Honestly…the whole basis for the union in general needs to get reworked from the ground up.
It may have worked when the only full citizens were white landowning males.
It may have worked when a big part of a states value to the union was its quantity of land and resources, and giving it extra weight in the system…and that itself may have worked when there wasn’t as much population disparity:
1790: Total population: 3,929,214;
Most populous state: Virginia (747,610); Least populous state: Delaware (59,094) (12.6x)
2020: Total population: 331,449,281; Most populous state: California (39,538,223); Least populous state: Wyoming (576,851) (68.5x)
It may have worked when we didn’t have telephones…let alone Internet, and the fastest way to spread information, besides semaphore or smoke signals, was on the back of a horse.
Times have changed. A lot of the world saw what we started and took some risks and made some changes and we’ve gotten to watch the results of those changes and learned a lot from all of them.
The country is bigger now, in several different ways…but in at least one way, it’s smaller, too.
The constitution at this point is some old hunk of junk car that you know is objectively the worst car in your neighborhood, your friends and neighbors laugh at you behind your back for it…but you just can’t part with it because she just…won’t…die. You’ve had that car your whole life. It was a real sweet ride in its day. And it’s part love, part fear, and part morbid curiosity that keeps us covering the frame rust with flex tape.
I’m not trying to say that the constitution itself is intrinsically bad. It served us well, but it was for a wildly different time, and at this point I think it might be getting to be beyond repair.
Yeah, let’s have a constitutional convention in this environment to update the entire Constitution, let’s see how quick the bill of rights gets tossed out for a complete police state and possibly a theocracy. The most fractious the country has ever been is a great time to remove and replace the foundation of a country. Or are you thinking more of a coup where only one political “side” makes the new constitution they want, and it just gets enforced on everybody else?
Since the entire union doesn’t work anymore and needs to be reworked from the ground up devaluing/depowering States, let’s be honest: there is no way the entire country re-forms whole under its existing borders. We will end up with at least 2 or 3 countries in what was once the contiguous 48.
I guess it’s been a while since there’s been a good civil war.
The better model would be that we become 50 independent countries bound by a common trade agreement. Maybe a common military made up of state militaries for the purposes of securing external borders, protecting global trade, and enforcing agreements between internal borders. Essentially, the EU.
I think one of the biggest problems with the constitution in its current state is the commerce clause superseding the 10th amendment. A new framework, based upon the constitution and a solid base of basic human rights, but with the idea that member states are autonomous but also cooperative allies.
You want to live in your medieval fundamentalist hellhole, by all means, but don’t enforce your beliefs on my secular progressive utopia.
Yeah making all the people who have no clue about politics or politicians vote for basically whoever has the most advertising or the most well-known name certainly is not a good system. It’s already pretty bad now, we don’t need to make it worse with even more uneducated people voting.
Its called apathy.
Make everyones vote count (mandatory voting) and all of a sudden it matters
The US needs to get rid of the electoral college as well. This is dumb as fuck the weight of a vote differs between states.
Let’s throw out first-past-the-post voting while we’re at it.
Honestly…the whole basis for the union in general needs to get reworked from the ground up.
It may have worked when the only full citizens were white landowning males.
It may have worked when a big part of a states value to the union was its quantity of land and resources, and giving it extra weight in the system…and that itself may have worked when there wasn’t as much population disparity:
It may have worked when we didn’t have telephones…let alone Internet, and the fastest way to spread information, besides semaphore or smoke signals, was on the back of a horse.
Times have changed. A lot of the world saw what we started and took some risks and made some changes and we’ve gotten to watch the results of those changes and learned a lot from all of them.
The country is bigger now, in several different ways…but in at least one way, it’s smaller, too.
The constitution at this point is some old hunk of junk car that you know is objectively the worst car in your neighborhood, your friends and neighbors laugh at you behind your back for it…but you just can’t part with it because she just…won’t…die. You’ve had that car your whole life. It was a real sweet ride in its day. And it’s part love, part fear, and part morbid curiosity that keeps us covering the frame rust with flex tape.
I’m not trying to say that the constitution itself is intrinsically bad. It served us well, but it was for a wildly different time, and at this point I think it might be getting to be beyond repair.
Yeah, let’s have a constitutional convention in this environment to update the entire Constitution, let’s see how quick the bill of rights gets tossed out for a complete police state and possibly a theocracy. The most fractious the country has ever been is a great time to remove and replace the foundation of a country. Or are you thinking more of a coup where only one political “side” makes the new constitution they want, and it just gets enforced on everybody else?
Since the entire union doesn’t work anymore and needs to be reworked from the ground up devaluing/depowering States, let’s be honest: there is no way the entire country re-forms whole under its existing borders. We will end up with at least 2 or 3 countries in what was once the contiguous 48.
I guess it’s been a while since there’s been a good civil war.
The better model would be that we become 50 independent countries bound by a common trade agreement. Maybe a common military made up of state militaries for the purposes of securing external borders, protecting global trade, and enforcing agreements between internal borders. Essentially, the EU.
I think one of the biggest problems with the constitution in its current state is the commerce clause superseding the 10th amendment. A new framework, based upon the constitution and a solid base of basic human rights, but with the idea that member states are autonomous but also cooperative allies.
You want to live in your medieval fundamentalist hellhole, by all means, but don’t enforce your beliefs on my secular progressive utopia.
Brasil has compulsory voting and they had Bolsonaro (and apathy). I dont think thats a solution for this specific problem.
Yeah making all the people who have no clue about politics or politicians vote for basically whoever has the most advertising or the most well-known name certainly is not a good system. It’s already pretty bad now, we don’t need to make it worse with even more uneducated people voting.