OK, off to bed. Will try to get on again in tomorrow. Sorry Joe-Cool, it got late.
__________________PEACE
I don’t believe this analogy is valid. The Constitution can’t be legitimately compared to a single apartment building. If a building analogy is needed, I think a mall might be a better one. The builders put up the structure and laid out the powers of the administrators, then left it to the individual stores (states) to decide on store policy, as long as they don’t conflict with the few mall policies. And the store owners themselves and even the customers have the ability to change those policies. This is not a really great analogy either, but better than yours I think.
But you do have a choice. You’re free to run for Congress and propose constitutional amendments. You’re free to run for your state legislature and propose a constitutional convention. You’re free to contact every legislator in the nation with suggestions. It’s not supposed to be easy to change the Constitution precisely because with an easy way to change it the whims of the day will become the laws of tomorrow. The process is designed to allow those who will be affected by the changes, we the people, ample time to consider the ramifications of the proposal. The fact that the Constitution has changed so little is a strength, not a weakness.
How would you suggest that the people be represented, if not proportionally in the House and by state in the Senate?
That language, Article I section 2, was overridden by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Whatever gave you the idea we live in a democracy? We live in a democratic republic. We elect representatives to speak for us in government. If someone doesn’t represent us as we wish, we vote them out of office. Going to the people for a vote on every issue (and who will say their issue is unimportant?) is, at least, impractical. Constitutents are of course encouraged to notify their representatives as to their wishes on particular issues, and it’s a less than canny politician who ignores her constituents.
The Civil War was not fought to free the slaves. Had it been possible to preserve the union without ending slavery, that’s what would have happened.
Oh yeah, that’s probably it. <shaking head and rolling eyes>
Insomnia strikes again.
Fun Fun.
OK Joe-Cool,
Briefly, I hope,
I have heard the vocal minority argument before. I don’t buy it. If the constitution is supposed to protect the majority from minority agendas, it’s doing a pretty poor job.
A minority IS having its agenda pursued by the government. But it’s not a vocal minority. You don’t have to scream loudly if you can afford to bribe congressmen.
Personally I don’t think this is accidental. Why is the electoral college there anyways?
I am not advocating a direct democracy. Simply a representational democracy with faith in its constituancy. Faith enough to give the people a real voice.
As for legal minutia, this is an American problem. Other democracies don’t put up with this type of legal tripe.
I resectfully submit that you have it backwords. The constitution has the judiciary doing the legislative branch’s job. The judges ARE suposed to follow the law, not make it. Judges shouldn’t judge the legislature. They should judge people under the law. The people should judge the legislature. That is democracy.
As for your murder law example, It’s silly.
Not that things don’t “work” that way now. But that they do.
No, they are not. Most are lawyers.
Lawyers are not trained in what is right or wrong. They are trained in what is legal. Not the same thing at all.
I wonder if this is why the laws are so numerous and complex?
{1sense:"say it! say it!}
{2sense:“OK, Then you be quiet”
It’s government of the lawyers,by the lawyers, for the lawyers. - I. Fergit
{6sense-“I detect regret about the apartment analogy”}
{2sense-“oh, your good Kreskin. back in your hole.”}
Hi Otto. Where’s Hagop?
Again, this is not a solutions thread,but I am not suggesting the House is unproportional.
The 14th amendment was overrode the wording yes. But the hatefull words are still on the document.
{1sense:“a minor complaint. Hit him where it hurts”}
{2sense:“SHUT UP”}
I would like to see more democracy and less republicanism then.
Also, a canny polititian knows where his bread gets buttered.
And as for the American Civil War, people say it wasn’t over slavery. But that does not make it true. Those words were propaganda then and they still are.
The Constitution is a contract with death!
Frederick Douglass
Otto again,
I’m not sure about the German constitution. But maybe compare it to that of the Weimar Republic.
