Opinion of the United States Constitution

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

HC, largely because I don't approve of written constitutions.

That's all fine-and-dandy in your fancy-pants unitary state, but your really can't have  federal system without way of distributing powers, at a minimum

It's not like it actually could work in unitary states either. Even the UK does have a few written constitutional documents.

I should perhaps amend my statement to disliking the idea of constitutions such as that of the United States (which are now comparatively common throughout the democratic world) is twofold - firstly they're fairly difficult to amend (in comparison to the British system, which allows for the legislature to change the 'constitution' via a simple legislative majority'. Secondly, they often form the basis for 'judicial review' of government legislation, which I'm also highly iffy about in general.

Simple majority amendments are rather dangerous and vulnerable to whims of the temporary majority. As for judicial review, once again it is another critical means to protect the minority from the majority. In my view, the UK has too few checks on the power and authority of the simple majority, having rendered Her Majesty completely powerless as well as the House of Lords. We tend to see those very checks and balances as one of the most desirable aspects of our governing document.

[Cassius]

HC, largely because I don't approve of written constitutions.

That's all fine-and-dandy in your fancy-pants unitary state, but your really can't have  federal system without way of distributing powers, at a minimum

It's not like it actually could work in unitary states either. Even the UK does have a few written constitutional documents.

I should perhaps amend my statement to disliking the idea of constitutions such as that of the United States (which are now comparatively common throughout the democratic world) is twofold - firstly they're fairly difficult to amend (in comparison to the British system, which allows for the legislature to change the 'constitution' via a simple legislative majority'. Secondly, they often form the basis for 'judicial review' of government legislation, which I'm also highly iffy about in general.

Simple majority amendments are rather dangerous and vulnerable to whims of the temporary majority. As for judicial review, once again it is another critical means to protect the minority from the majority. In my view, the UK has too few checks on the power and authority of the simple majority, having rendered Her Majesty completely powerless as well as the House of Lords. We tend to see those very checks and balances as one of the most desirable aspects of our governing document.

Well, I do endorse, strongly, the need for checks and balances; but I don't think that extensive judicial review and a single written constitutional document that is difficult to amend are the right way to go about this. No, I would rather see the powers of the executive and the upper house strengthened (in the latter case, the idea of the upper house serving as a balance to the lower informs my opinion that it should not be elected, as in the case of the executive), to balance out the power of the lower house. In that way, I think there would be more in the way of checks and balances; but, it would still be a more straight forward (and more easily negotiable) system than in the United States.

[dead0man]

I'm solidly in the "it's fine, was great, could be better but can only imagine the train wreck it would be if rewritten today" camp.

[Deus Naturae]

Highly progressive (especially with regards to the Bill of Rights) for its time, but badly in need of massive revision or a replacement at this point.

What do you want to revise/replace?

Well for starters making the Senate far less grossly unrepresentative and/or reducing its powers, abolishing the Electoral College, possibly adopting a parliamentary system, and reducing the excessive powers given to states whose boundaries do not even remotely reflect actual realities.

What powers do you want to take away from the States?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

very progressive for its time on civil rights

.....

Considering that included slaves in the Census at all (3/5 of them is better than nothing), it was very progressive.  It may be considered racist by today's standards, but people were more racist back then anyway.  The founding fathers at least recognized women and minorities as people, even if they were inferior.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Considering that included slaves in the Census at all (3/5 of them is better than nothing), it was very progressive.

...........................................................................

[SWE]

very progressive for its time on civil rights

.....

Considering that included slaves in the Census at all (3/5 of them is better than nothing), it was very progressive.  It may be considered racist by today's standards, but people were more racist back then anyway.  The founding fathers at least recognized women and minorities as people, even if they were inferior.

Do you know why slaves where included in the census? It's hardly progressive

[Incipimus iterum]

FC

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

very progressive for its time on civil rights

.....

Considering that included slaves in the Census at all (3/5 of them is better than nothing), it was very progressive. 

You are going the wrong direction. The higher the number is not less racist/more progressive, therefore it is rather terrible to say 3/5 is better than nothing, because no it is not. Nothing would be preferrable for the slave, the progressive, the real Conservative (I have explained why before. Will do so again if requested) and any decent human being who sees all people as people, if not because slavely itself is immoral and shouldn't exist, then from the the purely practical side. Slaves by definition cannot vote, slave owners can, counting slaves for population purposes serves one purposes and one purpose only, to increase the hold of slave power on the House of Representatives and make it harder not easier to abolish.
 
