The founders wanted us to change it, a la the Bill of Rights. Only 17 added in 230 years? Seems like it should be updated more to the times with Amendments.
The Federal Constitution of 1787, like the deceleration of 1776 represented a uniquely inspired and well informed generation of men at their most enlighten in the understanding of the nature of men.
This unique period is a combination of the then ongoing Age of Enlightenment, the conditions of their world, and the recent failed experiments around the world and the English Civil War.
Today our people despite having access to more information than ever before, are largely ignorant, spoiled by the liberty and good systems build by their forefathers.
We are as a civilization today mostly poorly positioned to write and approve a new Constitution that would not end in despotism.
As far too many of us would assume based upon the relative security of our existing systems that we could afford more investment than we can.
@goaded There isn't too much of a difference in many respect. For example the 17th amendment written by a particularly spoiled and shortsighted generation basically detailed the Constitutional system by removing from the senate any compelling interest in its one critical function to help protect the limits of that constitution. In all laws, judges, treaties, and officers approved.
The collapse of the constitutional; order in the decades to follow can hardly be surprising.
What we have to day is a mere shadow of that Constitution very much in name only to the extent we the people respect its need. In practice as has been constantly demonstrated in the last 100 years, there is nothing to limit Washington Politicians from doing whatever they want.
@Juxtapose Your outer fascist is showing. Most politicians accept when you vote them out. I can only think of a few recent counter-examples. Killing politicians is illegal, aren't you in favour of law and order?
@Juxtapose So you don't just not love your country or law and order, you're also a traitor.
@Juxtapose Only it's not a corrupt government. I'm sure the Nazis said the same of the Weimar Republic before they took power, cancelled elections, and led the country into disaster while murdering millions of innocent people they were blaming for every problem.
@Juxtapose I think you will find politicians are quite flexible
@goaded @juxtapose country is an empire of liberty, not a particular set of leaders or institutions. The rules are quite clear they either follow limits of the Constitution. Seeing as his leaders and institutions observe no real limits they clearly are not doing that and haven't been for a very long time.
Whose leaders and institutions? The essential thing is that you, the people, still have the ability to peacefully change the direction of the country by voting. Until that is gone, you cannot call the government illegitimate. To do so is treasonous. Not to accept the results of elections is treasonous.
I can understand your opposition to the 17th amendment, but you have to admit that it was passed according to the rules set out in the consitution, surely?
@goaded You know there is a reason Treason is defined in our constitution as actually waging war upon the States. So that people like you can't claim opinions against the legitimate operation of the goverment are treason.
As for elections that is yet anther subject we are free to examine and question and frankly given the complexity and opaqueness of many elections in many states we cannot say honestly that the people thereof have the right to change anything in said states. Granted some people like yourself even find questioning their 'elections' to be treason and worthy of censoring.
Unfortunately a great many of those people find themselfs moving to our state for work, after having been unable to alter the course of their own in any way to be more tolerable.
But of course they don't beleive in people pointing out vote harvesting created the very unresponsive political machine they were unable to correct.
The man was calling for a revolution which is literally "waging war upon the States".
I don't care if people question their elections, but they should have some modicum of proof (for example nearly 200,000 people being removed from voter rolls who hadn't actually moved house), not claims debunked by their own side in the elections. Trump hired two companies to look into voter fraud, they both found nothing.
I don't know why you think offering to collect and deliver sealed votes from an area is such a threat to democracy, especially as both sides are allowed to do it. Personally, I'd rather trust the USPS, although that Trump asshole is still running the place, afaik.
@goaded Revolution is not waging war upon the State, revolution is a change in the minds and settlement of the people. Now that can result in war but the concept is not nessarly connected.
For example the American revolution took place before 1775, It resulted in American starting to demand their rights. The brutish reacted poorly.
To understand revolution you need to understand the great cycle's of history, as a revolution is simply the starting of a new cycle.
@Juxtapose Then vote to change it. Killing members of the government is treason.
@goaded
The ones that don't make the fount page news, many of the color revolutions were relatively peaceful. That said no state is entirely peaceful when your dealing with millions of uncoordinated people.
The point is the revolution itself was unconnected to the violence or really even technically the change of goverment. The change of goverment was a result of the people's change of tolerance for the old system.
Our next American revolution I am hoping will be entirely peaceful and results mostly via non-cooperation and political stagnation. I don't know what @Juxtapose has in mind but I suspect it could be something similar ideally.
That said if the politicians don't fall inline or lose power you can expect there will be an ever escalating degree of violence from the people. In reaction to treatment no longer found acceptable.
@goaded Again killing a goverment official in America is just murder, not treason. Treason requires waging war against the States (not even the federal goverment specifically, the States plural) or giving aid and comfort to their (Plural) enemies.
