CDZ A New and Improved Constitution for the USA

[rdean]

When right wingers talk about changing the constitution, it's always about restricting rights of people they don't like. Minorities, gays, atheists and so on. Some how, the right wing thinks they are "better". They have this fantasy they built everything good in the United States. They freed the slaves and won WWI and WWII. They even know science better than scientists.

When left wingers talk about exercizing freedoms in the Constitution, they tend to find things the Constitution does not address or want to limits things it does to those for which they think people should be able to do.

You mean like gun ownership for everyone, refusal to pay taxes and stealing land rights from the federal government?

Or denying voter's rights, suppression and a constitutional amendment to discriminate?

Are those good examples?

 

[rdean]

What liberties and rights do you say the States failed to protect?

Were you alive during the 60's and before?

I was alive then. And I am alive now. Despite the issues and problems with the 40's and 50's, all of which would have been corrected sooner or later so long as the people were free to correct them, I can say without question that we had far more liberty to be who and what we are then than we do now. We had far less government intrusiveness, far more potential for upward mobility, and life was pretty darn good for most.

You seem to presume that we would not have had all the problems we have had as a nation with a federal government in charge. I only point you to every other country in the world that has had a central government of whatever form and ask you to show me the ones who have not had to deal with issues of economic downturns, social strife, violation of human rights, and other problems over their histories.

You said: Despite the issues and problems with the 40's and 50's, all of which would have been corrected sooner or later so long as the people were free to correct them, I can say without question that we had far more liberty to be who and what we are then than we do now.

If you believe that, you can't be that old. Or else you are delusional.

 

[JakeStarkey]

When it came to the franchise from the 1870s on, the good old days were certainly not.

 

[Judicial review]

Balanced budget amendment and call it quits.

With that in the Constitution, we could not have fought WWII.

We also didn't have the trill ions in revenue in 1940s

 

[CrusaderFrank]

That supposition of liberty back beyond the fifties was for whites.

Let's be very clear that states had to be strong armed to granting the rights all whites took for granted.

No, I will not vote for a Constitution that fails to guarantee the civil liberties and freedoms from majoritarian oppression as we have seen historically at the state level.

Jake, it was the Fascist Progressive Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote up to and including LBJ until he became president and had to sign the "****** Bill"

 

[Foxfyre]

That supposition of liberty back beyond the fifties was for whites.

Let's be very clear that states had to be strong armed to granting the rights all whites took for granted.

No, I will not vote for a Constitution that fails to guarantee the civil liberties and freedoms from majoritarian oppression as we have seen historically at the state level.

Jake, it was the Fascist Progressive Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote up to and including LBJ until he became president and had to sign the "****** Bill"

The fact is that there is absolutely no justification for forced segregation, but I am absolutely old enough to have been living and witnessing it as community after community eliminated segregation without a single demonstration or protest or activist demand. That would include my own home town at the time. That's something you don't read in historical revisionism.

I am confident desegregation would have happened without the sweeping civil rights reforms of the 1960's. It would have been somewhat slower and more gradual in places, but it would have produced a voluntary society happy that they had a choice to do the right thing and we wouldn't have had so much racist resentment that persists to this day.

According to Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Starr Parker, and others who have studied black history in the 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans were the most rapidly advancing demographic economically right up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And then that began to stall and fizzle out. Coincidence or circumstance?

There is absolutely no justification for slavery or involuntary servitude of any kind or discrimination based on nothing more than skin color or other such criteria. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, is trying to make a case that such should be condoned or allowed by any society. But the fact is that such has existed in virtually every society since we have been recording human history--it has only been in quite recent history that anybody has seen fit to make it illegal. And because it is no longer a part of our current culture, I think we can all be assured only the teensiest fraction of folks would agree to return to those old cultural norms.

What some will not admit though, that the 'cure' has in some ways been worse than the 'disease' and those seem unwilling to correct those unintended consequences. It is indeed true that the road to hell is sometimes paved with the best of intentions.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Politely, argument is incomplete, very so, Foxfyre.

While many towns did it without force, many others certainly resisted to the utmost, killing people along the way.

The Democrats in the south were conservatives of the worst sort, not liberal although certainly fascist. If they were liberal or moderate, they would not have threatened and burned and killed. As did the conservative white rioters, many of the Republican, in Detroit and Boston and Los Angeles and elsewhere during the 1940s.

