1: the quote is from the declaration of independence, not the US Constitution that was written 13 years later after the initial weak federal government was found to be too weak.
2: 11 of the ratified amendments were essentially part of the bargain to get said Constitution passed. And absent the civil war amendments, none of the subsequent amendments were passed due to violence. (Maybe you’re thinking of the VRA?)
3: that SCOTUS has devolved into a creative writing exercise in “how can we pretend the Constitution doesn’t say what it says”, apparently Jefferson was right and enumerated rights were a mistake. (Given the benefit of hindsight, an equally difficult process for removing rights recognized by Congress or SCOTUS would have been better.)
I mean there needed to be a rule that SCOTUS couldn’t grant immunity to lawsuits or exempt the government from lawsuits.
One obvious sign the constitution was not designed with much thought is that the Supreme Court and the Electoral College are both examples of what people in the 1700s thought would create apolitical processes with diametrically opposing theories (permanent = apolitical, temporary = apolitical) and the electoral college is definitely more successful so far in achieving its stated goals.
The point of the electoral college isn’t to be apolitical, it’s to guarantee that the president is elected by the states and not the people. That was part of the compromise between the national and federal sides of the government. Though since the capping of the number in the House the government has been lopsided toward federal.
They had no mandate to write the thing. Technically, if they failed to get popular support, they could have been considered guilty of treason. So, in short, it was propaganda to get people to just go ahead and sign on to what they were doing
and my position is that it never truly meant “all men” when it referred to equality, etc. we all know that anyway. i just wanted to remind folks that the existence of things like amendments means the document and mindset is not immutable and depending on the folks in charge can be changed. sometimes even reversing prior amendments!
in short: stop pretending the declaration and constitution mean anything. at all. in this day and age most critically.
Man, it gets tiring, doesn’t it? The way people basically worship the existence of certain documents, in spite of having no clue what the authors were actually talking about. Obviously this goes for religion as well as politics, cause they’re fundamentally the exact same thing.
Oh, and speaking of the founding documents not being immutable, I heard that Jefferson actually made some quote to the effect that he expected us to completely rewrite everything every 20 to 30 years or so… Implies that the so-called founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be set in stone in any way. But instead everybody swears oaths to a goddamn piece of paper, giving it a quasi-holy status in our culture.
So basically all I’m saying is I’m right there with ya!
1: the quote is from the declaration of independence, not the US Constitution that was written 13 years later after the initial weak federal government was found to be too weak.
2: 11 of the ratified amendments were essentially part of the bargain to get said Constitution passed. And absent the civil war amendments, none of the subsequent amendments were passed due to violence. (Maybe you’re thinking of the VRA?)
3: that SCOTUS has devolved into a creative writing exercise in “how can we pretend the Constitution doesn’t say what it says”, apparently Jefferson was right and enumerated rights were a mistake. (Given the benefit of hindsight, an equally difficult process for removing rights recognized by Congress or SCOTUS would have been better.)
I mean there needed to be a rule that SCOTUS couldn’t grant immunity to lawsuits or exempt the government from lawsuits.
One obvious sign the constitution was not designed with much thought is that the Supreme Court and the Electoral College are both examples of what people in the 1700s thought would create apolitical processes with diametrically opposing theories (permanent = apolitical, temporary = apolitical) and the electoral college is definitely more successful so far in achieving its stated goals.
The point of the electoral college isn’t to be apolitical, it’s to guarantee that the president is elected by the states and not the people. That was part of the compromise between the national and federal sides of the government. Though since the capping of the number in the House the government has been lopsided toward federal.
They had no mandate to write the thing. Technically, if they failed to get popular support, they could have been considered guilty of treason. So, in short, it was propaganda to get people to just go ahead and sign on to what they were doing
and my position is that it never truly meant “all men” when it referred to equality, etc. we all know that anyway. i just wanted to remind folks that the existence of things like amendments means the document and mindset is not immutable and depending on the folks in charge can be changed. sometimes even reversing prior amendments!
in short: stop pretending the declaration and constitution mean anything. at all. in this day and age most critically.
Man, it gets tiring, doesn’t it? The way people basically worship the existence of certain documents, in spite of having no clue what the authors were actually talking about. Obviously this goes for religion as well as politics, cause they’re fundamentally the exact same thing.
Oh, and speaking of the founding documents not being immutable, I heard that Jefferson actually made some quote to the effect that he expected us to completely rewrite everything every 20 to 30 years or so… Implies that the so-called founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be set in stone in any way. But instead everybody swears oaths to a goddamn piece of paper, giving it a quasi-holy status in our culture.
So basically all I’m saying is I’m right there with ya!