Assassinating a politician does not constitute a waging war, for that you need an army not of the States.
"Our next American revolution I am hoping will be entirely peaceful and results mostly via non-cooperation and political stagnation."
So, it will be anti-democratic and unconstitutional. Do you really think a better system would come from such beginnings?
"I don't know what @Juxtapose has in mind but I suspect it could be something similar ideally."
Which ignores the fact that he's literally calling for killings; "politicians won't listen until we killing them". If you can't get the politicians you want by speech and voting, the solution is not to kill the politicians you don't want. Also, the "we" indicates that he doesn't think he'd be alone.
"That said if the politicians don't fall inline or lose power you can expect there will be an ever escalating degree of violence from the people."
The ultimate example of a politician not falling in line is one that refuses to accept the results of the election that caused them to lose power. This is only happening on one side of the aisle.
"In reaction to treatment no longer found acceptable." For example?
@goaded said "So, it will be anti-democratic and unconstitutional. Do you really think a better system would come from such beginnings?"
What other origins of liberty do you expect you would ever have?
What Washington D. C. is doing right now is already competently disregarding any limits at all much less the limits of our agreed to Federal Constitution. As for "democratic" that likewise a myth but at least its not as important to the restoration of our freedom as the Constitutional one.
If we had theses things no revolution would be desired nor required, thou rest-assured it would happened over time at the demand of power hungry political regardless as it always does, such is the cycle of human history and the nature of men.
@goaded You need to parse those words a little more carefully, I don't think @juxtapose position is a call, but a statement of believe, that a politicians lust for power will not be checked except by fear of their own life.
I don't agree with this position nonetheless I think politicians lust for power can be at least temporarily redirected towards constructive proposes and set to check other politicians.
We do nonetheless have to deal with the ones already at the top, and this can be done peacefully by simply refusing to cooperate with them under the terms of our Constitution. Thus practically changing the nature of the game and transferring the power back to the bottom.
Such peaceful refusal to cooperate with politicians agenda very much written into the Federal Constitution and even described to us by its Author James Madison as the proper thing to do.
So no, because our founding Generation was wise in writing this constitution we have no need to disregard the Constitution to enforce it's limits.
Madison, et al, wrote the constitution to be amended to keep up with the times, to allow for people to peacefully refuse to cooperate with a politician's agenda by voting them out.
A group of people who decide they don't like the way the last century has gone, which happens to have been towards the whole people being created equal ideal of the founders (even if they didn't really believe it themselves), choosing to use anything but democratic methods, especially violence, to force their views on others is terrorism.
"What Washington D. C. is doing right now is already competently disregarding any limits at all much less the limits of our agreed to Federal Constitution."
Again, I ask for concrete examples.
@goaded By last century i presume you mean the 20th century, and by how its gone I presume you refer to the progressive's own definition of "towards the people" which of course is not even remotely true given how many rights and how relativity impoverish we the people became.
Unfortunately most people's inability to fully grasp the economies of the past is what makes us unable to judge long term decline. If you control for inflation and tecnoligy we are a much more impoverished nation than we were 100 years ago. We the people are not better off but less free and more struggling. In absolute terms we can't even afford to have our wife's take care of our kids anymore, a basic necessity of civilization.
We were told by our cultural and political masters that this was "liberation" but our kids paid a very high price if they were lucky enough to be born at all, and those who were born inherited a culture on its way out the door.
I did not see your prior request for examples of how D. C. completely disregards any limits, it seems hard to ignore such example taking intuitively from "Social Securty" to federal laws on how we build our houses, and what we can buy.
Individually they don't represent a compete disregard of our Federal Constitutions of limited power but together and the fact that they still debate and make more such 'laws' sometimes without even an act of congress demonstrates utter disregard for any meaningful limit upon their power.
I meant the century since the last guilded age. In that time, women gained equal rights, coloured and homosexual people, too. Those were good things. I'm not disputing politicians are crap, but the reason "we can't even afford to have our wife's take care of our kids anymore" is that wages have declined in real terms, as have tax rates for the seriously rich, over the last 50 years. You need to elect better politicians who will actually look out for working people.
"The general welfare" is part of the constitution, like it or not.
@goaded I don't understand how it is that you propose the same old 'solutions' already unsuccessfully tried and expect me to take you seriously?
We tried all that and even with 90% taxes, and the bankrolling of the worlds largest gold reserve build over the age of freedom in the 19th century. It wasn't enough and then by the 1970's we ran out of that gold. It wasn't even possible to pretend we could afford this level of goverment control.
The age of freedom there was no federal income tax during most of the 19th century nor any real domestic 'federal laws' uniformly effecting the entire country with the same bad polices. People as such could easily identify and correct bad policies when they were invariably institutes based upon how they effected their state relativist to other people in other states.
