You have to get rid of one of the amendments to the Constitution - which one?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

16th.

Although the 17th is a close second.

You don't like people voting for their own senator?

There exists the House of Representatives to represent the interests of the people. While the erosion of federalism in the United States began long before 1913, the elimination of the states' representation in the federal government certainly contributed to the trend.

I can understand the argument. One chamber represents the people while the other represents the states. I don't think that just because the senators are now elected by the general population instead of state legislatures there is less representation of states interest. People of a state are still going to elect someone that represents the state, are they not? And how did the way senators did their job change after 1913?

I agree here, because I interpret the Senate as a way for each state regardless of population to be represented equally in one of the houses.  That said, I think the two should therefore be elected in a similar fashion.

Americans can be dumbs, but isn't enough power tied up in the hands of the elite as it is?

[TNF]

Definitely the 10th. State governments should have next to no power.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

27th.  It's essentially symbolic in its impact but ic causes all sorts of problems when a President wishes to appoint someone from Congress to a Cabinet post.

17th is a close second, but realistically, even if it were removed, I can't imagine any State not deciding on its own to use popular election as many States had already done on their own before the 17th passed.  Even if the legislatures did chose to elect Senators themselves, I don't see that having much impact on the balance of power between the State and Federal governments.

[Antonio the Sixth]

2nd, obviously.

[YL]

2nd

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

12th, 2nd or 27th.

[SPC]

16th.

Although the 17th is a close second.

You don't like people voting for their own senator?

There exists the House of Representatives to represent the interests of the people. While the erosion of federalism in the United States began long before 1913, the elimination of the states' representation in the federal government certainly contributed to the trend.

I can understand the argument. One chamber represents the people while the other represents the states. I don't think that just because the senators are now elected by the general population instead of state legislatures there is less representation of states interest. People of a state are still going to elect someone that represents the state, are they not? And how did the way senators did their job change after 1913?

The Senate should be a body that is above the whims of popular opinion; having them be directly elected by the people of each state defeats that purpose of having a branch of the legislature not bound to popular will. As it stands now, the Senate is essentially a redundancy. Of course the popular branch of the legislature is also corrupted, having over twenty times the ratio of population to representative as originally intended. Thus, I would not be opposed to repealing the 17th Amendment on condition of adjusting the average population of congressional districts back to 30,000. Hopefully more people would then come to a reasonable conclusion of how to deal with a legislature of ~6,000 people without once again raising the population to legislature ratio.

[Supersonic]

20th.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

[Never]

16th.

[bedstuy]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

That's basically how I feel.  If the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the Second Amendment, it would be perfectly fine.  If the Second Amendment means that we can't enact reasonable gun regulation, it's crazy.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

That's basically how I feel.  If the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the Second Amendment, it would be perfectly fine.  If the Second Amendment means that we can't enact reasonable gun regulation, it's crazy.

What reasonable gun regulation that wasn't a de facto gun ban has the Court ever struck down?

[bedstuy]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

That's basically how I feel.  If the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the Second Amendment, it would be perfectly fine.  If the Second Amendment means that we can't enact reasonable gun regulation, it's crazy.

What reasonable gun regulation that wasn't a de facto gun ban has the Court ever struck down?

Heller is the obvious example.  That was a laughable decision on so many levels.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I'm oscillating between 2 and 22, but mostly 2. Also I think 21 could be in there and counted as support for Prohibition.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

That's basically how I feel.  If the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the Second Amendment, it would be perfectly fine.  If the Second Amendment means that we can't enact reasonable gun regulation, it's crazy.

What reasonable gun regulation that wasn't a de facto gun ban has the Court ever struck down?

Heller is the obvious example.  That was a laughable decision on so many levels.

You're kidding right?  I can just barely see someone who believes that there should be no private gun ownership thinking that striking the portion of DC's Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 that guns had to be kept in an unusable state within one's home was an overreach, but the portion that banned any guns not already registered in 1975 absolutely was a ban.

[bedstuy]

I'm not an anti gun nut but the vague wording of the 2nd is quite problematic. Has to be that.

