9 ms·

Gödel’s Loophole in the US constitution

98 points by simonpure 12y ago

zrail 12y ago
I don't think it's anything to really worry about. Congress has sent thirty three amendments to the states in a period of 225 years. There have been over 11,000 proposals in that same time period[1]. Theoretically possible, sure. Fascinating, absolutely. Likely? Not really. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unite...
- sgtpepper 12y ago
  The constant eroding of the State's sovereignty and the consolidation of power into the Federal Government's hands make this somewhat more troubling in the future however. Especially as we move towards more pure democratic systems and away from representative republicism. See for instance the National Popular Vote Compact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat... A similar compact for approving amendments could be an issue for instance.
  - chetanahuja 12y ago
    I'm curious as to how making the presidential election decided by popular national vote has an effect of "eroding State's sovereignty"? As I see it, a national election decided by a national vote is the most natural thing in the world. The only effect of arcane (and frankly, absurd) electoral college system is to put disproportionate power in the hand of some of the states at the expense of other states.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - baddox 12y ago
      The electoral college (and similarly, the now defunct election of US senators by state legislatures) only seems unnatural in the context of what states have become. They're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects. edit: I mixed up my EU facts below. The European Parliament is filled by direct election. It's the Council that is elected by the executive branches of member states, and is thus more analogous to the US Senate before switching to direct election. The EU is complicated for my American brain to keep straight! I still might have some of this wrong. Compare the electoral college to the European Parliamentary elections, which are decided not by all EU citizens but by the Council, or the President of the European Convention, who is elected by the European Parliament.
      - chetanahuja 12y ago
        They're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects. In other words, they are states -- as opposed to nations (as per your EU example).
  - protomyth 12y ago
    If you read the amendment process, the states can get together and amend the constitution if pushed too hard by the Feds. It hasn't been done, but it is a valid avenue.
    - eximius 12y ago
      Which could, theoretically, be revoked quicker than the States could finish. Hence Godel's initial issue.
      - protomyth 12y ago
        The same state legislators that vote on the amendments would have to cut their own throat (not likely).
gpcz 12y ago
I believe the Founding Fathers were aware of this loophole, since Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it" [1]. Having a just government requires constant vigilance. [1]: http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Quote.21EA http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Q...
sootzoo 12y ago
Reminds me of Nomic[1], a thought experiment which appears in an appendix to Peter Suber's excellent book, "The Paradox of Self-Amendment" [2]. Choice quote from the introduction to Nomic: If law-making is a game, then it is a game in which changing the rules is a move. [1] http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20Suber%2c%20%20Nomic%20.html?sequence=1 http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20... [2] http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418 http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418
- lisper 12y ago
  People actually play this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play http://agoranomic.org/ http://agoranomic.org/
  - dalke 12y ago
    Less generically, I've played the game, using the rules straight from Hofstader's book.
MarkPNeyer 12y ago
a single inconsistency in a formal logical system means you can prove anything. if both A and !A are true, then you can prove anything you wish via contradiction. assume !B. A & !A - which is a contradiction. therefore, our assumption was wrong, and thus B is true. this means a single contradiction in a legal system renders the whole thing meaningless. everything becomes both legal and illegal at the same time. a single semicolon can break an entire program because the program _must_ be consistent. that doesn't happen in the law because you have a judge who, at some point, will get pissed off at you. it doesn't matter if two conflicting rules - one dealing with the importing of flowers, and the other dealing with navigating riverways - are in conflict with each other. the judge isn't going to accept that as an argument for why you should be allowed to jaywalk - even if a technically correct interpretation of the law would say you should. all of this is to say that the claim 'we have a nation of laws, not a nation of men' is entirely fatuous. it's just not true. we have a nation of men interpreting rules that are in a very convoluted language, designed to be 'unambiguous' - and yet still vague enough for an education person to find and exploit this ambiguity. anyone reasonable would agree with me. if you disagree, you probably think 'reasonable cause' is reasonably clear.
- ArtB 12y ago
  > a single inconsistency in a formal logical system means you can prove anything. if both A and !A are true, then you can prove anything you wish via contradiction. I believe this has been solved in intuitionistic logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic). If you don't except the law of the excluded middle and require constructive proofs you avoid many of these shenanigans.
  - MereInterest 12y ago
    A question. Wouldn't this line of reasoning still work? It is entirely a constructive proof, as opposed to the GP's proof by contradiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion#The_proof-theoretic_argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion#The_proo...
  - quchen 12y ago
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
I've only read the abstract. I feel no need to read the entire 37 page paper. This topic might be interesting to a philosopher, but I don't think it has any practical significance. We had a flurry of amendments to the US constitution back in the 1960s. Since then, in 1971 we gave 18 year olds the right to vote. There was only one other amendment since then, in 1992, and it was "housekeeping". It delayed salary changes for legislators until after the next election. I'm old enough to remember the contentious proposed Equal Rights Amendment. [1] It kicked around for years in the 1970s but was never ratified. Since then, nothing. And, given the political climate in the USA (the "red state" vs "blue state" dichotomy) it's unlikely that any new amendment would pass anytime soon, unless it was necessary to solve a very very critical problem. It's hard to believe that an amendment to change Article V would ever pass both houses of Congress then get ratified by 38 states. Not. Gonna. Happen. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