Indeed, unemployment was soo uncommon in some states it was actually illegal.
The top down ideas of the progressive era were a disaster
@goaded Regarding "general welfare clause of Article 1 Section 8 if you read that closely and what the people who actually wrote and ratified it said you would know general welfare like common Defense are qualifiers for the forgoing powers. NOT grants of powers in themselfs.
This idea was specifically addressed as insane by the people who wrote and ratified the constitution.
@Juxtapose Elections put Trump in charge for four years.
@Juxtapose You got that backwards, the electoral cottage actual isolates elections between the states.
The fact that other states cast their electoral votes on the basis of fraudulent elections is inconsequential seeing as they could have cast them anyway they wanted to, and had originally done so via state legislator vote.
@Juxtapose Regarding virtuous 'politicians' on the rare occasion they are elected, your right they tend to be at best a temporary blessing. Most men simply to get elected at such a high level by people from across a state much less a continent. Will requires soo many favors and deals with soo many people and factions that virtue is all but out of the question. Those few that make it are then subject to the corruption of power.
As such we are far better off that any position at such a level be as limited in its power and effect as possible. You will never avoid this problem of scale in politics, the mechanics of elections soo distant from the eyes of the people are simply too many games of telephone removed from the same people.
@Juxtapose There does indeed seem to be a class of elites very much tied to the existing political order or at least a large part of it which they directly or indirectly benefit.
Such seems to be a unavoidable result of the use of such power, invariably creating a faction of dependents organized to retain such.
Trump threatened their hold for no other reason then the fact that he didn't need their money, and therefore could not be reliably purchased.
This is what people like @goaded don't seem to understand about the nature of giving goverment soo much power. You can't avoid the corruption and elites that form to consolidate and limit the use of such power.
We in the rest of the country often see this as the "Washington D. C." problem because historically soo much of those elite parasites tend to congregate around such power to better control it. However today they live anywhere and everywhere.
Every generation made changes to the constitution until the last one. It shouldn't be easy, but it should be done from time to time. Might I suggest one that states clearly that money is not "speech", and the corporations are not "people"? Maybe something about what defines a militia?
@goaded So to is simply putting yourself in the social science industry as leftist have done to the effect of 80% domination either as a result of the corruption of such power or intentional choice of that career path.
At least a rich person has demonstrated some good judgement in the wider economy beyond the art of persuasion, and even then they can only buy what theses leftist choose to sell in the microphone they own.
@monorprise What are you talking about? "social science industry"? How about "what 80% of the population wants"? There are dozens of examples that will never come to pass because rich people don't want them and they own the politicians.
You think Musk was demonstrating "good judgement" when he bought Twitter? The ones who didn't inherit everything mosty had the "good judgement" to have rich parents, and the good luck to find something they could exploit, and had few if any scruples about doing so to the detriment of others. Allowing one of those exploitable things to be your politicians is a recipe for disaster.
@goaded Musk bought Twitter because he wanted a free speech platform and he wasn't getting it from ironically corrupt corporate and monarchical interest that owned and advertised on twitter.
All of which wanted to limited information to help control and direct the population in their favored direction.
I don't know what Musk's plans are with Twitter and would not have the business skill superior to Musk's anyway to judge them. I suspect however Musk was less conserved about it being a good financial move than being a cause of free speech he very much cared about. Free speech is of course the opposite of control, as it is the choose NOT to exercise control.
In regard to what the population does or does not want, i think you will find that is largely dictated by what little the population does or does not know, and as that changes soo to does their reported desires.
Unfortunately that of course is the reason Twitter and other speech platforms are soo limited and controlled in the first place.
@goaded one thing that has come to light since Musk's take over what just how much political and economic pressure there is demanding censorship.
Twitter, like fox and really every other market platform that attempts free speech is put under enormous pressure by major businesses and governments around the world to shut it down. Refusal to do so results in economic and legal persecution. Musk's friend twitter founder jack Dorsey who also apparently believed in free speech remarked on this reality in regretting making Twitter a company rather than a protocol.
As a protocol being far more difficult to censor and control, than a business that requires money and who's employees can be persecuted.
So admittedly Musk is trying to play the same distasteful game to stay in business. How this will change him I don't know. What i do know is that things are being said that were not being said before and that is a good thing.
The funny part is people say you can't change it. I guess they don't know what the word “amendment” means.
@Juxtapose you’ll find words cut deeper than bullets with none of the innocent bystanders.
@Juxtapose every Vietnamese wasn’t armed and if they were even more villages than My Lai woulda been slaughtered. Because guns don’t make you safer.
The whole reason why those villages were slaughtered in the first place was because they were all considered combatants.
Go ahead and try to invade some place like Switzerland where everyone is trained in firearms and has at least one firearm. That's a definite deterrent and it will also keep their local government in line.