I would guess the modern constitution(I think it’s called the Basic Law), has a stronger central government. And perhaps a more ceremonial upper house. Just a WAG, but interesting.
Old Smoke, the so-called fire chief, did nothing all evening but nod off and start awake. Being a cynic, I approved of him as a public official. The best kind are those who stay the hell out of the way and don’t mess with things. Except for me of course.
-Croaker
Lux Fiat,
I understand that the constitution was intended to be inefficient.
I just disagree that this is still the way to go.
{6sense- “I could channel Hitler if it would help get this overwith as soon as possible.”}
{1sense-“Right on.”}
{2sense-“You’re going to get me in trouble for tagline infringement! Good thing only I can here you.”}
Billdo,
Great handle. I love it.
It is the job of government to build consensus. If we could all agree on our own we wouldn’t need government.
In my Civil War example, no consensus was reached untill many were dead. This is to be avoided.
Building consensus before things get out of hand. I call this leadership.
Russia and China have problems of their own. But at least they have admitted they have a problem. And who knows, they may even solve some of them.
{1sense: “Come on! that was jingoism!”}
{2sense: “It was subtle enough.”}
{0sense: “Subtle my as…mpph…mmmmppppphh”}
News Flash: We don’t live in a democracy. We live in a Republic. You do have a voice: Your vote helps choose who represents you. Your representative’s votes help choose which laws will affect you.
A pure democracy would leave us in chaos. You can’t get 10 people in a room to agree where to get lunch, how do you propose to find a reasonable consensus with 230 million people clamoring for their own personal agendas?
Mere Life is not Victory.
Mere Death is not Defeat.
Joe Cool
Three things:
(1) Regarding the assertion that “all Americans think the government doesn’t work:” WRONG! In addition to those who posted above they believe the government works, please add me to that number.
(2) Regarding the assertion that “Separation of Church and State was a concept added later and separately:” WRONG! The concept is contained in the very words of the document itself (of course I include amendments as part of the constitution, see below). Or just maybe the OP has a different meaning of “Shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, etc.”
(3) Regarding the analogy of the contractor: IRRELEVANT! The Constitution specifically describes how to change it.
Thanks for playing, sorry you didn’t win a cigar. Now go back to 6th Grade Civics Class and attempt to learn something this time.
2sense wrote:
The people that call themselves “militias” in the modern U.S. are not Militias in any legal or Constitutional sense of that word. They are self-ruled bands of anti-government roughians that call themselves militias. Real militias are required to answer to the State civil authority (the legislature and the governor) – these so-called “militias” answer to no one but themselves.
But don’t take my word for it. It’s all right here: http://www.militia-watchdog.org/faq4.htm
Thank you for the link, Tracer.
Having grown up in northern Michigan,
(thats mid-lower-Michigan for you UPers)
I am familiar with the militias.
I am not a member.
Reformed gun control supporter,
2sense.
Monty,
Peace and Love brother 
Thank you for your reply. I envy your brevity and clarity.
{6sense:“I sense a military mind”}
This makes answering your post much easier. Thank you.
I hereby abandon this unwarrented, baseless, unthinking, unreasonable, insensitive, and downright foolish assumtion. I can’t imagine what I was thinking.
Not my argument.
Still smarting about that one. I’ve taken quite a beating there. If you wish to make an improved analogy,I will be happy to pick away at it.
3b
Yes, there is an amendment process. I am making the point that the restrictive nature of Article 5 leads to problems.
an example:
Prohibition.
Once it was passed(the amendment, not the Volstead Act) it was impossible to remove. If a tiny minority of the people(or more accuratly the people who are supposed to speak for them) hold firm, majority opinion doesn’t matter. It takes a supermajority to change the constitution.
So, Prohibition was bad. Most people knew it was bad. But there was nothing they could do about it. Undemocratic. And we still live with the social problems this mistake caused.(Organized Crime, the Kennedys, the Great Depression JUST KIDDING!)