- dalke 12y ago
  Not even the balanced budget amendment? Michigan just voted for it, via a new constitutional convention, making it either the 23rd or 34th state to do so. See http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/04/accidental_history_how_michiga.html http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/04/accident... .
  - PhantomGremlin 12y ago
    You're right. That would be "interesting". Perhaps even "May you live in interesting times".[1] It's definitely a wildcard. The last time it was "threatened" is over 100 years ago. According to Wiki, Congress then passed [2] the 17th amendment: for fear that such a convention—if permitted to assemble—might stray to include issues above and beyond just the direct election of U.S. Senators It's sad that each and every state has to maintain at least the pretense of a balanced budget, and yet the Federal government is utterly incapable of doing so. I wonder how different things might be if the 17th amendment never was ratified, if each state's Senators were still directly appointed by each state legislature? Would the states be able to more effectively check the growth of Federal power? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_tim... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Stat...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ewoodrich 12y ago
To be honest, I don't really see how this is a "loophole". The amendment process was intended to allow the Constitution to remain a living document, and balance longevity with future flexibility. I don't think the framers would have been at all surprised that it is possible to effectively dismantle the Constitution or the Union entirely through amendments. If this were not intended, why weren't additional restrictions placed on the scope of amendments? As it stands, Article V places the following limits: "... provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Unless I'm misunderstanding some part of this paper, this seems more like a feature, than a bug. It also reflects practical realities: if a legislature overwhelmingly supports a change, any roadblocks or restrictions will most likely be ineffective in the long term.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  It's a loophole because it does not maintain consistency of the law and allows for an internally modifying process. I agree with you that it is not "one weird trick" or a "hack" or something that is unknown and easily exploitable, which is why I think Einstein et al. dismissed the concern, supposing this is the actual concern that Godel was proposing. If anything the adoption of the 22nd Amendment - using the process that the 5th allows - somewhat shows that the system works the opposite direction by placing more restrictions on potential tyrannies.
  - baddox 12y ago
    It's supposed to allow for an internally modifying process. That's the entire point.
  - dpierce9 12y ago
    There is also no requirement for consistency in the constitution. Of course, we could amend it to add one.
- raldi 12y ago
jrochkind1 12y ago
Is this a joke?
mcenedella 12y ago
Perhaps most likely is that the Constitutional Convention, in eyes of some anti-Federalists, did not have the legal authority to convene and propose a new Constitution. As the National Archives describes: “Some continued to argue that the delegates in Philadelphia had exceeded their congressional authority by replacing the Articles of Confederation with an illegal new document.” [1] Because (i)the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote to alter it, (ii) the Constitutional Convention was only empowered to propose alterations to the Articles and (iii) the Constitution, as adopted, broke the “unanimous vote required for alterations” rule, these anti-Federalists, and perhaps Gödel, felt the US Constitution was not established on firm legal footing. [2, 3, 4] The obvious answer — that the government derives its just consent from the governed, and should they choose to alter it, accept it in democratic votes in each of the states, and abide by it, it becomes both de jury and de facto law — is the superior one, IMHO. [1] http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/ratification.html http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/r... [2] http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratification_of_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratifi... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  Not sure why someone downvoted you. You raised a very interesting meta-question. Not that it's of any practical significance 200 years later, but the Articles of Confederation are very much an important part of US history.
skywhopper 12y ago
The main flaw in this argument is the assumption that governmental systems can or ought to be reduced to logic puzzles. The real world doesn't operate on a mathematical plane. The Constitution is only meaningful so long as sufficient members of the government and the citizenry accept it as an authority and share a somewhat similar understanding of its implications. If the government goes off track from the Constitution with the willingness of the populace there's nothing in the Constitution or the world that can stop it. Consider the birth of the Constitution itself: there was no mandate for an entirely new baseline document to replace the Articles of Confederation. But one was created and the states adopted it. It came into power because the citizens of the United States gave it power. That's the only way governments are formed and changed. The founders of the US understood that very well.
murbard2 12y ago
The article attempts to list various reasons why Einstein and Morgensten showed no interest in the flaw. I'll propose a fifth: - Einstein & Morgensten understood that the constitution is enforced by a set of institutions, beliefs, incentives and interpretations, not by an algorithmic execution of its rules. As such, Godel's point was irrelevant: of course the constitution didn't preclude the US from becoming a de facto dictatorship, and Godel's loophole would probably not be the practical way to go about it. In the context of politics, it's a curiosity.
- murbard2 12y ago
  Everyone's favorite actual loophole is of course the commerce clause butterfly effect. "The flap of the wing of a butterfly affects interstate commerce, therefore it can be regulated by the federal government"
djscram 12y ago
Only read the abstract, but Godel's work is pretty well known. He was not interested in showing a "flaw" in the Constitution, but in showing the logical systems of sufficient complexity are ALL either incomplete or or inconsistent. The Constitution is only an example. There aren't any political implications to this at all.