That's basically how I feel.  If the Supreme Court correctly interpreted the Second Amendment, it would be perfectly fine.  If the Second Amendment means that we can't enact reasonable gun regulation, it's crazy.

What reasonable gun regulation that wasn't a de facto gun ban has the Court ever struck down?

Heller is the obvious example.  That was a laughable decision on so many levels.

You're kidding right?  I can just barely see someone who believes that there should be no private gun ownership thinking that striking the portion of DC's Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 that guns had to be kept in an unusable state within one's home was an overreach, but the portion that banned any guns not already registered in 1975 absolutely was a ban.

The Second Amendment is about state militias.  DC is not a US state so the Second Amendment doesn't apply to DC.  That's the clear legal answer to me.  But, on a more practical level, there's no Second Amendment reason that a particular type of firearm needs to be legal for anyone to own. 

[Person Man]

22nd. It's probably done more harm than good.

Since it was started in 1947, here is how it changed American History-

1960- Eisenhower could of run, but was getting up there in years though he was only two years older than Reagan was when he ran in 1984. I wonder how his third term would be different than Kennedy's time.  (Civil Rights and the Great Society may or may not be delayed, maybe the space program would have been put on a more sustainable course where we started our Skylab/Space Shuttle stuff and didn't leave Earth Orbit until the year 2000, but we would be there now)

1988- Reagan was in his late 70s. He was probably going to retire, anyway and if he didn't, he would have probably won but not by the huge landslides he was used to. I think in 1992, Clinton or whomever would have run against Bush (Reagan would definitely retire) and win by a bigger margin than he actually did.

2000- Clinton would have easily won and won back congress which Dems in real life only lost by 4 seats in the House. (The 22nd really hurt our country)

2008- I think Bush would have still run once he saw how weak and moderate the field was. He would have probably lost by a slightly larger margin and probably lost Montana and Arizona and still carried Missouri and maybe even NC.

[politicallefty]

If I could get rid of an amendment without question, it'd definitely be the 2nd. Distantly after that, it'd be the 22nd.

[Starpaul20]

The 22nd also.

[H. Ross Peron]

What's up with all the liberals choosing the 2nd over the 10th? 

[H. Ross Peron]

What's up with all the liberals choosing the 2nd over the 10th? 

Why can't liberals support federalism?

Because the 10th Amendment has been far too broadly and vaguely worded and has been used to support all sorts of reactionary state policies.

[Oakvale]

As terrible as the 2nd Amendment is, my vote is for the 9th Amendment, since it's is a preposterous bit of nonsense that has no place in a constitution.

[Mechaman]

What's up with all the liberals choosing the 2nd over the 10th?  

Why can't liberals support federalism?

Because the 10th Amendment has been far too broadly and vaguely worded and has been used to support all sorts of reactionary state policies.

This critique applies to large sections of the Constitution. But "get rid of" is not the same as replacing, rewording, or taking a different interpretation. I don't support the "right to bear arms" at all - and I think that the belief in said right has caused our country and it's people a great deal of harm - so if the question is about eliminating an amendment entirely, the Second Amendment is any easy choice.

Yes, if only we applied to the violent arm of the government too, the fascists you probably condemned in another thread for their brutish savage tactics in Ferguson.

[Mechaman]

I would like to get rid of them all, but if forced to choose probably the tenth.  I don't believe in governance, and I believe that getting rid of the tenth would be the easiest way to speed that process up.

The 2nd Amendment would be my second choice, but for far different reasons than the bourgeois class on here have for wanting to be rid of it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Second Amendment is about state militias.  DC is not a US state so the Second Amendment doesn't apply to DC.  That's the clear legal answer to me.  But, on a more practical level, there's no Second Amendment reason that a particular type of firearm needs to be legal for anyone to own. 

Even if one holds that the introductory clause serves to limit arms access to the militia, the idea that it applies only to the states and not to the territories is absurd.  "State" is clearly being used in the 2nd amendment in sense of government in general and not in the sense of one of the constituent polities that make up the United States of America.

Furthermore, in the sense of late 18th century America, as made clear by the drafting history of the amendment, if you were an able-bodied adult citizen, you were part of the militia.