I say bad. My armchair theory goes something like this:
I believe in biology something like 99% of every specie that has ever lived on this planet is extinct now. If I remember my biology class correctly, the reason why that 1% got to survive is because they were better able to adapt to their ever changing environment.
I think the same is true for the human psyche. How can we really expect to prosper if we cling so adamantly to something a group of people wrote over 200 years ago?
Heck. Even the Bible was rewritten to correspond with more modern times.
I’m not trying to argue that the constitution should be abolished. I’m just saying that not everything in it has to be written in stone.
I’d say the Constitution and our system in general suffer from being old; in essence, we are stuck with the beta version of democracy. Buggy even with patches (aka Amendments).
The US doesn’t have the world’s oldest constitution. This isn’t nitpicking - it’s very relevant to the question as asked. The British constitution is considerably older by pretty much any measure. The only interesting property of the US constitution is that you have a historical snapshot of the constitution labelled “Constitution”. That isn’t the age of the constitution though. You can’t read that document except in the context of the legal system it was born from, and the system that has managed it ever since.
Constitutions evolve not just through amendment but through interpretation. Your constitution is as fresh as the most recent supreme court decision.
It’s a good thing. For the first hundred and some years of our history, one of our greatest challenges was getting the federal and state governments to respect constitutional law. Now, it pretty much goes without saying that South Carolina doesn’t think it can ignore the First Amendment, or that the federal government would obey a decision finding health care reform unconstitutional, say. But this wasn’t always the case, and is the case now partly as a consequence of the respectable longevity of the document.
Concern about fossilization ignores both the amendment process, and the fact that the Constitution contains mostly general principles. The Fourteenth Amendment was a revolution, to the point where we may as well call it Constitution 2.0. And even more important than amendments is the flexibility built into the existing language.
If the Constitution were a list of concrete rules, like you can only have 30 ships in the Navy and everyone is guaranteed the right to smoke tobacco in a corn-cob pipe, then its age would be a liability, even aside from the amendment process. But most of the Constitution isn’t like that. The key clauses and amendments enshrine general principles. The Bill of Rights protects “due process,” freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment,” freedom from “unreasonable searches,” and “free speech.” Congressional power is similarly broad, including the power to “regulate Commerce,” “collect taxes,” and “constitute Tribunals.”
A consequence of the fact that the Constitution contains mostly principles rather than rules is that, for better or worse, it changes with the times. The Twentieth Century saw the free speech clause being used for the first time to restrain statutes, and indeed an entire revolution in individual rights, largely in response to an increasingly involved federal government and state governments (and, indeed, that increased power was also partly a consequence of changing constitutional interpretation).
Not that it matters a great deal in the grand scheme of things, but 2 points lean in the United States’ favor here, when considering who has an older constitution:
Britain, rather famously, does not have a consitution. Not a single document at least.
Britain(/England/UK) has had politically relevant monarchs more recently than our constitution was written. That’s a line of demarcation that I think most would draw.
I would change “probably” to “possibly”. Given the political climate of the past 20-30 years, I can’t imagine any potential amendment making it through the process.
Fuck, you could try “The sky is blue.” and the Republicans would counter with an amendment that changed the name of blue to red (since you can’t have the Democrats laying claim to the whole sky now can you?).*
Whether something breaks the political logjam and reintroduces some reality into the concept of bipartisan (or at least party neutral) is beyond my predictive ability, but I sure don’t expect it anytime soon.
*This is not intended to imply the described reaction is solely a Republican thing, they’re just better at it than the Democrats.
I believe Thomas Jefferson once said the American constitution should be discarded and a new one written every 20 years or so, on the grounds that you cannot expect a man to wear a boy’s jacket.
I don’t know that the 27th is a good test case since its ratification was spread out over 203 years. Granted a large number of those ratifications did take place in the 80s (putting them just at the edge of my window), but it didn’t have to get past Congress during the same time frame.
The main reason for having a constitution in the first place is to ensure that the government cannot overstep its authority on a whim. A mindset where throwing the whole thing out every twenty years is nothing of any great significance seems to defeat the purpose.
No, the main reason for having a constitution is to have a government. A constitution provides it with an operating system, as it were. The Framers met in Philadelphia in 1789, not because the existing Articles of Confederation government was overstepping its bounds, but because within those bounds it wasn’t strong or effective enough.
The most extensive treatment of this whole subject I’ve read is The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy, by Daniel Lazare. Among the many points it makes is that, while the Framers believed a separation of legislative and executive powers within government, and a Bill of Rights limiting the power of government as such, are necessary bulwarks against tyranny, it ain’t necessarily so. The UK has neither, and it has at least a good track record as a America for democracy and civil liberties, and in some respects better.
And in some ways, it has less civil liberties. Without turning this into a debate – the UK doesn’t have nearly the protections on freedom of speech that the USA does, it also doesn’t have the same protection for firearms ownership, and quiet a few others if I remember correctly.
There have been times in our history that the constitution has been a hinderance, and has been helpful, depending on the point of view you choose. Personally, I think it’s necessary for our country, even if it isn’t for others (or if they just don’t want one).
It’s changeable – that’s what amendments are for. We have certain basic tenants that we agree upon, as a society, are worthy of being pillars of that society. No, it’s not perfect, and not everyone agrees. However… it’s the best we’ve got, and until someone figures out a way to ensure that everyone has total freedom, without interfering with anyone else… it’s the best we’re going to do, imo.
