Forum Post: What needs to be changed in the U.S. Constitution?
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 20, 2011, 1:46 p.m. EST by zymergy
(236)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
If the problem is money in politics, then we must recognize that most of us are subject to the influence of wealth. Wealth can come in many forms - extra food, extra living space, and extra attention from admirers and supporters - to name a few. We tend in our modern economy to lump all of these extras into the category of money. But, money in itself cannot be a bad thing to have if we want to get things done.
Our representative form of government, explicitly founded in the Constitution, guarantees that representatives must and will accrue some of the extras that we now call money. The first of the extras that they will need are the resources to attract our votes. Once they are elected to office, they will have acquired another of the extras, our attention. We will pay attention to what they say and to what they do. We will line up outside their door and beg for a moment of their time.
Is there a better way to run a government than to depend on representatives? Considering the various forms of government that have been attempted in the past, I can not recommend one, but there may be things that we can do to make it harder for our representative form of government to come under the influence and control of a specific point of view or interest (including my own, for my interests are neither broad nor smart enough to govern a country). One of the things that we might try is to vote out of office every elected representative at the end of each term. The other thing we could do is to avoid voting into office any person who has demonstrated dependence on a political party. We should be much better of with 600 or so independent representatives in Congress, all representing an equal number of different interests and points of view, than to have Congress representing only two points of view that are more easily bought and managed. By using these two approaches, we might increase the chaos a bit in Congress. Chaos is actually good in a system that needs to be flexible and adaptive.
Does it require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to take the two steps I suggested above? Probably not, but we must recognize that it is one purpose of a political party to capture in advance of an election sufficient alliances to win the vote. People join a party and vote accordingly because they hope that the party will represent their specific interest and because they believe that their specific interest will be sustained in the process. In the short term, party loyalists are often correct in this belief, taxes get lowered, industry gets regulated, abortions get funded, teachers get assessed, and so forth. In the long term however, jobs get moved to cheeper labor markets, the national debt accelerates, but this list is too well known here to elaborate.
If not a Constitutional amendment then, what is required to reverse the negative long-term damages to our economy, liberties, and culture? Well, let’s look again to ourselves. Do we vote? Do we vote for the most independent candidate, or do we permit the lesser of evils to prevail? Do we buy on credit, adding wealth to the banks on each acquisition of some material or service? Do we buy things that we don’t need to make us feel better, adding junk to our lives, and ignoring the things we do that make us feel bad? Do we buy things that invariably come now from abroad, adding to our trade deficit? Do we play when we should work? Do we argue when we should think? Do we watch when we should act?
I'm Allowed to Rob You! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it" — Frederic Bastiat
Egalitarian reforms are enacted for the purpose of consolidating power, not redistributing power. When Peisistratus bestowed the first democratic rights on the people of the Attic countryside, it was a power play designed to gain supremacy over the oligarchy that lived in Athens. The same can be said of our founding fathers. The Jeffersonian conception of democracy was a palliative for the restive fervor of the lower classes. Each man, through hard work and determination, was able to carve out a little plot of liberty for themselves. However, the reality was that of a class society in which it was nearly impossible to escape the position into which one was born, and it was naturally assumed that real wealth and power would remain in the hands of a particular class. Let's not forget that the same men who wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were reconciled to owning slaves, and that, "liberty," was equated with, "property." The only exception was John Adams who believed in equal treatment before the law for everyone regardless of class or position.
The Constitution is a cleverly crafted instrument of control created to insure that power remained in the hands of a certain segment of society. What appears on the surface as safeguards for our liberty are manacles shackling our freedom more securely than any totalitarian regime. We act as if our founding fathers' motives were pristine and infallible when they were acting with the same self-interest at heart as today's investment bankers and insurance companies.
Nothing really needs to be changed, but it should be followed. It hasn't been followed since WWII.
The Constitution needs to be clarified so the illiterate and ignorant judges can no longer intentionally misinterpret what a "natural person" is.
http://www.nycga.net/groups/political-and-electoral-reform/docs/amendment-28-to-the-constitution-of-the-united-states-of-america
!!!!!!!!
Here are some changes that are due;
"What needs to be changed in the U.S. Constitution? "
Only the right-wing nut jobs and libertarians in control of interpreting it.
http://www.nycga.net/groups/political-and-electoral-reform/docs/amendment-28-to-the-constitution-of-the-united-states-of-america
"ARTICLE--
"SECTION 1. We the people who ordain and establish the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States to be the rights of natural persons.
"SECTION 2. The words people, person, or citizen as used in this Constitution do not include corporations, limited liability companies and other private entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state.
"SECTION 3. Such entities not identified as a "natural persons" in SECTION 2. of this Amendment, shall be prohibited from making contributions or expenditures to, for or against, any candidate for public office or to, for or against, publicly elected official or to, for or against, any legislation before the Congress, the Senate or the people.
"SECTION 4. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, freedom of association and all such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.".
Our FOUNDING FATHERS had it right when they precluded entities that were not "Natural Persons" from a plate at the political table.
Thomas Jefferson - "I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country"
Thomas Jefferson - "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform them"
Thomas Jefferson - "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered"
Thomas Jefferson - "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs"
Thomas Jefferson - "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press"
Thomas Jefferson - "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies"
John Adams - "Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or will ever do good"
James Madison - "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance"
James Madison - "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."
Patrick Henry - "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government"
William Pitt - "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves"
Yes to dealdoctor's comments, for distinguishing between corporations and individuals. But, except by abolishing the legal form of a corporation, how do we "run them out of our government"? If we succeed in abolishing the legal form of a corporation, by what processes would various people invest and work together in a business enterprise? I would like to better understand the proposed solution, and its possible consequences.
