In software engineering, you can modify and update software to adapt to newer environments, but after a while the maintenance becomes too cumbersome and you’ve got to start up a new version from scratch. I think it is the same way with the constitution. Do you believe the United States needs a new constitution? If you do, what procedure do you think would be best to draft a new one? I believe each state should elect 5 representatives to send to a constitutional convention through a single transferable vote. The representatives would caucus into 5 groups of 50 and draft their own constitution. Each caucus would be able to write up scenarios for each other caucus and they would have to provide an official document of how their constitution would address those scenarios. After these constitutions are drafted, there would be many debates over a period of at least four months. After that time, a new constitution would be voted on by the citizens through instant runoff voting. The ballot would ask the voter to rank the constitutions in order of preference and then ask if any of them are acceptable. If the majority says that none are acceptable, the whole process would start over again.

What issues, specifically, do you feel exist with the current constitution? Why do you feel they could not be addressed through amendment?

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
What issues, specifically, do you feel exist with the current constitution? Why do you feel they could not be addressed through amendment?

Exactly.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Believe it or not, the U.S. Constitution has very little to do with our lives. It gives basic rights and freedoms, which would obviously have to be copied over to any new Constitution. After that, it documents the rights of the states, of which I don't understand what the problem is there. It defines the entities of federal government, and I don't really see any problem there, either.

The document that affects your daily life every single day is your state's Constitution. They are oftentimes 10x longer than the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution has around 8k words including all amendments. The Texas Constitution, for example, is over 80k. State Constitutions are just not as "glamorous" as the U.S. counterpart and do not get nearly the same amount of attention, but they do cover many more aspects of your daily life; the same way that local politics are much more relevant to your life than national. But people just care less about them.

I think the U.S Constitution is fine the way it is.

Many of the problems we have, have nothing to do with the structure of the U.S. Constitution, and more with corrupt politicians trying to circumvent it.

I'd like to see a few new amendments, for example, an amendment stripping corporations of personage, but a new constitution? No. I'd to see the Constitution enforced, for example, the provision giving the war power to Congress not the President. I'm not a Tenther. For the most part Tenther's are yahoos.

Quote: Original post by Moe

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
What issues, specifically, do you feel exist with the current constitution? Why do you feel they could not be addressed through amendment?

Exactly.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

I think the constitution is broken. For starters we need to get rid of the Electoral College and implement IRV. Plurality voting is a terrible voting system. My main problem though is that it is too ambiguous and there needs to be a better mechanism for interpretation and enforcement. The Supreme Court has way too much unchecked power.

Now, I am very liberal and pro abortion, but it is a joke to say the constitution grants the power to force states to allow for abortion. Also, I think there are a lot of problems with the “General Welfare” clause. I believe that it was obviously referring to the enumerated powers, but how can we rightly set that in stone when founders like Washington and Hamilton believed otherwise?

I hate the idea of a living constitution. It should be static and not be subject to change when a new Supreme Court Justice gets appointed for life.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I'd like to see a few new amendments, for example, an amendment stripping corporations of personage, but a new constitution? No. I'd to see the Constitution enforced, for example, the provision giving the war power to Congress not the President. I'm not a Tenther. For the most part Tenther's are yahoos.

So you'd like to see the Constitution enforced, except for those parts you don't care for? Just curious.

But anyway, I'll let Lysander Spooner speak for me, from the appendix to his essay, "No Treason":

Quote:
Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

I say Dissolve the Union, place all states back under the crown as dependents, and let each one take its independence the proper and peaceful way.

I would love to see instant runoff voting and proportional representation, but I think that could be done via amendment. Most of my other complaints could be handled via addition of some amendments and repeal of others.