Southerners were pushing for the higher number (100%) whilst Northerners wanted it even lower (0%), at the same time Southerners didn't want to count them for taxation purposes whilest the North did. I highly doubt that southerners werep ushing for the higher number because it was more "progressive than zero".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

HC, largely because I don't approve of written constitutions.

That's all fine-and-dandy in your fancy-pants unitary state, but your really can't have  federal system without way of distributing powers, at a minimum

It's not like it actually could work in unitary states either. Even the UK does have a few written constitutional documents.

I should perhaps amend my statement to disliking the idea of constitutions such as that of the United States (which are now comparatively common throughout the democratic world) is twofold - firstly they're fairly difficult to amend (in comparison to the British system, which allows for the legislature to change the 'constitution' via a simple legislative majority'. Secondly, they often form the basis for 'judicial review' of government legislation, which I'm also highly iffy about in general.

Simple majority amendments are rather dangerous and vulnerable to whims of the temporary majority. As for judicial review, once again it is another critical means to protect the minority from the majority. In my view, the UK has too few checks on the power and authority of the simple majority, having rendered Her Majesty completely powerless as well as the House of Lords. We tend to see those very checks and balances as one of the most desirable aspects of our governing document.

Well, I do endorse, strongly, the need for checks and balances; but I don't think that extensive judicial review and a single written constitutional document that is difficult to amend are the right way to go about this. No, I would rather see the powers of the executive and the upper house strengthened (in the latter case, the idea of the upper house serving as a balance to the lower informs my opinion that it should not be elected, as in the case of the executive), to balance out the power of the lower house. In that way, I think there would be more in the way of checks and balances; but, it would still be a more straight forward (and more easily negotiable) system than in the United States.

How would you structure say the House of Lords? I would note that if you had the protections for the House of Lords, that our Constitution does for the Senate (a state cannot be dperived of equaly represenatation in said SEnate without its approval, basicalyl a unnanimous consent requirement), it would have been rather difficult for the House of Lords to have been so eroded in power over the years.

The way I look at out, democratizing our balancing institutions has helped to preserve their existance and state gov'ts should reflect the people of their states anyway, therefore it is not contradictory to the goal of the Senate to represent the states to have them elected statewide. If anything it brings them closer to the interests of their state and our system is not about balancing institutions that exist only for the sake of intsitutions, but competing interests like those of the states versus the national majority.

[H. Ross Peron]

Highly progressive (especially with regards to the Bill of Rights) for its time, but badly in need of massive revision or a replacement at this point.

What do you want to revise/replace?

Well for starters making the Senate far less grossly unrepresentative and/or reducing its powers, abolishing the Electoral College, possibly adopting a parliamentary system, and reducing the excessive powers given to states whose boundaries do not even remotely reflect actual realities.

What powers do you want to take away from the States?

For example funding for education shuld be done on a metropolitan rather than on a state level. Same with things like transportation policy. Meanwhile certain programs such as Medicaid ought to be federalized (but administered on a local basis) to avoid massive inequalities in quality between the states.

[Deus Naturae]

Highly progressive (especially with regards to the Bill of Rights) for its time, but badly in need of massive revision or a replacement at this point.

What do you want to revise/replace?

Well for starters making the Senate far less grossly unrepresentative and/or reducing its powers, abolishing the Electoral College, possibly adopting a parliamentary system, and reducing the excessive powers given to states whose boundaries do not even remotely reflect actual realities.

What powers do you want to take away from the States?

For example funding for education shuld be done on a metropolitan rather than on a state level. Same with things like transportation policy. Meanwhile certain programs such as Medicaid ought to be federalized (but administered on a local basis) to avoid massive inequalities in quality between the states.

So you want to constitutionally ban States from funding education? You want to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that Medicaid be federalized? These seem like policy issues, not constitutional issues.

[H. Ross Peron]

Highly progressive (especially with regards to the Bill of Rights) for its time, but badly in need of massive revision or a replacement at this point.