98 points by simonpure 12y ago

zrail 12y ago

I don't think it's anything to really worry about. Congress has sent thirty three amendments to the states in a period of 225 years. There have been over 11,000 proposals in that same time period[1]. Theoretically possible, sure. Fascinating, absolutely. Likely? Not really. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unite...

sgtpepper 12y ago
The constant eroding of the State's sovereignty and the consolidation of power into the Federal Government's hands make this somewhat more troubling in the future however. Especially as we move towards more pure democratic systems and away from representative republicism. See for instance the National Popular Vote Compact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat... A similar compact for approving amendments could be an issue for instance.
- chetanahuja 12y ago
  I'm curious as to how making the presidential election decided by popular national vote has an effect of "eroding State's sovereignty"? As I see it, a national election decided by a national vote is the most natural thing in the world. The only effect of arcane (and frankly, absurd) electoral college system is to put disproportionate power in the hand of some of the states at the expense of other states.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - baddox 12y ago
    The electoral college (and similarly, the now defunct election of US senators by state legislatures) only seems unnatural in the context of what states have become. They're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects. edit: I mixed up my EU facts below. The European Parliament is filled by direct election. It's the Council that is elected by the executive branches of member states, and is thus more analogous to the US Senate before switching to direct election. The EU is complicated for my American brain to keep straight! I still might have some of this wrong. Compare the electoral college to the European Parliamentary elections, which are decided not by all EU citizens but by the Council, or the President of the European Convention, who is elected by the European Parliament.
    - chetanahuja 12y ago
      They're no longer sovereign states with a central federal government that takes care of a very important but limited set of things. They're now closer to administrative districts in many respects. In other words, they are states -- as opposed to nations (as per your EU example).
- protomyth 12y ago
  If you read the amendment process, the states can get together and amend the constitution if pushed too hard by the Feds. It hasn't been done, but it is a valid avenue.
  - eximius 12y ago
    Which could, theoretically, be revoked quicker than the States could finish. Hence Godel's initial issue.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      The same state legislators that vote on the amendments would have to cut their own throat (not likely).

