One of the more horrifying articles I've read in some time

[LittleLebowski]

Give up on the Constitution!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html

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[Ed L]

Yup, and the author of the article describes himself as someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years."

[R.M.T.]

Saw it as a featured articles on Google News and thought, hmmm do I want an aneurysm? Thus I can even bring myself to read it.

But thanks link LL.

[cclaxton]

Give up on the Constitution!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html

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I am not saying I agree, but The US Constitution really does need to be updated to reflect modern times.
Things I would like to see:
- The President elected on popular vote without the electoral college;
- The elimination of the filibuster rules...up/down votes;
- Preventing any Senator from blocking the nomination or vote on any appointment...appointments should get a straight up/down vote in committee and on the floor;
- The formal establishment of a Right of Privacy and exceptions to the right to privacy;
- Reaffirming the right to own firearms and establishing a national right to carry;
- Reaffirming our Right to Peacefully Assemble and protest (which has been diminished through the courts);
- Defining what is, and is not, torture and under what circumstances it can be employed;
- Reaffirming the Right of Congress to declare war.

The main reason we haven't had a Constitutional Convention to renew the Constitution is it opens up a can of worms and would be chaos. But it didn't take long to get the legal age to vote changed to 18...so it IS possible to change when there is overwhelming support for it.

CC

[Kyle Reese]

I'm getting a bit tired of these Bolshevik agitators. If they don't like the Constitution, move to country where the State runs every aspect of life.

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[MEH]

Things I would like to see:
- The President elected on popular vote without the electoral college;
- The elimination of the filibuster rules...up/down votes;
- Preventing any Senator from blocking the nomination or vote on any appointment...appointments should get a straight up/down vote in committee and on the floor;


I say NO. We need the checks that these things afford.

A good congress is a congress where nothing gets done. The founding fathers were smart this way.

[NETim]

I say NO. We need the checks that these things afford.

A good congress is a congress where nothing gets done. The founding fathers were smart this way.

A constipated Congress is good for business.

And Liberty.

"No matter who you are or what you believe, you have to understand that some day the worst control-freaks among your bitterest enemies will control the federal government, and you better have restored effective, working constitutional limitations on that government before that time arrives." -- Rick Gaber

[cclaxton]

I say NO. We need the checks that these things afford.

A good congress is a congress where nothing gets done. The founding fathers were smart this way.

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

[G60]

Ah, yes, the age-old, "let's ignore the parts of the constitution I don't like" editorial.

It's silly season with the op-eds right now.

Amazing how a "constitutional law professor" hasn't read Article V.

[MEH]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

Absofreekinglutly!

[Haraise]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

Yes, yes, a million times yes. You have you have some major revisionist history to not be able to look back at all the freedoms republicans have taken from the population.

[Joe in PNG]

Since we're discussing changes, I'd like to see a Preferential Voting system for pretty much everything.

[SeriousStudent]

It sounds like a brilliant plan in the article. I do not see what could possibly go wrong with eliminating the Constitution.

Let's start with freedom of the press, and shut down the New York Times and Georgetown University. I'm sure the author would not mind.

[Chemsoldier]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

Hells yes! I have been a registered Republican for over a decade and yes yes yes. I havent respected those bastards since they reneged on term limits in the 90s.

[Chemsoldier]

Eliminate the constitution...sounds like a recipe for horror and atrocity. We have had a lot of bad things happen in this nation over the years, but just because people ignored the constitution periodically does not mean that it has not been a check on many other horrors. For instance, many of the unconstitutional acts have been under the exigencies of war or situations not unlike war (cold war, war on terror, war on poverty, war on drugs). At least it has made the bastards invent clever justifications.

[JHC]

I'm getting a bit tired of these Bolshevik agitators. If they don't like the Constitution, move to country where the State runs every aspect of life.

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We are in a "Cold" civil war right now. I hope we can reel this in with 2014 and 2016 to keep it that way.

[Haraise]

I live in Arizona. Share a border with California.

Let's just say it's really easy to imagine this country splitting up a bit. There are such massive philosophical differences between states.

Arizona and thirty other states did the meaningless gesture of signing up for a we the people petition for secession. The issue has been through our state government more than a few times in the last ten years, here.

It would be interesting to see the fed fade away.

[Spr1]

I have a really novel proposal.

Perhaps we should try actually following the Constitution as written.

Want to talk about some earth shattering changes to how things are now??