What do you want to revise/replace?

Well for starters making the Senate far less grossly unrepresentative and/or reducing its powers, abolishing the Electoral College, possibly adopting a parliamentary system, and reducing the excessive powers given to states whose boundaries do not even remotely reflect actual realities.

What powers do you want to take away from the States?

For example funding for education shuld be done on a metropolitan rather than on a state level. Same with things like transportation policy. Meanwhile certain programs such as Medicaid ought to be federalized (but administered on a local basis) to avoid massive inequalities in quality between the states.

So you want to constitutionally ban States from funding education? You want to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that Medicaid be federalized? These seem like policy issues, not constitutional issues.

Those are just examples, my main opinion is that the current secondary and tertiary levels of government in the United States should be reorganized either by redrawing state boundaries or giving powers to new entities, which are difficult given the 10th Amendment.

[Deus Naturae]

Highly progressive (especially with regards to the Bill of Rights) for its time, but badly in need of massive revision or a replacement at this point.

What do you want to revise/replace?

Well for starters making the Senate far less grossly unrepresentative and/or reducing its powers, abolishing the Electoral College, possibly adopting a parliamentary system, and reducing the excessive powers given to states whose boundaries do not even remotely reflect actual realities.

What powers do you want to take away from the States?

For example funding for education shuld be done on a metropolitan rather than on a state level. Same with things like transportation policy. Meanwhile certain programs such as Medicaid ought to be federalized (but administered on a local basis) to avoid massive inequalities in quality between the states.

So you want to constitutionally ban States from funding education? You want to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that Medicaid be federalized? These seem like policy issues, not constitutional issues.

Those are just examples, my main opinion is that the current secondary and tertiary levels of government in the United States should be reorganized either by redrawing state boundaries or giving powers to new entities, which are difficult given the 10th Amendment.

You keep dodging the question...if you want to get rid of the Tenth Amendment, what constitutional powers do the States currently have that you think they shouldn't have?

[politicallefty]

FC (particularly as I'm quite fond of the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment), but it needs to be amended insofar as the structure of government goes. I'd prefer we adopt a parliamentary system of government, although I'd be willing to keep the Senate as it is. I'd leave the amendments as they are (to avoid opening that Pandora's box), minus those that would be redundant. I'd also prefer we consolidate all voting rights amendments into a single amendment that protects the absolute right of everyone 18+ to vote.

[ingemann]

very progressive for its time on civil rights

.....

Considering that included slaves in the Census at all (3/5 of them is better than nothing), it was very progressive.  It may be considered racist by today's standards, but people were more racist back then anyway.  The founding fathers at least recognized women and minorities as people, even if they were inferior.

No that was not fairly progressive even for the time (fairly progressive was abolishing slavery as the French did or serfdom as Denmark and Austria did), especially not as the whole 3/5 was included as a compromise between states with large slave population and states with low, and it served primary as a way to increase the voting power their owners. That's not progressive, that's a return to medieval norms.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

In desperate need of an overhaul

[Princess Nyan Cat]

Freedom Constitution (I feel like this place is becoming farther left every day)

Couldn't agree more!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Freedom Constitution (I feel like this place is becoming farther left every day)

Couldn't agree more!

I thought you had left the forum on the account of such. Anyway it is good to see you posting again.

[Marnetmar]

FC (sane)

[Princess Nyan Cat]

Freedom Constitution (I feel like this place is becoming farther left every day)

Couldn't agree more!

I thought you had left the forum on the account of such. Anyway it is good to see you posting again.

I didn't know anyone had even noticed me! I don't have a lot of time to post in places like this. I just update my predictions from time to time.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Freedom Constitution (I feel like this place is becoming farther left every day)

Couldn't agree more!

Seriously, when I first joined I was so excited and impressed that this seemed a relatively well balanced and sensible forum that wasn't interested in hackery, revisionist history or any other favorite activity of those whose views are so radical they aren't capable of finding common ground.

As for the OP, a very easy and very sure FC.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Outdated.

[Goldwater]

FC (normal American)

[All Along The Watchtower]

Obviously a deeply flawed document, and a product of its time, the elite group who wrote it, etc. Still, it's useful to study, if only to gain more of an appreciation for the foundations of the American political and legal systems.