4 ms·

Well I suppose we could start by having a written constitution rather than a uncodified constitution, otherwise, it seems to me, once they bring in legal measur

by gnerd 13y ago

Well I suppose we could start by having a written constitution rather than a uncodified constitution, otherwise, it seems to me, once they bring in legal measures as acts and statutes and then the public gets used to an idea, it is not long before it gets baked into case law and then we're as good as fucked once it is accepted as common law. Other than that, I suppose we could cross our fingers and hope for the best, like we did in the days before we had a constitutional monarchy, we would cross our fingers and hope we wouldn't get a shitty king. Well we don't need protection from our monarchs (as far as I can tell), we now are in dire need of protection from our government (and other "friendly" governments by extension). Our customs and traditions have done well for us, its amazing to me we got this far, but maybe its time to get a bit more serious about our protections of rights and have them baked into common law. I suppose there is a bit of irony that the protections we now seek from those who govern us are actually baked into the EU, but our country seems to be half in and half out (I'm a little angered I have to have cookie warnings on my web properties because of EU directives and yet my basic little right to privacy my grandparents generation helped put into the UN is not even taken seriously, never mind the EU equivalents).

JulianMorrison 13y ago
We could start with having a constitution written by rebel political idealists in the 19th century, rather than written by exactly the same kind of government insiders we'd want it to protect us against in the 21st. If they wrote a constitution now, it would suck (they did, it's the EU constitution, and it sucks).
- gnerd 13y ago
  You're not wrong. In my opinion, all constitutions suck. They are, after all, the proverbial horse designed by committee. But its better than nothing right? South Africa probably has the most liberal constitution in the world, that makes sense, it was drafted in modern times so takes into account modern problems like fairness and equality of homosexuals or transgender people. But in practise, I would personally doubt the same constitution is enforced to the same standards as say, Iceland (also a country with a modern constitution). The US, must have the gold standard of constitutions and there are arguments over if the right to bare arms meant semi-automatic weapons or just muskets. Does the 4th amendment just apply to physical property and letters or digital communications too? There is no perfect constitution, it is impossible. I don't agree with everything in the EU standards of law, but that's the sad thing, it is better than what we have now. The Germans have more protections than I do, for standards of rights our country authored and pushed on the world (with the US of course) in response to things like WW2. Its unacceptable, I would personally rather have dog shit protections than none at all.
tlarkworthy 13y ago
exactly, we need to roll back the terror laws now while its still possible.

by gnerd 13y ago

JulianMorrison 13y ago

We could start with having a constitution written by rebel political idealists in the 19th century, rather than written by exactly the same kind of government insiders we'd want it to protect us against in the 21st. If they wrote a constitution now, it would suck (they did, it's the EU constitution, and it sucks).

gnerd 13y ago
You're not wrong. In my opinion, all constitutions suck. They are, after all, the proverbial horse designed by committee. But its better than nothing right? South Africa probably has the most liberal constitution in the world, that makes sense, it was drafted in modern times so takes into account modern problems like fairness and equality of homosexuals or transgender people. But in practise, I would personally doubt the same constitution is enforced to the same standards as say, Iceland (also a country with a modern constitution). The US, must have the gold standard of constitutions and there are arguments over if the right to bare arms meant semi-automatic weapons or just muskets. Does the 4th amendment just apply to physical property and letters or digital communications too? There is no perfect constitution, it is impossible. I don't agree with everything in the EU standards of law, but that's the sad thing, it is better than what we have now. The Germans have more protections than I do, for standards of rights our country authored and pushed on the world (with the US of course) in response to things like WW2. Its unacceptable, I would personally rather have dog shit protections than none at all.

tlarkworthy 13y ago

exactly, we need to roll back the terror laws now while its still possible.