States rights failed. And if the states are empowered to violate civil rights and liberties, some will certainly create established religions and will again discriminate against unfavored minorities.

 

[Derideo_Te]

My number one priority for a new constitution will be to place a blanket ban on all private funding of election campaigns.

If you want to run for office you need to collect a certain number of signatures on a petition (depending upon the office) and then you will be awarded a fixed amount of taxpayer funds for your campaign. You will be held accountable for the funds and if you spend over the amount provided you will automatically forfeit the office should you win or be held liable to repay the funds should you lose. No outside entity can campaign on your behalf. Doing so will be a crime punishable by imprisonment.

My next priority would be holding elected officials and lobbyists accountable to the people. All meetings must be done in public with video and audio recordings. If any violation of this rule is discovered all of the parties involved will serve jail time. That includes the son/daughter-in-law who was given a job.

In summary all forms of bribery and corruption are to be treated as crimes punishable by prison terms of at least 10 years without parole.

I cannot support a government that dictates to the people that they cannot support whomever they choose for a legitimate public office. But what we need to do is adopt my Preamble that would limit what people could expect from the government no matter how much money they funneled into the campaign coffers.

Nothing in what I suggested prevented people from supporting whomever they chose for legitimate public office. All I am doing is eliminating the corruption of government by means of campaign financing by nefarious corporate interests.

I don't want my representatives owing allegiance to any corporation. I don't understand why you do. Can you explain why you prefer the current corrupt electoral system when it has failed to the point of starting a thread about a new constitution?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Despite the issues and problems with the 40's and 50's, all of which would have been corrected sooner or later so long as the people were free to correct them, I can say without question that we had far more liberty to be who and what we are then than we do now. We had far less government intrusiveness, far more potential for upward mobility, and life was pretty darn good for most.

Not true for blacks, women and gays.

 

[PratchettFan]

That supposition of liberty back beyond the fifties was for whites.

Let's be very clear that states had to be strong armed to granting the rights all whites took for granted.

No, I will not vote for a Constitution that fails to guarantee the civil liberties and freedoms from majoritarian oppression as we have seen historically at the state level.

Jake, it was the Fascist Progressive Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote up to and including LBJ until he became president and had to sign the "****** Bill"

The fact is that there is absolutely no justification for forced segregation, but I am absolutely old enough to have been living and witnessing it as community after community eliminated segregation without a single demonstration or protest or activist demand. That would include my own home town at the time. That's something you don't read in historical revisionism.

I am confident desegregation would have happened without the sweeping civil rights reforms of the 1960's. It would have been somewhat slower and more gradual in places, but it would have produced a voluntary society happy that they had a choice to do the right thing and we wouldn't have had so much racist resentment that persists to this day.

According to Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Starr Parker, and others who have studied black history in the 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans were the most rapidly advancing demographic economically right up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And then that began to stall and fizzle out. Coincidence or circumstance?

There is absolutely no justification for slavery or involuntary servitude of any kind or discrimination based on nothing more than skin color or other such criteria. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, is trying to make a case that such should be condoned or allowed by any society. But the fact is that such has existed in virtually every society since we have been recording human history--it has only been in quite recent history that anybody has seen fit to make it illegal. And because it is no longer a part of our current culture, I think we can all be assured only the teensiest fraction of folks would agree to return to those old cultural norms.

What some will not admit though, that the 'cure' has in some ways been worse than the 'disease' and those seem unwilling to correct those unintended consequences. It is indeed true that the road to hell is sometimes paved with the best of intentions.

Why should the people who were suffering under what you admit was an unfair and unjust system have to wait? Had states not existed, had we been under a purely federal system, the problem would have been resolved years before. States do not promote liberty. They stand in its way. So if we are talking about the creation of a new constitution, then it should be a purely federal system.

 

[Foxfyre]

My number one priority for a new constitution will be to place a blanket ban on all private funding of election campaigns.

If you want to run for office you need to collect a certain number of signatures on a petition (depending upon the office) and then you will be awarded a fixed amount of taxpayer funds for your campaign. You will be held accountable for the funds and if you spend over the amount provided you will automatically forfeit the office should you win or be held liable to repay the funds should you lose. No outside entity can campaign on your behalf. Doing so will be a crime punishable by imprisonment.

My next priority would be holding elected officials and lobbyists accountable to the people. All meetings must be done in public with video and audio recordings. If any violation of this rule is discovered all of the parties involved will serve jail time. That includes the son/daughter-in-law who was given a job.

