# The United States constitution as a suicide pact
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 1, 2023, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129 "2023-02-01T00:32:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/61 "2023-02-03T01:44:53Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#):
>
> If you want to do something about it, all hale to you but you are going to need to propose something more pragmatic than “We are taking your political power off you so we can ignore you with impunity, Nah, Nah, Na, Nah, Nah.”
You ARE aware that this is the current situation, right? A few dozen people from Oklahoma telling millions of darkies in California "We are taking your political power off you so we can ignore you with impunity, Nah, Nah, Na, Nah, Nah.”
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### Author:  [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/62 "2023-02-03T01:45:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> The House is full of terrorists trying to hold the country hostage. I don’t recall a majority running on that promise.
I’m not talking about who runs each body at any particular point in time. I’m talking about how the constitution makes the senate into an undemocratic roadblock with no solution under its framework.
> [@penultima\_thule](#):
>
> They are not proportional, sure. But that is the fundamental negotiated concession which holds the federation together. It’s not unusual. All the countries with a federal governmental structure have this to some degree.
> Is the disproportionality excessive, well probably. But it ain’t going to work at all unless there is some element of disproportion.
Sure, but it’s a negotiated concession that is unchangeable. A country like the UK has had all kinds of negotiated concessions between the Monarchy and the public and/or their representation in the House of Commons. But they are much less trapped under prior agreements than a country like the US is, and as a result the power of the UK’s undemocratic institutions has dramatically declined over time.
Unfortunately in the US the constitution has written into it that the states must have equal senate representation and this can’t be amended.
> [@](#):
>
> Americans, or at least those who care and frequent these boards get disproportionately bent out of shape about this. On one hand we have the extolled virtues a document that forms this a more perfect Union whilst simultaneously rejecting political reality that brought the union into being.
>
> If you want to do something about it, all hale to you but you are going to need to propose something more pragmatic than “We are taking your political power off you so we can ignore you with impunity, Nah, Nah, Na, Nah, Nah.”
I’m not proposing to do anything about it because there are no feasible solutions. I do generally have an ends-justify-the-means view of American politics and I think cynical tactics like ending the filibuster, using extensive executive orders, court packing etc. should be on the table, because I think the system is already fundamentally broken.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/63 "2023-02-03T02:02:10Z")
When exactly did the system break? What broke it? Since it basically hasn’t changed much from 1789 except to get more inclusive, there must be a time and reason. What did it? The 27th Amendment?
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/64 "2023-02-03T02:14:52Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> You ARE aware that this is the current situation, right? A few dozen people from Oklahoma telling millions of darkies in California
That’s been the case since before the Grapes of Wrath, or as even more eloquently put by @Exapno_Mapcase …
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> When exactly did the system break? What broke it? Since it basically hasn’t changed much from 1789 except to get more inclusive, there must be a time and reason. What did it? The 27th Amendment?
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#):
>
> I’m not proposing to do anything about it because there are no feasible solutions. I do generally have an ends-justify-the-means view of American politics
Well if there is no end than that must make it easy for you to not worry about the finding a mean.
But kick the apathy bug, do some creative, even lateral thinking.
What do you have, or can offer, that they might want so as they can give you what you want and they can think they got the better of the deal?
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### Author:  [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/65 "2023-02-03T02:18:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> When exactly did the system break? What broke it? Since it basically hasn’t changed much from 1789 except to get more inclusive, there must be a time and reason.
Uh, the system has become _oodles_ more inclusive than it was in 1789.
~Max
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/66 "2023-02-03T02:19:34Z")
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#):
>
> the filibuster, using extensive executive orders, court packing etc
I confess I’m not overly familiar with your document but in which clauses are those issues textualised?
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### Author:  [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/67 "2023-02-03T02:26:22Z")
> [@Monty](#):
>
> _Is the constitution of the United States currently a suicide pact or has it ever been so?_
In colloquial usage, I have always thought of suicide pacts as an agreement to commit suicide. So in that sense, no, I don’t think the U.S. Constitution has ever been a suicide pact. The United States is sometimes referred to as “The Great Experiment” or “The American Experiment”, but the residents thereof have generally been trying to make it work for (or assuming it will work in) the long run.
As a phrase, I’ve usually associated ‘the constitution as a suicide pact’ with suspension of habeas corpus.