Win-win.
With the exception of the Senate, the Federal Constitution can be amended if 3/4th of the States approve. Practically that means you need fewer than 13 States in opposition.
Its rather difficult to get even the 2/3rd necessary of congress or the States to prepossess an amendment. Althou there is an effort.
@Juxtapose so you think the United States military -which has more inventory specialists that Swiss have people- couldn’t invade and take over Switzerland in one easy fail swoop? Lol
@Juxtapose I don’t think any practical intel was available on the agrarian Vietnam. And we had stupid leadership bent on fighting commies and spying on hippies.
But my point is, you having a gun, any gun, is useless compared to swat or US military. Even if you handed together a 50k + army. Those days of violent revolution are over.
So let’s save the children being gunned down as a result of these stupid beliefs.
@Juxtapose sorry that’s of the past. Unless we start underfunding the military and police immediately. But right wingers stupidly don’t realize that as they vote for more defense and stock up on arms. Lol
@Juxtapose you’ll find it wasn’t the military that failed it was the war at home was unpopular. Millions of Vietnamese died compared to a hundred thousand US. Millions of Iraqis and Afghans as well.
Again, not saying that was right, but your Red Dawn partisan wet dream is prioritized over current lives of school children.
@OddBeMe I don't agree with Mandatory background checks as that empowers someone to subjectively deny on a whole list of real or imagined reasons.
Regardless the Federal Constitution provides no exceptions to the limits on federal power because that power was never intended to exist at all. The so called "bill of rights" is after all really written to be a "bill of restrictions" on federal power out of an abundance of caution, that future federal politicans might do precisely what you been demanding they do.
If you want to create domestic laws like that the proper form is the state. If your worried about your State's porous borders your perfectly free to setup customs under the Constitution. You just have to be willing to pay for it.
Opinion
5Opinion
I think we’re fine for the most part, your not wrong the founders thought the constitution should be amended every 25-50 years (I can’t remember the exact amount of years) there are amendments That we completely ignore. 9th and 10th amendments primarily, We also don’t adhere to the 18th amendment which is prohibition the 21st amendment changed it.
Yea that one is kinda funny. It’s funny there’s only been 3 presidents who refused the president Al pay check, 2 were republicans Kennedy was the only democrat. 25th amendment I know was passed to prevent an Edith Wilson situation. Which should be used now Jill Biden is pretty much Edith Wilson of the 21st century. But democratic really don’t have anyone to run besides Biden. Harris and Buttigieg. Are less popular the Biden. Of course the democratic are trying to get republicans to run trump again. When we need someone more practical, but still popular, a. k. a. Ron DeSantis
@OddBeMe Actually the 27th amendment was originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights in 1789. It failed to reach the required 3/4th ratified at that time. Ohio ratified it about 100 years later in 1873 where it was then forgotten for over anther 100 years when Wyoming rediscovered and ratified it in 1978.
It really took off when Gregory Watson started a campaign over a bad grade at the university of Texas in the early 1980s.
The Amendment didn't have anything to do with wage garnishment, but rather controlling corruption. Both to insure Congress both couldn't vote to give themselfs all the money they wanted nor could they vote to blackmail future members of congress into supporting any particular policy.
Either go back to the original intent of the Constitution, or throw it out altogether and go back to being a confederacy with no central government at all. The original country had no congress, no president, no central government at all.
It's a huge stretch to say we still go by the intent of the Constitution. The country now is nothing at all like what was envisioned.
What do you mean? We don't even listen to it.
The draft alone? That is involuntary servitude, so is "work detail" in prison.
Are free speech rights do not take into consideration the internet one iota and that is blatantly retarded. Some idiots probably going to flag this comment because I said one of their forbidden trigger words.
@Juxtapose
What does the means of speech (internet) have to with the concept of free speech?
If anything the internet is the least intrusive and most effective means of free speech let invented.
That various nefarious actors might today use computers bait and switch (fraud) to manipulate and cheat us is not itself speech but a form of thief. In that we were lured to invest our money, time and resources in their service on either false pretense or in exchange for services they suddenly stopped delivering.
It is fine as it is, thanks!
Way too much
The only opinion from girls was selected the Most Helpful Opinion, but you can still contribute by sharing an opinion!
You can also add your opinion below!
Girl's Behavior 
Guy's Behavior 
Flirting 
Dating 
Relationships 
Fashion & Beauty 
Health & Fitness 
Marriage & Weddings 
Shopping & Gifts 
Technology & Internet 
Break Up & Divorce 
Education & Career 
Entertainment & Arts 
Family & Friends 
Food & Beverage 
Hobbies & Leisure 
Other 
Religion & Spirituality 
Society & Politics 
Sports 
Travel 
Trending & News 
Most Helpful Opinions