gpcz 12y ago

I believe the Founding Fathers were aware of this loophole, since Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it" [1]. Having a just government requires constant vigilance. [1]: http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Quote.21EA http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Q...

sootzoo 12y ago

Reminds me of Nomic[1], a thought experiment which appears in an appendix to Peter Suber's excellent book, "The Paradox of Self-Amendment" [2]. Choice quote from the introduction to Nomic: If law-making is a game, then it is a game in which changing the rules is a move. [1] http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20Suber%2c%20%20Nomic%20.html?sequence=1 http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10288408/Peter%20... [2] http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418 http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10243418

lisper 12y ago
People actually play this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic#Online_play http://agoranomic.org/ http://agoranomic.org/
- dalke 12y ago
  Less generically, I've played the game, using the rules straight from Hofstader's book.

MarkPNeyer 12y ago

a single inconsistency in a formal logical system means you can prove anything. if both A and !A are true, then you can prove anything you wish via contradiction. assume !B. A & !A - which is a contradiction. therefore, our assumption was wrong, and thus B is true. this means a single contradiction in a legal system renders the whole thing meaningless. everything becomes both legal and illegal at the same time. a single semicolon can break an entire program because the program _must_ be consistent. that doesn't happen in the law because you have a judge who, at some point, will get pissed off at you. it doesn't matter if two conflicting rules - one dealing with the importing of flowers, and the other dealing with navigating riverways - are in conflict with each other. the judge isn't going to accept that as an argument for why you should be allowed to jaywalk - even if a technically correct interpretation of the law would say you should. all of this is to say that the claim 'we have a nation of laws, not a nation of men' is entirely fatuous. it's just not true. we have a nation of men interpreting rules that are in a very convoluted language, designed to be 'unambiguous' - and yet still vague enough for an education person to find and exploit this ambiguity. anyone reasonable would agree with me. if you disagree, you probably think 'reasonable cause' is reasonably clear.

ArtB 12y ago
> a single inconsistency in a formal logical system means you can prove anything. if both A and !A are true, then you can prove anything you wish via contradiction. I believe this has been solved in intuitionistic logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic). If you don't except the law of the excluded middle and require constructive proofs you avoid many of these shenanigans.
- MereInterest 12y ago
  A question. Wouldn't this line of reasoning still work? It is entirely a constructive proof, as opposed to the GP's proof by contradiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion#The_proof-theoretic_argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion#The_proo...
- quchen 12y ago

PhantomGremlin 12y ago

I've only read the abstract. I feel no need to read the entire 37 page paper. This topic might be interesting to a philosopher, but I don't think it has any practical significance. We had a flurry of amendments to the US constitution back in the 1960s. Since then, in 1971 we gave 18 year olds the right to vote. There was only one other amendment since then, in 1992, and it was "housekeeping". It delayed salary changes for legislators until after the next election. I'm old enough to remember the contentious proposed Equal Rights Amendment. [1] It kicked around for years in the 1970s but was never ratified. Since then, nothing. And, given the political climate in the USA (the "red state" vs "blue state" dichotomy) it's unlikely that any new amendment would pass anytime soon, unless it was necessary to solve a very very critical problem. It's hard to believe that an amendment to change Article V would ever pass both houses of Congress then get ratified by 38 states. Not. Gonna. Happen. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

dalke 12y ago
Not even the balanced budget amendment? Michigan just voted for it, via a new constitutional convention, making it either the 23rd or 34th state to do so. See http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/04/accidental_history_how_michiga.html http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/04/accident... .
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  You're right. That would be "interesting". Perhaps even "May you live in interesting times".[1] It's definitely a wildcard. The last time it was "threatened" is over 100 years ago. According to Wiki, Congress then passed [2] the 17th amendment: for fear that such a convention—if permitted to assemble—might stray to include issues above and beyond just the direct election of U.S. Senators It's sad that each and every state has to maintain at least the pretense of a balanced budget, and yet the Federal government is utterly incapable of doing so. I wonder how different things might be if the 17th amendment never was ratified, if each state's Senators were still directly appointed by each state legislature? Would the states be able to more effectively check the growth of Federal power? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_tim... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Stat...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ewoodrich 12y ago