The American Civil War is my other example.(see above)
A question for you:
Why was the electoral college created?
As to your final point,
My school didn’t teach civics in the 6th grade. So your assumption is false. And your insult ignored.
If you think a 6th grade civics class teaches all one needs to know to intelligently discuss this topic, well, I will understand if you do not comprehend my points.(note- you don’t have to agree with them to understand them)
___________________________Salaam
The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified January 16, 1919. It was repealed December 5, 1933. Impossible to remove? What are you talking about?
Otto: Evidently the OP’s not smarting enough from the other thing which gave him/her a serious beating.
What the heck, here goes on the Electoral College:
“Why was it created?” You ask? Simple, as the Constitution itself says, to elect the President and Vice-President of the United States. You may have noticed this, but just in case you haven’t: the Federal Government is a different entity from the State Governments. Another couple of interesting things for those of us who actually are both (a) capable of reading the Constitution, and (b) actually read that esteemend document is that: (1) The method of selecting the Prez & Veep have changed, by Amendment to the Constitution and (2) the method of selecting Senators has changed by the same method. For that matter, the enumeration of the populace now determines the distribution of the set number of seats in the House of Representatives; the original method was the enumeration determined the total number of Representatives and thus the House could have had (under the original system) thousands of seats depending on how large the national population got.
I feel the need to revisit the bit about Senators: the 1st system of selecting the Senators was that they were appointed by the State legislators.
In answer to your remark about my comment on 6th Grade Civics class: I didn’t assert that your particular school taught Civics in the 6th grade. What I did assert is that a 6th Grade Civics class does teach that. Now, if your school waited (waits?) until 12th grade, then kindly reinterpret it to say “12th Grade Civics class.” In any event, a competent Civics class in these United States does teach much of what one needs to know to discuss this topic intelligently; i.e., the Constitution. Failing that, one would hope that by the time you graduated (graduate?) from school, you would at least have the ability to read. I operate now under the assumption that you do given the particular medium of this particular debate at this particular moment. Given that ability, and the presumed application of it to the Constitution, you should have at least seen some of what the folks here have already told you. If not, well, what can one say about someone who “hears but does not listen?”
Now Monty, I think you are being too hard on 2sense. It is obvious that he dosen’t grasp the fact that the beauty of the Constitution are exactly the things he is bitching about. My WAG is that this comes from a lack of experence, certainly not a lack of inteligence. I think a productive aproach here would be to teach, not hastle. But that’s just MHO.
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Wow, what a lot of 2 bit nonsense from 2Sense. This’ll take a while to shred, but only due to sheer volume.
I’ll start with the OP. Just as a note, 2Sense, if I’m agreeing with you about anything in this I’m being sarcastic.
No, burning is too good for it. We need some better way to celebrate getting rid of the document that’s responsible for the complete lack of success our country has had. I’ll bet that if we had a halfway decent constitution we could have won at least one of those world wars.
Even if this were true, it wouldn’t mean anything. In case you hadn’t noticed, all Americans don’t agree with each other. If all Americans agreed that there were certain specific problems with the Constitution, that would have mean something. One thing even more Americans (have you ever met one, by the way) agree on is that the Constitution is pretty good.
The founders are well respected because they wrote a Constitution that brought into existence a radically new form of government, and has been in use for about 213 years. Find me someone else who’s ever done that.
Also, at what point did the “apartment building” collapse? I’m just wondering, since I figured that I would have noticed, but looking out my window it looks like America is still there. When your apartment building has a leaky roof, do you tear it down and build a new one?
Ignorant of what, exactly? Their area of expertise was in creating systems of government. They didn’t do so well with the Articles of Confederation, but their second effort has yet to be surpassed anywhere at any time. A rational person would conclude that they probably weren’t ignorant of anything terribly relevant.