Everyone knows the political and economic systems are broken. Is some kind of new paradigm possible? This video begins that discussion. See if it causes you to think about what you have been taught is right. A crisis is a good time to re-evaluate basic assumptions. Reality trumps any ideology conservative or liberal.
http://tinyurl.com/5swbwzz
Thanks for the link. Over two and a half hours of some pretty interesting commentary. At the end of the production, though, I was hoping that a pathway from here to there would be evident, but the end was pretty pessimistic. Looks like there is more thinking to do, and then a great amount of action. What do you suggest?
Think global and act local. Do the things you are able to do to help move us in the direction of a bottom up democracy which embraces a global vision of a resource based economic system for all people. Individual work needs to be rewarded but not to the degree that it enables anyone to enslave others or permits anyone to not have basic life sustaining needs met by the social system. The General Assemblies of OWS are an example of local direct democracy. Their concern for everyone who participates models a caring that everyone counts. This vision simply needs to be expanded and each GA needs to express unity with others doing the same thing. It is a new kind of economic and social culture. Great care needs to be exercised that these principles rule and that no existing political party co-opt the movement. Leaders will emerge but great care must be exercised that they not become the center of power. The center of power must be the ruling principles of bottom up direct democracy and resource based economics. Professional political and economic elites who have lost touch with we the people and seek to rule rather than serve us are the "enemies" of movement toward a better world. Greed and elitism are the "enemy". These must be resisted without violence. This website will give many practical suggestions http://www.aeinstein.org/
Someone else noted that career politicians, once bribed, will likely persist in ignoring their oaths to defend the Constitution. I wish I knew a good way to "encourage" new representatives to take their oaths seriously, but failing this ability, at least we cam make sure that there are no career politicians, and we can break the power of the two major political parties. I am not opposed to lobbyists, for I would be a lobbyist myself if anyone would pay attention to my ideas and to my meager bribes
Unless we force our representatives to honor their oath of office to OBEY and protect the Constitution, nothing will change. If they won't honor their oath now, what makes one think they won't still cater to the bribes of their special interest rulers?
The original organic Constitution along with the first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights) is all that is necessary to end the madness we have experience for the last century.
The true enemy, the oligarchy of banksters and big corporate monopolists, driven by greed and lust for power, ARE the terrorists seeking to place you and your progeny into perpetual debt slavery.
Impeachment and prosecution are the ONLY answer to our current situation. As long as we let the crooks get away with it, the debt slavery and loss of inalienable rights, freedoms and property will continue.
http://www.constitutionattacked.com
the constitution is for the control of government not for the control of its people.
Once I was in government, and all I could see around me were people.
The first reform I would like to see is proportional representation, at least in the House of Representatives. Citizens of each state should be allowed to vote for multiple parties, with instant runoff voting, with seats allotted according to the proportion favoring each party. Parties should be allowed to combine their small vote counts or leftover vote counts after seats are assigned, if they can negotiate to decide on mutually acceptable candidates to receive their combined vote count. (Note that this means that the House seats would no longer represent specific districts, but only the people of a state as a whole; this seems acceptable for federal government, and would end gerrymandering at the federal level).
The second, more ambitious reform would be to establish a third, virtual, legislative chamber, which I would call the Constituent Assembly. In this chamber, people would submit proposed text of legislation, to be approved or opposed by their fellow citizens. There would be ways for people to proxy their votes with organizations they support, with logical "programming" possible - i.e., "if the ACLU liason supports a draft bill, and the EFF liason supports it, and the OWS liason supports it, count me in". I see "We The People" ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/petitions ) as a very, very crude prototype of this. But in its preferred embodiment, the Constituent Assembly would be the only branch of government capable of proposing legislation; the House and Senate would be reduced to voting on and perhaps amending it under strict limitations.
I very much agree with the notion of the constituents being the sole source of legislation; it's an idea I've kicked around before too.
With representatives relegated merely to approval / disapproval, legislation that works against the people in favor of corporations or political parties has virtually no chance of creation.
Of course, advertising and marketting will become the new lobbying (they already are) -- but it will be much less effective as the constituents contain a greater amount of entropy than a handful of representatives.
I also see the representative vote as becoming somewhat superfluous; almost like we're throwing a bone to the existing system, patronizing it. If legislation has passed the constituents' direct majority, then what purpose do they have for representative input?
I never really added any kind of voting to the Constituent Assembly idea as I pictured it - any draft submitted could be chosen by a legislator, even one written by a lone lobbyist. This is in keeping with the notion of beginning it as a voluntary, unofficial process. The real point would be that when a legislator first submitted a bill, people would know whether it had one person behind it or a million, and which organizations supported it, and that other constituents had had a chance to look over it and propose variations and see if they received more support than the original.
The congressional vote would still be the acid test, yes or no, rather than "who supports this particular bill". The traditional deal-making of politics would still go on there. There's only so large a change I want to propose due to the difficulties and risks involved.
to mserfas: thanks for your informative post. will look into both of your suggestions, about which I presently know little.
Well, I was making up some of that as I went along, to suit my preferences - I think proportional representation is more often presented as a full-on Parliament rather than as a state by state thing, and the idea of having parties make deals to join their votes up is at least unusual, I think. The "Constituent Assembly" bit is pretty much my idea, though many Obama supporters in the run-up to 2008 discussed some means of having citizens rather than lobbyists develop or at least comment on draft legislation.
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Removal of the 16th and 17th amendments, and a new amendment added that dictates full election reform, and preventing politicians to pass laws that are specially made for them. They have to be bound by the same laws and rules as citizens. A cap on politicians compensation should also be included.
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