In summary all forms of bribery and corruption are to be treated as crimes punishable by prison terms of at least 10 years without parole.

I cannot support a government that dictates to the people that they cannot support whomever they choose for a legitimate public office. But what we need to do is adopt my Preamble that would limit what people could expect from the government no matter how much money they funneled into the campaign coffers.

Nothing in what I suggested prevented people from supporting whomever they chose for legitimate public office. All I am doing is eliminating the corruption of government by means of campaign financing by nefarious corporate interests.

I don't want my representatives owing allegiance to any corporation. I don't understand why you do. Can you explain why you prefer the current corrupt electoral system when it has failed to the point of starting a thread about a new constitution?

In my opinion, allegiance of your elected representatives is the lesser of your problems. I will refer you to my "Extortion" thread reviewing Peter Schweizer's book by that name. The problem is a permanent political class that exists for its own self serving interests to increase its own power, prestige, influence, and personal wealth. They can pretty much at will extort whatever they want from big money corporations etc. by threatening to pass certain legislation or withhold passage of certain legislation. I'm not saying, however, that cronyism and payola generated by the big money doesn't also exist.

But instead of trying to control that by restricting the people, why not restrict the government instead? Simply take the money out of the equation by disallowing government to benefit one without benefitting all? That way as much money as anybody wants to funnel into the system won't do them any good whatsoever and those in government have much less power to manipulate the system for self-serving interests.

 

[Foxfyre]

That supposition of liberty back beyond the fifties was for whites.

Let's be very clear that states had to be strong armed to granting the rights all whites took for granted.

No, I will not vote for a Constitution that fails to guarantee the civil liberties and freedoms from majoritarian oppression as we have seen historically at the state level.

Jake, it was the Fascist Progressive Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote up to and including LBJ until he became president and had to sign the "****** Bill"

The fact is that there is absolutely no justification for forced segregation, but I am absolutely old enough to have been living and witnessing it as community after community eliminated segregation without a single demonstration or protest or activist demand. That would include my own home town at the time. That's something you don't read in historical revisionism.

I am confident desegregation would have happened without the sweeping civil rights reforms of the 1960's. It would have been somewhat slower and more gradual in places, but it would have produced a voluntary society happy that they had a choice to do the right thing and we wouldn't have had so much racist resentment that persists to this day.

According to Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Starr Parker, and others who have studied black history in the 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans were the most rapidly advancing demographic economically right up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And then that began to stall and fizzle out. Coincidence or circumstance?

There is absolutely no justification for slavery or involuntary servitude of any kind or discrimination based on nothing more than skin color or other such criteria. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, is trying to make a case that such should be condoned or allowed by any society. But the fact is that such has existed in virtually every society since we have been recording human history--it has only been in quite recent history that anybody has seen fit to make it illegal. And because it is no longer a part of our current culture, I think we can all be assured only the teensiest fraction of folks would agree to return to those old cultural norms.

What some will not admit though, that the 'cure' has in some ways been worse than the 'disease' and those seem unwilling to correct those unintended consequences. It is indeed true that the road to hell is sometimes paved with the best of intentions.

Why should the people who were suffering under what you admit was an unfair and unjust system have to wait? Had states not existed, had we been under a purely federal system, the problem would have been resolved years before. States do not promote liberty. They stand in its way. So if we are talking about the creation of a new constitution, then it should be a purely federal system.

Why should they have to suffer more just because self-serving politicians didn't think through the legislation they passed and therefore created a new problem for every one they claimed to fix? Liberty in which the rights of the people are secured will always do less damage in almost every circumstance than will government acting in its own self-interest.

 

[dcraelin]

Probably most USMB members have some familiarity with at least some of the U.S. Constitution and most have strong opinions about what the Constitution does and does not protect/provide/accomplish.

It might be an interesting discussion to have our own little Constitutional convention here and discuss what we would want to retain and what we would change of the original Constitution if the people decided to write a new one.

For instance, the Preamble of the Original Constitution is this:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.​

The problem with the wording, however descriptive and elegant, is that we might have trouble in agreeing on what a 'more perfect union' is, what components of justice the federal government should be involved in, or what constitutes 'domestic tranquility'. Certainly there are broad disputes as to what is included in the 'general welfare' and strong opposing views on what 'blessings of liberty' actually are.