~Max
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### Author:  [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/68 "2023-02-03T02:33:18Z")
How will we ever decide that the experiment has failed? When every black person in the country has been murdered by a cop? When every schoolchild has been shot with an unregistered assault rifle? I’m ready to call it a failed experiment sooner than that.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/69 "2023-02-03T02:40:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> I’d like to see the wording of that written as a constitutional amendment.
For it to be a legal constitutional amendment, you’d have to go in the direction of greatly lessening the powers of the Senate.
Give the confirmations to the House. And allow the House to overrule a Senate vote on a second or third reading (to use parliamentary terminology).
While I’m OK with that kind of tinkering, the practical results aren’t perfectly predictable.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/70 "2023-02-03T02:51:44Z")
> [@slicedalone](#):
>
> How will we ever decide that the experiment has failed?
Well, never, because we won’t ever agree on the failure criteria.
If, for an extended period of time, more Americans are emigrating, or seriously trying to do that, than non-Americans are trying are trying to immigrate to the U.S., a case could be made.
But who gets to define “extended period of time” and “seriously?”
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### Author:  [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/71 "2023-02-03T02:53:07Z")
> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> Uh, the system has become _oodles_ more inclusive than it was in 1789.
Yeah, pretty much this. It was always broken. I guess arguably it worked as intended initially as a republic of powerful white men. Fortunately it’s been possible to make reforms to most of undemocratic aspects of it either through institutional means and/or in the fallout to the civil war.
> [@penultima\_thule](#):
>
> I confess I’m not overly familiar with your document but in which clauses are those issues textualised?
To clarify my point, I think that unless the constitution is utterly scrapped (something I’m not advocating at this juncture), there will always . (Partly) as a result of that, there are plenty of underhanded tactics that are permitted under the system but are generally bad for political norms…
> [@penultima\_thule](#):
>
> But kick the apathy bug, do some creative, even lateral thinking.
> What do you have, or can offer, that they might want so as they can give you what you want and they can think they got the better of the deal?
and not all of them fit this model - a lot of the US system doesn’t actually reward this kind of consensus building. A great example of this is DACA.
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### Author:  [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/72 "2023-02-03T02:54:11Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> Well, never
Right.
There’s a term we have for an unfalsifiable experiment. Um, what is that? Let me think…
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/73 "2023-02-03T03:11:30Z")
You know, when I was a newbie learning my druthers on SDMB way, way back in the early naughties if some wet behind the ears furriner (and never was a local) would have the temerity, the gall, the naif to suggest that anything wasn’t absolutely, star spangley, awesome in the USA then they be summarily hauled into the Pit for a kicking and tar & feathering.
Methinks this current predilection for wearing hair shirts is most unedifying.
FWLIW, I’d prefer it stopped.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/74 "2023-02-03T03:13:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> When exactly did the system break? What broke it? Since it basically hasn’t changed much from 1789 except to get more inclusive, there must be a time and reason. What did it? The 27th Amendment?
[July 16th, 1787](https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/equal-state-representation.htm)
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/75 "2023-02-03T03:15:59Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#):
>
> Methinks this current predilection for wearing hair shirts is most unedifying.
> FWLIW, I’d prefer it stopped
Who doesn’t miss the blind nationalistic ferver of yesteryear?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/76 "2023-02-03T03:51:51Z")
Yeah, that’s the cute answer. Let’s stiggit to DeSantis!
But it’s not a serious answer.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/77 "2023-02-03T04:43:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> But it’s not a serious answer.
What are you talking about? You asked when the senate became a broken, undemocratic institution. The answer is, in 1787, when the small states threatened to take their ball and go home unless the senate enshrined disproportionate representation. It’s the only serious answer.
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### Author:  [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/78 "2023-02-03T04:47:31Z")
> [@slicedalone](#):
>
> How will we ever decide that the experiment has failed?
When the United States ceases to exist, I assume.
~Max
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/79 "2023-02-03T04:48:37Z")
The serious answer you are seeking is to the question “Why did the larger States agree?”.
To which the answer is self-interest.
And despite periodic grumblings, that remains the correct answer 250 years later.
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### Author:  [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2023, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-united-states-constitution-as-a-suicide-pact/979129/80 "2023-02-03T04:52:15Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> You asked when the senate became a broken, undemocratic institution.
Exactly, the Senate was never designed to be democratic.
~Max
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