The founding fathers would be aghast at what America became. Hard to imagine modern America passing some of those constitutional amendments that older America passed wayyy back.

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TFNA 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

On the other hand, why care what the American founding fathers thought? There have been two centuries since then of developments in democratic countries that some Americans could choose as a model they like more. And now it's the Chinese century anyway.

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iamnothere 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The great thing is, they were thoughtful enough to include a process for amending the documents that serve as the country’s operating system.

We should consider using that process! Surely things have changed enough in the last half a century to justify a new amendment or three.

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t0mpr1c3 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The amendment process is broken. The constitution has become a fossil law.

The problem has become acute now that the SCOTUS majority has arrogated power to itself in shameless and corrupt fashion.

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holgerschurig a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> amending the documents

That is actually not so good. First, all constitutions that I know of have a process of change, e.g. 2/3 majority in parliament, or in 2 houses or something. And note that I wrote "change", not "amend". The idea that one can only add things to a constitution is weird one --- but then again, I'm european and don't know the US constitution correctly, maybe the amendments delete outdated paragraphs?

But still, a process of change junk you wrote earlier is hardly "thoughtful", it's just natural.

However, in reality the US constitution sucked, and continues to suck. US people claim they are the epitome of freedom, but yet they were for hundreds of years the epitome of slavery. Or of genocide to native tribe (look up "Trail of Tears").

They claim they are the epitome of democracy, and yet they basically have only a 2-party system cemented in stone, with no fresh air ever. But even worse: there are so many cases of gerrymandering in the US --- a clear anti-democratic way of organizing elections --- and yet the oh-so-democratic constitution hasn't an answer to this. No way to give back real election power to the people.

The the US, elected people with stamina can hinder a democratic process by filibustering, nothing that we know of sane countries.

Apropos sane: have you heard about "government shutdown" of e.g. France, Sweden or Poland? That doesn't exist there. It's a laughing stock to some of us. Seems like a hefty wart in the US system, I personally wouldn't like to be some government employed person with the insecurity of "Do I get my money next month?". Not 100% sure, but perhaps this shutdown is a function of the US constitution?

The rest of the US justice system isn't particular good either. That's not exactly constitution, but usually the constitution sets the basis on how and where the laws work. The US congress these days creates massive 2000 pages long laws no can read or understand. The US has the highest incarceration rate of the western world and STILL one of the highest crime rates. The US police forces alone kills more people each year than the total number of people killed by guns in Germany by police and criminals combined. Before court, not all people are equal, the people with deep pockets are equaller. Or look how a drug company and medical doctors made lots of US citizens drug addicts. And it took many, many years to reduce the issue ... and the law system had no answer for this. Which CEO or CFO went to jail, for example? Which GP went to jail for addicting his patients, lost his license?

These days, even the balance of power is in jeopardy, and the US constitution again has no answer to this.

To me, I'd say the situation in the US justifies a rewrite of the constitution to something modern, and than a general election on this new constitution. Get rid of the old rubbish, it showed that it has many, very many, grave problems.

But again, I'm from europe and am therefore not so deep into your things ...

	▲	iamnothere a day ago \| parent [-]
		Amendments allow you to add language that invalidates prior language. The old language isn’t “deleted” but it is superseded so it is no longer relevant. For display purposes, the invalidated text is often shown with a strikethrough. You can’t “delete” language because the original is a physical document, but this works the same in practice. A rewrite is possible but it requires a constitutional convention (similar process to an amendment) or a revolution. IMHO a rewrite is a bad idea because corporate, and military, and intelligence influences are too strong right now compared to the people. They would dominate the process. We certainly have our problems, but so does everybody. Nearly all democracies are falling to corruption, institutional capture, and domestic repression. We’re not alone in this.

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gorgoiler 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be fair, there have been a few democratic developments since the founding fathers were around. 27 at the last count.

	▲	Cider9986 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Pretty good law imo.

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antonvs 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> On the other hand, why care what the American founding fathers thought?

Because they had direct experience with tyranny and exploitation, and documented their response to that in the US founding documents. We care because if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. Which is pretty much what's happening right now.

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danudey 2 days ago | parent [-]

At the same time, it's necessary for societies to grow and evolve. Looking back 250 years and saying "This isn't how THEY would have done it" is not always the correct perspective.

Anyway, you don't have to look back to the founding fathers. Go back to 1930's Germany and you can see all the parallels you want, much closer to today's situation and in a much more modern and relevant context.

	▲	sixothree 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> saying "This isn't how THEY would have done it" is not always the correct perspective Even though I might agree, it's the primary legal perspective used by the highest court.
	▲	antonvs 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Looking back 250 years and saying "This isn't how THEY would have done it" is not always the correct perspective. Sure, but usually when someone raises that, they're doing so because they think it is the correct perspective, and that the founding fathers had a good rationale for their position. It's shorthand for going into the entire history.

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esafak 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Because they provide a reasonable common foundation. Otherwise you will forever be arguing with Christian nationalists.

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scoofy 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many if not most of the founding fathers owned human beings, and the vast majority of people (94% of the population) weren't allowed to vote because they didn't own property or they happened to be female.

What are you even talking about?

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petcat 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

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Zigurd 2 days ago | parent [-]

What about the abolitionists among the signers of the Declaration?

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petcat 2 days ago | parent [-]

I don't want to get into a whole thing about the founding fathers and American mythology. Yes, they had some pretty good ideas that have withstood the test of time. They also had some pretty f'ing bad ideas that we had to change.

So some comment about the founding fathers rolling over in their graves about what America has become is complete nonsense.

	▲	bastardoperator 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Executive war making, overgrown militaries, debt, party politics, concentrated power, corporate power, and foreign entanglement. The framers did not invision America in its current state, to state otherwise would be nonsense because we can just read the words they wrote.
	▲	colordrops 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		What is your point? The original comment was really just a wry statement about the extreme level of corruption and ineffectiveness of the US government. Sounds like you find the current situation to be A-OK?

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amazingamazing 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Who cares what the slave owners thought. What you should care about are Americans who support this stuff now.

	▲	BizarroLand 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's dumb to overlook the "founding fathers" based on what we now perceive as their personal failings. Once the dead are gone, they're gone. It's ok to rifle through their spiritual corpses for the few nuggets of useful material in them and leave the rest to the trash pile of history.