My proposal for a preamble for a new constitution would be something more like this:

We the people, in order to ensure peaceful cooperation and commerce between the various states, provide for the common defense, promote justice and the general welfare without prejudice or favoritism, and secure the unalienable rights and blessings of liberty for every citizen, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.​

What would you want a new Constitution for the United State of America to accomplish that the old one does not seem to do?

As you know, changing the constitution is very hard because of the votes and the time needed for approval. During this time congress and presidency could change several times. Even when the two parties were willing to work together on important legislation, it was difficult. Today, it would be impossible which makes this thread a bit of a waste of time and energy.

It is never a waste to discuss ways to improve things. But perhaps should try to come up with one area to amend first. Slow deliberate change would probably be better. A national initiative option such as the Swiss have would be a priorty change for me. I believe there is a current proposal and organization propmoting it in place, once led by former Senator Mike Gravel I believe. So maybe people should stae an area they want for first change. Legislation structure would be mine.


here tho is a post on another thread with some more ideas Time For a Constitutional Convention Page 2 US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

also see my picture of Jefferson on Rushmore for some quotes of his that would be nice to inmorporate into the preamble.

 

[SaltyNutz]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

 

[dcraelin]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

If we dont change this constitution we are heading for a downfall.

 

[Foxfyre]

Probably most USMB members have some familiarity with at least some of the U.S. Constitution and most have strong opinions about what the Constitution does and does not protect/provide/accomplish.

It might be an interesting discussion to have our own little Constitutional convention here and discuss what we would want to retain and what we would change of the original Constitution if the people decided to write a new one.

For instance, the Preamble of the Original Constitution is this:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.​

The problem with the wording, however descriptive and elegant, is that we might have trouble in agreeing on what a 'more perfect union' is, what components of justice the federal government should be involved in, or what constitutes 'domestic tranquility'. Certainly there are broad disputes as to what is included in the 'general welfare' and strong opposing views on what 'blessings of liberty' actually are.

My proposal for a preamble for a new constitution would be something more like this:

We the people, in order to ensure peaceful cooperation and commerce between the various states, provide for the common defense, promote justice and the general welfare without prejudice or favoritism, and secure the unalienable rights and blessings of liberty for every citizen, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.​

What would you want a new Constitution for the United State of America to accomplish that the old one does not seem to do?

As you know, changing the constitution is very hard because of the votes and the time needed for approval. During this time congress and presidency could change several times. Even when the two parties were willing to work together on important legislation, it was difficult. Today, it would be impossible which makes this thread a bit of a waste of time and energy.

It is never a waste to discuss ways to improve things. But perhaps should try to come up with one area to amend first. Slow deliberate change would probably be better. A national initiative option such as the Swiss have would be a priorty change for me. I believe there is a current proposal and organization propmoting it in place, once led by former Senator Mike Gravel I believe. So maybe people should stae an area they want for first change. Legislation structure would be mine.

I hear that but it isn't that we have any power or actual intent to rewrite the Constitution. This is intended as a philosophical exercise in what we would want in a new Constitution if it should be decided to call a constitutional convention and rewrite one to correct areas of conflict in the old and to better reflect the realities of modern times.

 

[Foxfyre]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

See my immediately preceding post.

 

[SaltyNutz]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

If we dont change this constitution we are heading for a downfall.

Nothing to change. Attitudes need to be changed. There is nothing in the Constitution that abridges anyones right. Its about freedom, the FOUNDATION of this nation.

 

[Foxfyre]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

If we dont change this constitution we are heading for a downfall.

Various Presidents, Congresses, and the Courts have been changing the existing one for the last 100 years or so with and without amendments. I wish there was a way to restore the basic fundamentals intended in the original and stop that slow erosion.

 

[SaltyNutz]

I am sorry, this thread is offensive. The US Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world. No changes needed. The only thing that needs to be changed is the attitude of some American people...thinking that the Constitution guarantees them success without work or the other faction of Americans who think the law of the land only applies to a certain race or social status.

If we dont change this constitution we are heading for a downfall.

Various Presidents, Congresses, and the Courts have been changing the existing one for the last 100 years or so with and without amendments. I wish there was a way to restore the basic fundamentals intended in the original and stop that slow erosion.

That is what is great about the US Constitution, amendments can be made. But you are right, there has been an erosion...the Bill of Rights seems to be abridged by both sides on a daily basis.