Each state is a separate entity. Giving each one the same representation in the Senate puts them all on an equal footing there. The United States is a conglomerate of the states, not just a whole bunch of people. Also, if you read the Constitution, you’ll find that the Senate can’t do anything (well, a couple things) by itself. All laws have to pass both houses.
Also, representation means the group of elected representatives serving a constituency. The Senate is representational.
Because the last thing a government should be is rigid. Who wants laws that aren’t in a constant state of flux? And not just all the little laws, but the really important ones that dictate how the country is run as well.
Perhaps one reason that it’s so hard to amend the Constitution is because the rule of law shouldn’t be constantly subject to whatever the whim of the people happens to be. If there is a desperate need for some change to be made, it can be done, but unnecessary changes are kept to a minimum.
obscure (ob-skyoor) adj **(-scurer, -scurest)[b/] 1.dark, indistinct. 2. remote from people’s observation. 3.not famous, an obscure poet. 4. not easily understood, not clearly expressed.
Apparently you have a problem with the fact that the Constitution isn’t just lying aroud everywhere, or that it’s behind glass and not really easy to see. It’s definately pretty famous, and is pretty easily understood, with the exception of that run-on sentence it starts off with. example: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” How much easier can things get?
The Constitution does no such thing. It sets up a system of checks and balances, so that the power isn’t consolidated in one person or group. Nazi Germany is a great example of a streamlined government that was responsive to the voters. And everyone knew who to blame when things went wrong.
Equality is given it’s proper dues in the Constitution. Each person gets one vote and approximately equal representation in the House. Each state gets equal representation in the Senate. Most importantly, we are all given equal treatment under the law. What more do you want?
Now moving on to other posts of 2Sense’s
I will say that if you can’t build a car, how can you be smart enough to run one? Simple. Because establishing a government (or building a car) is a hell of a lot more difficult than
running one. Under the current system, the government is run mostly by people who know a bit about running the government. You are proposing that everyone (regardless of whether they are smart enough) go about establishing a government.
But they did not say that the government doesn’t work. Or even imply it. The government works. Every detail is not exactly the way everyone wants it, but that is far from admitting that it doesn’t work.
Look, I really don’t have time to vote on everything. I do vote for representatives who could bring up the idea of having another Constitutional Convention. I can even ask them to do so. The reason nobody does this is because it’s a dumb idea. If this isn’t democratic enough, it’s only because it works better.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial”>quote:</font><
Dave: Normally, I’d agree with you on this but 2sense is continuing to assert things which are false. As it is, he/she still asserts that "most people knew [Prohibition] was a bad idea. Sadly, the truth of the matter is that most people of the time (well, most voting people) thought it was a good idea (or at least voted as though they thought it was a good idea). Apparently, the wrong people were voting then.
…You fuck up one UBB tag…
grr… well, at least the quotes look right.
Come on, kids, play nice. This isn’t the pit. No need to go slinging insults. I disagree with what the guy is saying, but he does raise some interesting points. Why not answer them with your intelligence, instead of making a veiled implication that he doesn’t have any?
If you say it, mean it. If you mean it, do it.
If you do it, live it. If you live it, say it.
Joe Cool
I’ll be the first to admit that our government has flaws. In fact, it has some very serious flaws. But they are not caused by the constitution. It’s a brilliantly written and though-out document. A very sensible process. And the constitution itself admits that it’s not all-inclusive or perfect. So it includes a method of changing it.
The problems we have are caused by human greed and corruption. By a flawed Legal system that favors precision of language over common sense, and even over a sense of right and wrong.
But all things considered, if I were given a new nation to govern with its governmental system left 100% up to me, I would want a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to work from. I would probably adopt it nearly verbatim (minor changes here and there, but largely the same).
The men who drafted it had their “thinking tukes” on, so to speak. No, they weren’t perfect, they weren’t godlike, and they might have been downright scummy. But they had their heads on straight when they did this.
If you say it, mean it. If you mean it, do it.
If you do it, live it. If you live it, say it.
Joe Cool