hi j-t,
thanks! not smarter than americans in general - but maybe less certain than many tea partiers who seem to be self-selecting extremists!
i don't go so far as to say i hate the constitution. in its mostly eighteenth century context, it was a good idea. i just think it could use some updating. treating it as a sacred and more-or-less unchangeable document written by sages for the ages is the wrong approach. that's a fixed sort of model of thinking where evolution is appropriate.
the bill of rights would be fine if its presumptions were rebuttable using precedent and good sense. no one can define an individual principle that isn't also socially circumstantial and potentially impermanent.
this is what the process of common law shows time and again: principle; exception; exception to the exception.... time passes, a new principle emerges.
the rights as expressed in the constitution are too robust and unchallengeable in my view. it shouldn't require a war to make an amendment. great britain, which had a large slave trade, managed to rid itself of slavery through the action of its parliament and of its courts in the early nineteenth century. the us was unable to do so and the tension continued long after the question was settled elsewhere.
so i think the bill of rights could use a set of modifiers which reduces the harms which are done when individual rights are taken to extremes. hence, the inclusion of some sort of harm principle: your freedom to do as you wish extends no further than my freedom not to be imposed upon by you. this is not a new thought. it is an important one all the same. we don't live on an endless prairie. we live in cities and have to accommodate one another.
and also, it really ought to be possible to remove rights from the ledger that have served their purpose. one may wish not to exclude the use of firearms in law - but let's not pretend they make for a safer society or have a constitutional value in the protection of the state. militias are a historical curiosity. they serve no current purpose. let the relic of the second amendment disappear. let government write laws about the availability of arms free of the restraint of review by the supreme court.
on the government structure side of things - most countries have adopted a parliamentary model and avoided the us structure. makes sense to me too.
i think taking electoral turns in parliament may be a more functional form than seeking compromise across two chambers and with a president. i don't see how one argues otherwise now that there is a party which professes to despise government and to wish for its reduction to almost nothing. and which will hold us credit and indeed the global economy to ransom to get what it demands.
this is distinct from a party that wants efficiency or smart government. tea party people demand its reduction to the point of absurdity.
you can't have a balanced debate with extremists. so compromise won't work.
i think this sort of extremism is derivative of and is preserved by this constitution. so change the constitution, expose these people to daylight and see them disappear into history's garbage can.
finally, money isn't speech and corporations aren't people in an electoral sense. so it ought to be possible to regulate elections so that no one but individuals can contribute to campaigns and no campaign should depend upon a single contribution representing, say, more than 0.1% of the total amount of funds it has raised.
okay - it's a mighty change. but if one wants what one has, then one cannot also complain that the government functions as specified. i think the problems define their own solutions.
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