[JConn]

Let me preface this by saying I'm not condoning this for all the feds monitoring this place. That out of the way. If we could split this country in two and run half with a strict interpretation of the constitution ( minus the commerce clause) and a purely capitalist economy, and allow the other half to continue with the current political agenda, I think population shift over ten years would be interesting. Of course if I were in charge I would make people choose and then have closed borders. I would love to see where people chose to live if they had to make a choice that was permanent.

Edit: fixed one thing. Please excuse errors, too many high capacity whiskies last night.

[NETim]

Let me preface this by saying I'm not condoning this for all the feds monitoring this place. That out of the way. If we could split this country in two and run half with a strict interpretation of the constitution ( minus the commerce clause) and a purely capitalist government, and allow the other half to continue with the current political agenda, I think population shift over ten years would be interesting. Of course if I were in charge I would make people choose and then have closed borders. I would love to see where people chose to live if they had to make a choice that was permanent.

Sounds like a plan to me.

[Spr1]

I believe that the commerce clause as originally written and intended was merely to stop states from interfering with or taxing interstate commerce. It has been abused beyond belief in the last century.

[BaiHu]

I believe that the whole purpose of state's rights was for the sake of experimenting. Allowing each state the latitude, within the framework of the constitution, to discover better ways to govern.

Unfortunately, I think we've become too centralized to the point that we barely have state rights. For example, public schools pander to the federal government for more tax dollars and now it's the feds that control our schools instead of the local PTA and taxpayers of the state.

All of these changes start with us, but if everyone has to have two jobs to keep up with a sour economy, then the only people who have time to "control" the government are the ones that are already "controlled" by the government via entitlements. That is a huge group of people that includes everything from a welfare queen to an Iowa corn farmer.

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[JConn]

I believe that the whole purpose of state's rights was for the sake of experimenting. Allowing each state the latitude, within the framework of the constitution, to discover better ways to govern.

Unfortunately, I think we've become too centralized to the point that we barely have state rights. For example, public schools pander to the federal government for more tax dollars and now it's the feds that control our schools instead of the local PTA and taxpayers of the state.

All of these changes start with us, but if everyone has to have two jobs to keep up with a sour economy, then the only people who have time to "control" the government are the ones that are already "controlled" by the government via entitlements. That is a huge group of people that includes everything from a welfare queen to an Iowa corn farmer.

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Agreed if we could vote with a moving truck this would all be OK. Unfortunately there is just no where to go.

[JV_]

If we could split this country

When a state leaves the union, will they take their portion of the federal debt with them?

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[fixer]

Yup, and the author of the article describes himself as someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years."

indeed what the article displays is the collective thoughts of left leaning elites: they have fully transcended the need to entertain the silly ideas in the Constitution and similar documents.

[MDS]

Give up on the Constitution!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html

I have to say, it was refreshing to read such honesty. Now we can get to the fundamental issues: given that these folks disagree with the very defining text of how this country is run, why don't they go to any of the other countries they hold up as examples for us to change into? Technically speaking, since the US system of government is defined in the Constitution, these folks express an explicit desire to do away with the US system of government - isn't that treason, or at least an explicit renunciation of the most fundamental requirement of US citizenship? If we can't throw them in jail for treason, we should at least take away their citizenship and their right to vote.

[David Armstrong]

I had an old political science professor who suggested the only big change needed to the Constitution was to do away with federal level elected positions and go with a random selection process instead. Would do away with the concept of re-election which he argued was the main problem with the political world. Seemed to make pretty good sense.

[TGS]

Technically speaking, since the US system of government is defined in the Constitution, these folks express an explicit desire to do away with the US system of government - isn't that treason, or at least an explicit renunciation of the most fundamental requirement of US citizenship? If we can't throw them in jail for treason, we should at least take away their citizenship and their right to vote.

No, I don't see any seditious or treasonous activities. I'll leave it up to Joshs to define what exactly that is, but he's not advocating anything illegal.

The entire point of the 1st Amendment is to give people a public voice in opposing what they think is a broke, corrupt or tyrannical government. It'd be quite ironic to shackle him up in the dungeon or send him to the gallows for doing such, eh?


I had an old political science professor who suggested the only big change needed to the Constitution was to do away with federal level elected positions and go with a random selection process instead. Would do away with the concept of re-election which he argued was the main problem with the political world. Seemed to make pretty good sense.

Seems to make sense. Sort of like the Greek system with political office being service rather than a career, no?

[MDS]

The entire point of the 1st Amendment is to give people a public voice in opposing what they think is a broke, corrupt or tyrannical government. It'd be quite ironic to shackle him up in the dungeon or send him to the gallows for doing such, eh?

