How would you like to change the United States Constitution?

This might not totally apply but I wish I could make more americans realize it's NOT hopeless cause we have a right to overthrow the government. I also wish I could fly though.

 

There is no reason to overthrow it. There is only the need to hold it accountable. The constitution allowed for the right of the voting public to affect the role of government and modify the way it is enacted. But the people have dropped the ball. They are either uninformed of their responsibility and role in the governance of this country or they have willing relinquished their personal power in exchange for promised security either personal or monetary. Doing that is just uninformed and plain stupid. You've sold your personal power and rights. One should consider for what exact purpose and return? Did the sacrifice equal the return? In most cases not!

 

In short yes, if it was to come to that. But built into it are means to amend it by which war is not necessary, only vigilance and responsibility.

 

I agree Rat, and wonder why the new generations only see money as a moving force of good. The constitution was based on basic human rights not the capitalist goals of global corporations. That's the basic flaw of modern society it's all based soley on monetary power. It's not about what college you attend or how much you make each year, how much your home is worth...life is about how you treat and respect others.

Power is not about how much you own or control, in the end the most powerful people were those that affected the lives of people in a way that after their deaths they were remembered and respected not by what they owned or controlled, but how they behaved and how they respected others. Buddha, Christ, Mohamed, Confucious...hard to top them. And posers always try to use them to benefit their own means because they lack the personal integrity to ever live up to their examples.

 

Getting back to how would you change the constitution any of you ever look at amendments 11-27 that have been ratified and are amendments. There are only about four or five that even made much of difference to the lives of the average citizen. Those were broad encompassing amendments;

http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html

Let's see if your vision of the important ones matches mine:

#13. The Prohibition of Slavery
#15. The rights of black men to the vote
#19. The right of women to vote
#23. Grants Washington DC Electoral votes(because all citizens have right to vote and have their vote matter)
#26. The right of eighteen year olds to vote

All the rest were simply changes in congressional rules and regulations that inflicted restrictions on the people or in the case of the 21st repeals one of those restrictions, or granted benefits to elected officials.

 

Why do we perrennially focus on a ban on flag burning as an amendment with such gusto, but we don't feel the same about the Equal Rights Amendment.

Why is this threatening?

 

congressional term limits
judiciary term limits
no executive term limit
no executive priveledge
enhanced line item veto

state constitutions trump federal law, federal constitution trumps state constitution, federal law trumps state law

right to bear arms expanded to right of the american people to contract with arms manufacturers (lockheed martin, boeing) in collective bargaining groups <well organized militias by another name>

the right of states to establish their own currencies and establish their own economic policies.

 

Enhanced line item veto, hasn't this president shown us that executive veto power has reached it's apex already.

As to Executive priveledge, it can only be abused if Congress doesn't step up and do their job of oversight and constraint.

I favor term limits for everyone. That way they can't sell themselves to the highest paying lobbyist.

If when mentioning the judiciary you mean the Supreme Court, they should be above political manipulation, but I know that they are not. Clarence Thomas' appointment proved that. This is probably a man that shouldn't sit on a local school board.

As to buying arms from the big arms dealers I am sure if you have enough money it's possible today.

As for the rights of States, shit... here in California we didn't even have the right to reelect our Governor Gray Davis, the republicans and this current administration forced a special election and got their Governator elected and the elected governor ousted, with an implied promise to the public that they would amend the constitution and let this Austrian movie star/muscleman run for president in the future. Talk about selling celebrity. It was funnier than Minnesota actually electing a Wrestler as governor legitimately. Or even the republicans spending money to get Lieberman elected even though his party didn't want him. So we now have a vote breaking independent Senator that was bought and paid for by the republicans, throwing a wrench into everything the democrats try to do. But on the record he's listed as a democrat. One thing for sure he's not what he says he is. He and Al Gore deserved each other. We have a environmentalist that is now selling shares that allow polluters to continue to pollute, and a Senator that points only towards Israel.

 

This would be a bad idea because it would increase the power of the Legislative Branch to a level that puts it out of balance with the other two branches. The Legislative Branch already has the power to impeach justices as well as confirm them to the bench. If you also gave them the ability to overturn decisions, then the Judiciary's role in INTERPRETING law becomes irrelevant because if they don't interpret it in a way that the Legislative Branch deems fit, then their interpretation is thrown out. Also, because the federal Judiciary isn't elected, you couldn't have recall elections.

The Judicial Branch has the power it has because it maintains STABILITY in a system that is designed to be subject to the whims of the electorate. This is why they are appointed to what are called 'lifetime' terms (it actually says 'good behavior' in the Constituton). It isn't designed to be subject to the political whims of the other two branches or the electorate and nor should it be.

 

Lucky

How the fuck is matt or anyone else (me.. whoever...) supposed to KNOW what to do...

I’m being a bit disingenuous here you might even say ironic.

Rat does have ideas on what people should do the problem is that he will not discuss them openly or honestly because they all seem to help the very wealthy elites he shouts so loudly to be against.

