And? That has nothing to do with courts protecting personal liberties.
This was addressed to Lumpy’s post, of course.
I think you are right though he doesn’t appear interested in debating his point. At least with me. 
My point is that imposing this view on the rest of us permanently by taking away our right to consent to the laws we live under is tyranny. Well intentioned tyranny perhaps, but oppression nonetheless.
Opression is not the same thing as a restriction from oppression. A restriction from establishing a tyranny is not the same thing as tyranny. Liberal’s post only suggested that we make certain the rights of individuals to have a voice in their laws never be taken away. This is not the same thing as “taking away our right to consent to the laws we live under”. You have a very odd definition for these words.
This post includes a quote which sums up my objection to your definitions quite well.
Who has advocated taking away your right to consent? If you wish to be a man’s slave, it is none of my business.
Back to the original question, I did not see where you would be constrained to what might be acceptable to the 18th century Founding Fathers. Hence, I would offer a radical addition to the Bill of Rights: “No person shall be subject to discrimination of any sort due to their age, race, color, national origin, gender, religion or lack thereof, political beliefs, or sexual preference with the exception that states may establish minimum ages for voting.”
I’m extremely curious about what your libertopian constitution would look like.
If I am understanding you correctly, you are pointing out that the laws protecting life, liberty, property would have to be imposed on everyone, right? If so, this is a thing I’ve seen several times, and I don’t get it. Libertarians, in general, believe that it is bad to impose rules on people. However, since having no rules at all equates to “the strongest shall rule”, the idea behind libertarian rules is to impose a minimum set of rules, i.e. provide as much freedom for every individual as possible. Everyone is subject to this “tyranny”, but it is, as far as anyone has been able to show, the minimal amount of “tyranny” that avoids anarchy.
Here’s the part I don’t get: Several times, I’ve seen people point out that these rules are imposed, with the implication that this is a shortcoming of libertarianism. And yet, these same people turn out to be in favor of imposing a whole host of rules, including those that are designed to redistribute income. How can you complain about minimal libertarian “tyranny” and yet be in favor of a whole lot more and still be the same person?
It seems to me that, if we are agreed that imposing rules on people without their consent is bad, then why aren’t we agreed that a libertarian government would be the best one, since it is built on imposing as few rules as possible?
-VM
Well, I don’t know if I’m quite up to a constitution-writing task, but I can try to give you an idea of what it would be like. I’ve always liked the Declaration of Independence statement of equality. I would definitely want something similar, but I probably wouldn’t try to turn it into a notion handed down from God. If I were writing it, it would be something more straightforward, like, “We are establishing a nation dedicated to the belief that every person has equal rights to life, liberty, and the ownership and enjoyment of property, and that no person should be subjected to another’s will by force or fraud.” I would specify what is meant by these rights–that is, a government is being created whose sole purpose is to protect every person from having his rights infringed by another. Theoretically, everything else is just details.
Clearly, there would have to be a court system to settle disputes, and I like the idea of a last appeal, like the Supreme Court. I do NOT so much like the pure adversarial nature of our court process. In addition to plaintiffs and defendants, I would want to add someone who doesn’t serve either side with a mandate to find the truth. I think I would also like to have some built-in punishment mechanism to curtail groundless legal actions.
There also would have to be some form of executive, to enforce the protection of individual rights. At the same time, there should be little need for laws as complex and convoluted as we have here now. Rather than a Congress like we have now, I would have one “house” that operated sort of like a board of directors, with half elected every few years (3 or 4). Their job would be to set policy and appoint executive(s) to implement it. For example, they might hire an executive to oversee policing, and another to interact with governments of other countries. They would also be required to see that an executive was tasked with protecting rights in cases where regular property rights are not practical to apply, like air pollution and such. Maintenance of a military would be solely for defensive purposes. They would be elected by a proportional voting system so that the top x vote-getters would serve. I think that, as much as possible, I would want to keep day-to-day policing at a community level.
The directors would also be charged with government financing. Ideally, as much of the money as possible would come from fines and such for wrong-doers. Beyond that, I don’t have a strong stance on tax policy other than that it be for nothing more than protecting individual rights.
In the highest positions, “directors”, executives, and Supreme Court justice, no one would be allowed to serve more than 5 years or so. And their salaries would be constitutionally tied to the median income of the citizenry.
The Supreme Court would have to have authority to make sure that the “directors” do not exceed the bounds of their mandate. The question, to me, is how to select justices and how to ensure that they don’t start “reinterpreting” the constitution a few years down the road. It’s the age-old problem of who will watch the watchers, and I don’t have a sure answer for it. There would probably have to be a mechanism for changes in the world that were unanticipated. Best I can think of is to have some sort of level of “big decision” that the directors can only propose and the voters would vote on whether to allow it. Probably would phrase it so that directors can move forward on assumption of “yes” vote but have to be able to “go back” in case of a “no” vote.
Moving way on out of areas that I know a great deal about, I would probably include some provisions for protection of “intellectual property”, but I would want to be careful not to overdo it. I would put constitutional limits on the length of patents and copyrights, probably 10 or 20 years for patents and 20 or 30 years for copyrights. I would also go ahead and limit how patents can be applied, to prevent absurd things like the patenting of software code–copyright protection should be all that is needed.
Um, let’s see, what else? No trade barriers. No immigration quotas. No deliberate interference with foreign governments. No invasions of foreign countries without a formal declaration of war (affirmed by popular vote). No military draft. Strong language about powers reserved to individuals except where specfically granted in the document. No vague pronouncements about “interstate commerce” or “necessary and proper” that could be twisted to encompass everything. No victimless crimes.