Sorry - I of course don't think it's actually treason. As someone mentioned a few posts up, though, there's true irony in the idea that this article uses the 1A to argue for "freeing ourselves" from the document that guarantees the 1A. The technical disagreement is that these folks think that the 1A can possibly stand alone, without the 2A and the 4A and the other guarantees that interlock together to form a stable platform on which government and freedom can coexist.

These people aren't stupid - that would make me feel sorry for them. They're assholes, which makes me angry at them. Hence the joking about treating them like traitors. Taking away their suffrage, though, is something I'm pretty serious about. I'm in the process of forumlating a legal and workable approach to that...

[TCinVA]

indeed what the article displays is the collective thoughts of left leaning elites: they have fully transcended the need to entertain the silly ideas in the Constitution and similar documents.

It's not really new. Woodrow Wilson about said as much over 100 years ago. The Constitution stands in the way of the progressive intention to fundamentally alter human nature by well meaning intervention...at the point of a bayonet if necessary...to bring about a better future for everyone.

...with "better" understood as the vision in the mind of the progressive.

The founders, it is reasoned, could not have possibly understood the possibilities of modernity. The notion that they needed not understand the possibilities of modernity to understand the fundamental nature of human beings with sufficient clarity to structure a government that would prevent the rise of something like a Nazi state is not acknowledged or considered important...as discordant data points are not included in the progressive's unwavering faith in their vision for everyone else.

Calling for the abolition of the constitution isn't new. When progressives could not ram their preferred policies past the Supreme Court, Roosevelt tried to obliterate it as an institution...while he imprisoned citizens convicted of no crime solely on the basis of their race and imagined disloyalty. In the early post-war period when progressives couldn't pass huge welfare programs and couldn't use government fiat to force restaurants to serve black people, it was lamented that the constitution didn't work and a new form of government was necessary.

Any time there is meaningful opposition to progressive policy goals based in the idea that "Hey, guys, you aren't allowed to use government guns to force everyone else to do what you think is right..." They cry like thwarted children and insist that we stop paying attention to the pesky restrictions of our republic and just do what they say. Their all-consuming faith in their own virtue and intellect must be seen as superior to anything else and must be obeyed at all costs...for our own good, you understand.

So columnists today calling for ignoring the inconvenient strictures of a republic founded on the idea of limited government power as a means of preserving individual rights is perfectly in line with their intellectual forefathers. They share the same intellectual conceit, so it should not be a surprise that they attempt the same tactics.

After all, those tactics have been working.

[TGS]

I'm in the process of forumlating a legal and workable approach to that...

I'm having "Sandlot" type images of you climbing into a treehouse with other P-F.com members for s'mores and political debate.

[TommyG]

Let me preface this by saying I'm not condoning this for all the feds monitoring this place. That out of the way. If we could split this country in two and run half with a strict interpretation of the constitution ( minus the commerce clause) and a purely capitalist economy, and allow the other half to continue with the current political agenda, I think population shift over ten years would be interesting. Of course if I were in charge I would make people choose and then have closed borders. I would love to see where people chose to live if they had to make a choice that was permanent.


Have a gander at this: http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Without-Manifesto-Secession/dp/1451616651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357069665&sr=1-1&keywords=better+off+without+em

Written by a self professed liberal who is tired of our antiquated leaning on the Constitution, moral principles and self reliance. He puts forth an outline for the blue states to remove themselves from our backwardness and secede from conservative states. Interestingly though, he give his new liberal utopia Texas because they would not survive economically without a large, thriving economy to support them. Even he realizes they can not afford their crazy social agenda without us bubbas footing the bill.

I agree with you, it would extremely interesting to see where folks would choose to live once states like IL, NY, CA etc. could not rely on Federal money to finance their idiotic budgets.

Let them have their own commune where they can ignore any established rules of governance and just do "what is necessary". Across the border we can enjoy true fee markets and personal liberty. If it could be done incrementally and peacefully it would be an interesting exercise.

[TCinVA]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

Yes...because I happen to believe Madison was smarter than George W. Bush and Trent Lott.

The means of achieving a particular policy goal is as important ad the stated goal to anyone who gives a damn about preserving what is fundamental to the success of our society.

I don't care what the stated policy goal is if it eviscerates the first amendment, etc.

It isn't worth it.

The idea of limited government authority is in and of itself the highest possible public virtue. Nothing is worth trading that in.