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I think talking about it DOES help..

I very, very much agree and I am very willing to discuss Rats or anyone else’s views, that is if they are willing to discuss them. The problem as I say with Rat is that he doesn’t like talking about them because when he has its very clear they favour the wealthy.

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id say the power is in numbers. we have the fucking fight to overthrow the government. truly. if it becomes dangerous, oppressive...um duh? seriously.... becomes? its BEEN THAT WAY. I say overthrow the bitches.. have enough. we have every right to do so ... but we need people.

And then what?

You’ve had your revolution, you’ve got the ‘bitches’, these enemies of the people, what then? Are they to be summarily executed or put on trial, if they are to face the law, what law, who’s law, have they rights if so what are they, who or what guarantees them?

What about the supposed conspiracy is there to be investigations if so by who and what powers would they have and what stops it becoming a witch hunt?

What are the principles on which you would build your state?

Anarchist, socialist, libertarian, communist, democratic, capitalist, oligarchy, status quo, redistribution, parliamentary, presidential, proportional representation, first past the post, direct participation and so on and so on and so on…

And in the context of this thread - Is there going to be a written constitution or are you going to play it by ear? And who writes or decides it?

Building something is a lot harder than just knocking it down and to build something that’s worth having is a lot harder still.

You say it annoys you when someone asks you to explain yourself, to explain what you think or what your views are, well I wouldn’t want to stumble into a revolution that replaced something bad with something worse.

And if people will not explain there views or agenda (or like Rat try to actually hide them) I begin to wonder if they’re not really got the peoples best interests at heart.

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and seriously would you rather people didnt warn n just be silent? whats the use in that?

Hitler warned and was listened to, was Germany in 1945 a better place for the listening?

As I’ve pointed out before the methods used by so many of the right wing conspiracy theorists are very similar to those used by the early Nazis.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=104835

I listen to their warnings and I question, I question the motives and I wonder why so many of them don’t wish to talk openly and honestly about what they’d like done, what kind of solutions they’d have to the problems they are warning against.

If people asked such questions in the early Nazis meetings they got beaten up because the Nazis didn’t like to answer such questions, later people were too afraid to ask difficult questions because those that did were sent off to concentration camps to be‘re-educated’.

And when the people were too cowered to ask any questions they then got some answers – what kind of government – a authoritarian dictatorship, what kind of system - an economy and government that needed war to exist and they also found out what final solution was found for the ‘Jewish problem’.

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Now I’m not saying anyone’s a Nazis or anything, I’m just giving one example from history, but I do wonder what some people are.

You want a revolution, fine if that’s what you want, but I still want to know what things you’d want to do even if you find it annoying.

So despite your annoyance I’m going to continue to ask you questions and if you don’t seem willing to answer them then I’m going to ask you, why?

 

How about direct elections to the Supreme Court?

Not an open field but -

One congressional candidate
One Presidential candidate
And one put forward by the judiciary

Then let the people decide.

 

So basically you want a president that can be in office for 30 years and every state to have to deal with it's own economy/customs and such. Once you have your own economy you're no longer a single country as much as you are a bunch of almost independent states in a mutual defense contract.

Besides, how would the federal government work in any kind of efficiency if it had to deal with the possibilities of 50 different currencies.

 

Wow, good post Balbus. I never saw that National Libertarian compared to Nazis thread until just now.

*reads*

 

Original idea.

 

There is one easy change which would make a great improvement in the federal government.
The House of Representatives isn't big enough.
The House of Representatives was always suppose to be the " peoples " branch and we have gotten away from that.
No congressional district should have more than 200,000 people. Any district which reaches that population should be divided in half and a new congressman elected. This would have the effect of bringing that branch closer to the people and making it more available to a variety of political views and parties.
Sure, we would have probably 300 congressmen, but why not ? More representatives mean more democracy and more exposure to new ideas and political parties.

 

We have more then 300 congressmen as there is right now though

 

What about a single six-year Presidential term.

.

 

I was mistaken about that.
The number of Congressmen is fixed at 435.
However, the average Congressional District overall is almost 700,000 people. Some districts have a couple of million people.
Also through gerrymandering, most congressmen have an easy time getting re-elected.
I still say the districts should be divided up and redrawn based more upon population and there should be more Representatives with smaller constituencies.

 

The number of congressmen though can be changed, it just requires congress to change it.

 

In the United States there is too much of a tendency to assume that the U.S. Constitution is somehow the word of God. Even atheists sometimes seem to think that it is sacred. Libertarians like to pretend that any divergence from laissez faire capitalism violates the Constitution.

I do not revere the Constitution. Nevertheless, the last time I would have felt comfortable with a new Constitutional Convention would have been during the New Deal. As long as the Republican Party dominates the country I would rather keep what we have and make incremental changes.

Also, it is easy to find reasons to criticize what exists. What does not exist may work much less well in practice than in theory.