertarians -- there seem to be quite a few here on HN -- want a reduced government presence and an expansion of individual rights. Centrists like Bill Clinton aren't opposed to overseas military intervention and support balanced budgets and the reform of social programs. The fact that you refer to "massive spending on ambitious social programs" as a "liberal" idea, and distinguish "liberal" from "civil libertarian", already kind of belies the issue. In most countries, there's a distinction between liberals and leftists. A liberal is someone who favores reduced government presence, strong individual rights, and markets--kind of like US libertarians, except far less extreme. An example would be the UK Liberal Democrats. Leftists are the ones who favor workers and social programs, and have strong ties to labor unions, like the UK Labour party. Conservatives are like conservatives here except, again, less extreme. Conservative parties in countries like the UK or Canada still tend to favor universal healthcare, for instance. As we've seen in the UK, liberals can and do coalition with either side. You tend to see similar things in the US, though--whatever party holds the Presidency usually wants to expand executive powers at the expense of civil liberties, which leads the other party to reflexively take liberal stances. For instance, the Clinton administration's efforts against cryptography and gun ownership led to Republican opposition on both fronts, while the Bush administration's advancement of warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention led to strong Democratic opposition that disappeared as soon as a Democratic president was pushing for the same things. Actually, the problem is that there is no coherent liberal agenda in America. Philosophically, gay marriage, gun rights, opposition to warrantless wiretapping, and marijuana legalization are all liberal viewpoints, but out of the current political parties, each position is respectively supported by Democrats, Republicans, no one, and a minority on both sides.
smsm42 14y ago
Oh, that's easy. Classic case described by Mises and probably before too. He imagines he's going to choose which parts are ignored and which aren't, or if he's more modest, he imagines somebody else which would be, by weird coincidence, agreeing with him on all counts except for some minor unimportant details. The good test for such concept is to ask such person to identify most unpleasant, unattractive, disgusting political figure, that holds views absolutely abhorrent to him and see if he still supports this case if that person if put in charge of choosing which part of the Constitution to ignore and which freedoms are unnecessary to have. Somehow they never think that would happen. That's why I am for limited government - I'd probably love to have government that does exactly what I want. But I know that would never happen, so I'd rather have one that does not give bad people in power ability to do too much of bad things. And anybody having any knowledge of history knows bad people in power happen way more often than one would like.
nathan_long 14y ago
Yes. I think the author is exactly wrong. The problem is not that we are too bound to the Constitution; it's that we allow violations of it at all. Constitutional violations like warrentless wiretapping should get an entire administration ousted overnight. If the Constitution is wrong in some areas, amend it. If you can't get enough people to agree that it's wrong, well, it sucks to be on the losing side of a vote, but democracy doesn't mean everyone always gets their way. It's supposed to be hard to change the fundamental laws of a land, because we want to be able to rely on them. Gridlock is another word for stability. >> 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. We should, yes. We should follow them whether they were in the Constitution or not. We also should refrain from stealing and murder. But I, for one, want consequences for those who don't.

hakaaak 14y ago

It isn't laziness. Change is disruptive. Disruption during instability (such as the economic condition of our country, political instability due to polarized nearly 50/50 political split of the people) is dangerous. But more importantly, estabilished lobbying powers inherently tend to equalize change unless one or more become significantly stronger and change the balance of power. And if those lobbying powers are not in favor of the change, it won't happen. Finally, change can lead to a great deal of uncertainty. Uncertainty is risk, and risk is typically bad when it comes to politics. Amendments to the constitution could happen of course, but this would be an unlikely time for them. It is more likely that the interpretation of the constitution would change. And that has changed very much over time.

lucian303 14y ago
It's not laziness, it's willful ignorance. Much worse.

lucian303 14y ago

Seriously. Ad hoc methods are for querying RDBMSs not for governing people.