Well, that’s what comes to mind now. Probably be a few libertarians with gripes. Probably non-libertarians would have a bunch of gripes. And there are probably a few issues that I just plain haven’t thought of in the short time I’ve been writing this. Since I don’t expect to have such an opportunity, I am more emotionally invested in moving the US in a more libetarian direction.
Anyways, if you’re still interested, think of this as a first cut for you to start picking to pieces.
-VM
Oh, I don’t think I’m quite prepared for anything like that. You’ve proven in this thread and others that you have a solid foundation for your beliefs, that you’ve examined the problems from many angles, and I just wanted to see how your ground rules would work.
I’m actually fairly sympathetic to libertarian-leaning thought, but just so you know, my normal problems with it are the self-serving nature of many of the proponents (e.g. people whose professions are protected by government certification arguing for market “freedom”), the impractical nature of “pure” libertarianism (which would shut down every factory in the nation because of the coercive nature of air pollution, as you’ve already discussed elsewhere), and the concept of equality of opportunity (which I think would deserve its own thread).
I think this is a great topic for discussion, thanks for starting it 
One nitpick -
The founding fathers saw no need and in fact advocated against a national Army or Navy, instead choosing to support local state-run Militias. This was a sop to the State’s Righters who wanted no Federal authority that usurped their own. If I recall correctly, it was sometime after the Civil War when the true Army / Navy as we know them today was formed, independent of the individual States… prior to that it was all State militias under a unified command, but dependent on the individual states to raise the troops.
While I can certainly understand the FF’s intent, I have to admit that our national military has come in handy a couple of times during the last century… 
Anyway, my intent was (would be?) to provide some justification to prevent military spending from getting out of control. Really my motivation would be to more adequately fund science and research in later years (i.e. when the government decided to get in to the research funding business). If the money wasn’t getting spent on an expensive peace-time military, perhaps more would be available to more worthwhile endeavors.
The discrimination idea is an interesting one, BobLibDem. Supposing you couldn’t phrase it directly as such, or supposing that doing so would make it impossible to ratify the constitution, how might you phrase it differently so that future lawmakers and judges would have the power to enact and enforce the desired changes?
I might phrase it more simply: “Equality of all persons under the law may not be abridged by United States or by any State”. Then over time, the definition of “persons” could have slowly expanded.
Fair enough, and I don’t disagree - we need a standing Federal Army (even the Libertarians agree with that as being one of the few legitimate duties of the Government). My point was that to get it into the original constitutional convention, you would have to convince the FF of the importance of this… and I don’t think they would go for it based on the fact they never wanted a national military (or at least the ones I have read didn’t…)
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, just think that the Amendment would need some tweaking…
I would re-word the Second Amendment to say:
*The right of the people to own and carry firearms shall not be infringed by any government.
The right of the states to form militias shall not be infringed by any government.*
I might also change the Fourth Amendment such that ‘medical affairs’ were included in those things that a person can be secure in.
He has advanced the idea that unless the majority is allowed to change any and all portions of the constitution that his ability to consent is taken away. Unless he is allowed to vote on the constitution as a whole every now and then with a simple majority alone able to overthrough any of it he is in effect being oppressed by said constitution.
I’ll supply the repetition. Maybe you can bring the clarity. Anyway, here goes…
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Amendment XI: See Amendment X.
Amendment XII: Word.
Amendment XIII: Yeah, what he said! Tenth Ammentment rulz!
Amendment XIV: Consider a spherical power of radius r…
Amendment XV:
def ReservedToTheStatesOrThePeople(power):
if ConsitutionDelegatesTo(power, gUS):
return False
else for state in gUS.states:
if ConstitutionProhibitsTo(power, state):
return False
else:
return True
Amendment XVI: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved neither to the States respectively, nor to the people … not!
Amendment XVII: Ze powuhrs undelegated to les Etats Unis d’Amerique by ziss Constitution, nor pro-eebited by it to ze States, are, 'ow you say, RAY-ZERVED to ze States, or to ze peepahl. C’est vrais!
Amendment XVIII: Are you listening to me young man? Hey, hey! Don’t you give me that look. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. I catch you reserving any of those powers to the U.S. again, I’ll smack you into next week.
Amendement XIX: (Sung) Oh, I’m just a power, yes I’m only a power, and as I sit up here on Capitol Hill… (See reverse side of Constitution for sheet music.)
Personally, I would have included some Venn diagrams and flowcharts in this thing. Lawyers could stand to learn a thing or two from us computer folk.
Have you, by chance, heard of the LEGAL RELATIONS Language or the LOGIC OF LEGAL RELATIONS? That’s the sort of thing that happens, when lawyers try to listen to computer people…
FTR, I’m a former law student who now works in IT.
Oooh, ooh, change the senate! I have a whole thread about that
here.
Yes, yes, zamboniracer, come join us in my thread!
But seriously, in answer to the OP, I think one of the best changes to the Constitution would be to make the Second Amendment much, much clearer so that it would be crystal clear that arms as they relate to a militia was what they were talking about. It is a terribly constructed sentence now.
Slavery, electoral college, women voting, enshrining judical review: all worthy changes IMHO.
Oh, and also put “and we really mean it” after the 9th and 10th amendments (I feel that the Bill of Rights is part and parcel of the constitution). These two amendments get overlooked, and they should not be.