[SeriousStudent]

........ Interestingly though, he give his new liberal utopia texas because they would not survive economically without a large, thriving economy to support them. Even he realizes they can not afford their crazy social agenda without us bubbas footing the bill.

........

Screw that! Not only no, but hell no!

[fixer]

Their all-consuming faith in their own virtue and intellect must be seen as superior to anything else and must be obeyed at all costs...for our own good, you understand.
.


Really good synopsis of the thinking employed in writing such an article. It also reminds me of Hayek's "Why the worst get on top" and "Fatal Conceit" writings.

[Kyle Reese]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

Absolutely.

[TommyG]

Screw that! Not only no, but hell no!

Agreed. But it is very interesting that even he acknowledges that they would crumple financially without a hard working, free market economy to fuel their spending utopia. A little case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

[Tamara]

- The President elected on popular vote without the electoral college;

The people do not elect the president; the states do. How the states wish to go about picking who they'll vote for is up to them. They could assign their electors by drawing names out of a hat if they wished.

We've already gutted federalism quite enough, thankyouverymuch.

[Tamara]

If the Senate was Republican majority and The President was Republican, would you feel the same way?

CC

Damned skippy I would.

Why did your people roll over and not do their job on the PATRIOT Act, anyway?

[cclaxton]

Yes...because I happen to believe Madison was smarter than George W. Bush and Trent Lott. The means of achieving a particular policy goal is as important ad the stated goal to anyone who gives a damn about preserving what is fundamental to the success of our society. I don't care what the stated policy goal is if it eviscerates the first amendment, etc. It isn't worth it.The idea of limited government authority is in and of itself the highest possible public virtue. Nothing is worth trading that in.

I don't think the goal of the US Constitution is limited government. The Articles of Confederation were a clear statement of limited national government, but as they learned, were too weak to allow the Continental Congress to resolve disputes and act with one voice internationally and to fund national initiatives. I would say the US Constitution was founded on a balancing of powers between States and The Federal Gov't and balance within the Federal Gov't. I would call it "adequate government" to allow the Federal Gov't sufficient power to enable a strong enough Federal Government.

But my MAIN POINT is that we need a functioning political system, and we need citizens to regain confidence in our government. The Electoral College erodes that confidence and is inherently unfair. In the Presidential Election of 2000, setting aside the Florida controversies, it was clear that Al Gore won the popular vote. But even more than that, when you add the left-leaning and right-leaning(Libertarians are not necessarily right-leaning, but for discussion purposes added them to right-leaning) numbers up:

George W. Bush Republican 50,456,002 47.87%
Al Gore Democratic 50,999,897 48.38%
Ralph Nader Green 2,882,955 2.74%
Pat Buchanan Reform 448,895 0.43%
Harry Browne Libertarian 384,431 0.36%

Combining Bush+Buchanan+Browne= 51,289,328
Combining Gore+Nader=53,882,852
Country wanted to move left by 2,593,524, and that is not an insignificant number.

But what happened is the country got a right-leaning Republican. That math just doesn't make sense to anyone other than partisan Republicans. And, that is the inherent unfairness that Americans use as reasons not to vote. 62% of Americans want a popular vote for President.

I want to see a political system that works, and a Federal System that works. Changing to a popular vote for President would be one step in making our system fair and help instill confidence in the voting public.

CC

[TCinVA]

I don't think the goal of the US Constitution is limited government.

Then you haven't actually read the U.S. Constitution, or any of the commentary on it by the founders.

Even the nutty lib in the article quoted in the post admits that the purpose of the Constitution was to limit federal power...he just wants us to ignore that because the guys who wrote it were all white and lived too long ago to pay any attention to.

This is a "the sky is blue" argument. You can argue to the contrary all day long but it's plainly obvious.



The Electoral College erodes that confidence and is inherently unfair


Your estimation of the fairness of the electoral college might have more weight if you actually understood what you're arguing about. It's clear you don't.

The electoral college was birthed because early in the nation's history there was a fear that populous states (like Virginia at the time) would steamroll less-populous states in federal affairs. The electoral college was invented as a way to keep 50.00001% of the vote from becoming an invitation to tyranny. The Senate was another means of accomplishing that. The whole of the constitutional convention can be summed up as attempting to find a way for majority rule that didn't intrude on the rights of the minority. That is, in fact, the point of the document and our system of government: Limits to power.

We have a perfectly functional political system, thanks, as it worked beautifully for a lot of years.

Incompetent tinkering based out of ignorance isn't a remedy for our political situation any more than it would be in a medical emergency.