To be honest, I don't really see how this is a "loophole". The amendment process was intended to allow the Constitution to remain a living document, and balance longevity with future flexibility. I don't think the framers would have been at all surprised that it is possible to effectively dismantle the Constitution or the Union entirely through amendments. If this were not intended, why weren't additional restrictions placed on the scope of amendments? As it stands, Article V places the following limits: "... provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Unless I'm misunderstanding some part of this paper, this seems more like a feature, than a bug. It also reflects practical realities: if a legislature overwhelmingly supports a change, any roadblocks or restrictions will most likely be ineffective in the long term.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
It's a loophole because it does not maintain consistency of the law and allows for an internally modifying process. I agree with you that it is not "one weird trick" or a "hack" or something that is unknown and easily exploitable, which is why I think Einstein et al. dismissed the concern, supposing this is the actual concern that Godel was proposing. If anything the adoption of the 22nd Amendment - using the process that the 5th allows - somewhat shows that the system works the opposite direction by placing more restrictions on potential tyrannies.
- baddox 12y ago
  It's supposed to allow for an internally modifying process. That's the entire point.
- dpierce9 12y ago
  There is also no requirement for consistency in the constitution. Of course, we could amend it to add one.
raldi 12y ago

jrochkind1 12y ago

Is this a joke?

mcenedella 12y ago

Perhaps most likely is that the Constitutional Convention, in eyes of some anti-Federalists, did not have the legal authority to convene and propose a new Constitution. As the National Archives describes: “Some continued to argue that the delegates in Philadelphia had exceeded their congressional authority by replacing the Articles of Confederation with an illegal new document.” [1] Because (i)the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote to alter it, (ii) the Constitutional Convention was only empowered to propose alterations to the Articles and (iii) the Constitution, as adopted, broke the “unanimous vote required for alterations” rule, these anti-Federalists, and perhaps Gödel, felt the US Constitution was not established on firm legal footing. [2, 3, 4] The obvious answer — that the government derives its just consent from the governed, and should they choose to alter it, accept it in democratic votes in each of the states, and abide by it, it becomes both de jury and de facto law — is the superior one, IMHO. [1] http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/ratification.html http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/r... [2] http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q91.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratification_of_the_United_States_Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_drafting_and_ratifi... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism

PhantomGremlin 12y ago
Not sure why someone downvoted you. You raised a very interesting meta-question. Not that it's of any practical significance 200 years later, but the Articles of Confederation are very much an important part of US history.

skywhopper 12y ago

The main flaw in this argument is the assumption that governmental systems can or ought to be reduced to logic puzzles. The real world doesn't operate on a mathematical plane. The Constitution is only meaningful so long as sufficient members of the government and the citizenry accept it as an authority and share a somewhat similar understanding of its implications. If the government goes off track from the Constitution with the willingness of the populace there's nothing in the Constitution or the world that can stop it. Consider the birth of the Constitution itself: there was no mandate for an entirely new baseline document to replace the Articles of Confederation. But one was created and the states adopted it. It came into power because the citizens of the United States gave it power. That's the only way governments are formed and changed. The founders of the US understood that very well.

murbard2 12y ago

The article attempts to list various reasons why Einstein and Morgensten showed no interest in the flaw. I'll propose a fifth: - Einstein & Morgensten understood that the constitution is enforced by a set of institutions, beliefs, incentives and interpretations, not by an algorithmic execution of its rules. As such, Godel's point was irrelevant: of course the constitution didn't preclude the US from becoming a de facto dictatorship, and Godel's loophole would probably not be the practical way to go about it. In the context of politics, it's a curiosity.

murbard2 12y ago
Everyone's favorite actual loophole is of course the commerce clause butterfly effect. "The flap of the wing of a butterfly affects interstate commerce, therefore it can be regulated by the federal government"

djscram 12y ago

Only read the abstract, but Godel's work is pretty well known. He was not interested in showing a "flaw" in the Constitution, but in showing the logical systems of sufficient complexity are ALL either incomplete or or inconsistent. The Constitution is only an example. There aren't any political implications to this at all.