I do agree with your analysis. Noah. Good observations about the deficiencies of our Constitution. It could certainly be improved upon. However, I would point out that right now we are running into a problem with frank violations of our Constitution. The Supreme Court is not even trying to justify their decisions in any rational way. It seems to be a free-for-all. Therefore, it is not the content of the Constitution that is our main problem at this time.
The Constitution was devised and ratified at a far different time in the history of the United States. No one at that time could have predicted the economic power and political influence it would gain in the future- nor that any "foreigner" could become an influential government officer.
I think we'd be better off with a Parliamentary system than what we have now. Progressives would wield more power to pull the party leftward. But we absolutely have to abolish the Electoral College. One person, one vote. Period.
The elitism of the founders and the fact that said elites for 250 years have produced consistently garbage results really makes me wonder if we need more direct democracy. Like should we literally just have the entire country vote on policy? From what I remember the political science literature isn't kind to the idea of ballot measures and the idea of direct democracy in general. But stuff like ballot initiatives are often created and/or manipulated by the very elites that are crappy legislators. And even then they can often make better policy than legislatures.
I can hear the liberal critique being "well what if we do this in states and Republican states do even more harm than they already do". Sure, but things are already pretty shitty here in places like TN. I'm willing to bet that even with my many bigoted neighbors they'd run into better policies on accident more often than elected TN Republicans. And if not we could at least have a chance with every vote (not sure how it would look exactly, you'd still need an administrative state and probably some sort of legislature to draw up the actual text of policy and whatnot) instead of hoping Democrats can win enough races to at least not give Republicans a supermajority.
I do agree with your analysis. Noah. Good observations about the deficiencies of our Constitution. It could certainly be improved upon. However, I would point out that right now we are running into a problem with frank violations of our Constitution. The Supreme Court is not even trying to justify their decisions in any rational way. It seems to be a free-for-all. Therefore, it is not the content of the Constitution that is our main problem at this time.
The Constitution was devised and ratified at a far different time in the history of the United States. No one at that time could have predicted the economic power and political influence it would gain in the future- nor that any "foreigner" could become an influential government officer.
it was a different time…but also they were nativists and racists and made a bunch of bad decisions which were pretty predictable.
Agreed.
I think we'd be better off with a Parliamentary system than what we have now. Progressives would wield more power to pull the party leftward. But we absolutely have to abolish the Electoral College. One person, one vote. Period.
Exactly. I said it up thread as well, but I'm all for burning the current constitution and starting over with one that isn't garbage.
Another thoughtful and well-articulated piece
The constitution is very much a failed experiment in governing. I'm firmly on team "burn it and start from scratch".
The elitism of the founders and the fact that said elites for 250 years have produced consistently garbage results really makes me wonder if we need more direct democracy. Like should we literally just have the entire country vote on policy? From what I remember the political science literature isn't kind to the idea of ballot measures and the idea of direct democracy in general. But stuff like ballot initiatives are often created and/or manipulated by the very elites that are crappy legislators. And even then they can often make better policy than legislatures.
I can hear the liberal critique being "well what if we do this in states and Republican states do even more harm than they already do". Sure, but things are already pretty shitty here in places like TN. I'm willing to bet that even with my many bigoted neighbors they'd run into better policies on accident more often than elected TN Republicans. And if not we could at least have a chance with every vote (not sure how it would look exactly, you'd still need an administrative state and probably some sort of legislature to draw up the actual text of policy and whatnot) instead of hoping Democrats can win enough races to at least not give Republicans a supermajority.
yeah, ballot measures are bad and easily highjacked by bilionaires and assholes. see brexit.