csense 14y ago

> As a country, we just seem to be too (lazy?) to [amend the Constitution] The problem with passing Constitutional amendments right now is the highly partisan political climate of the last decade or two: The parties divide nearly fifty-fifty and often define themselves by their opposition to the other party. Many of the most commonly raised ideas for amendments -- getting rid of the death penalty, legalizing gay marriage, abolishing the Second Amendment -- are deeply divisive issues among the people. These factors make it very difficult for anyone to get the big majority necessary for a Constitutional amendment. Changes in US party politics will ultimately be forced by demographics. Minorities are increasing due to higher birth rates and immigration. The baby boomers will eventually start dying. Society as a whole is becoming more secular, especially among the young. Either the Republican party will redefine itself in order to steal some categories of currently Democratic voters, a new party will rise to prominence, or (IMHO the most likely scenario) when the Republican party ceases to be a threat to Democrats' political agendas in ~10-40 years, the Democrats will themselves collapse. The fault lines are already there: Liberals like Obama favor massive spending on ambitious social programs. Civil libertarians -- there seem to be quite a few here on HN -- want a reduced government presence and an expansion of individual rights. Centrists like Bill Clinton aren't opposed to overseas military intervention and support balanced budgets and the reform of social programs. It's easy to see this coalition disintegrating without the pressure presented by their current common political foe, the Republican party.

philwelch 14y ago
> The fault lines are already there: Liberals like Obama favor massive spending on ambitious social programs. Civil libertarians -- there seem to be quite a few here on HN -- want a reduced government presence and an expansion of individual rights. Centrists like Bill Clinton aren't opposed to overseas military intervention and support balanced budgets and the reform of social programs. The fact that you refer to "massive spending on ambitious social programs" as a "liberal" idea, and distinguish "liberal" from "civil libertarian", already kind of belies the issue. In most countries, there's a distinction between liberals and leftists. A liberal is someone who favores reduced government presence, strong individual rights, and markets--kind of like US libertarians, except far less extreme. An example would be the UK Liberal Democrats. Leftists are the ones who favor workers and social programs, and have strong ties to labor unions, like the UK Labour party. Conservatives are like conservatives here except, again, less extreme. Conservative parties in countries like the UK or Canada still tend to favor universal healthcare, for instance. As we've seen in the UK, liberals can and do coalition with either side. You tend to see similar things in the US, though--whatever party holds the Presidency usually wants to expand executive powers at the expense of civil liberties, which leads the other party to reflexively take liberal stances. For instance, the Clinton administration's efforts against cryptography and gun ownership led to Republican opposition on both fronts, while the Bush administration's advancement of warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention led to strong Democratic opposition that disappeared as soon as a Democratic president was pushing for the same things. Actually, the problem is that there is no coherent liberal agenda in America. Philosophically, gay marriage, gun rights, opposition to warrantless wiretapping, and marijuana legalization are all liberal viewpoints, but out of the current political parties, each position is respectively supported by Democrats, Republicans, no one, and a minority on both sides.

smsm42 14y ago

Oh, that's easy. Classic case described by Mises and probably before too. He imagines he's going to choose which parts are ignored and which aren't, or if he's more modest, he imagines somebody else which would be, by weird coincidence, agreeing with him on all counts except for some minor unimportant details. The good test for such concept is to ask such person to identify most unpleasant, unattractive, disgusting political figure, that holds views absolutely abhorrent to him and see if he still supports this case if that person if put in charge of choosing which part of the Constitution to ignore and which freedoms are unnecessary to have. Somehow they never think that would happen. That's why I am for limited government - I'd probably love to have government that does exactly what I want. But I know that would never happen, so I'd rather have one that does not give bad people in power ability to do too much of bad things. And anybody having any knowledge of history knows bad people in power happen way more often than one would like.

nathan_long 14y ago

Yes. I think the author is exactly wrong. The problem is not that we are too bound to the Constitution; it's that we allow violations of it at all. Constitutional violations like warrentless wiretapping should get an entire administration ousted overnight. If the Constitution is wrong in some areas, amend it. If you can't get enough people to agree that it's wrong, well, it sucks to be on the losing side of a vote, but democracy doesn't mean everyone always gets their way. It's supposed to be hard to change the fundamental laws of a land, because we want to be able to rely on them. Gridlock is another word for stability. >> 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. We should, yes. We should follow them whether they were in the Constitution or not. We also should refrain from stealing and murder. But I, for one, want consequences for those who don't.