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Human progress? Are you really arguing that arbitrary reinterpretations of an intentionally static constitution by activist judges is a sign of human progress? Is universal healthcare a sign of progress? Would everyone agree? Is Roe v. Wade a sign of progress? Would everyone agree? Are Superpacs a sign of progress? Is a federal minimum wage a sign of progress? Is the federal reserve a sign of progress?
If these things truly are signs of progress, and people readily agree that they are good. Won't they be included, either in the new constitution, or the state constitutions?
Why is it that only the federal government can be an example of "progress"? Why can't the states progress independently of the federal government? If universal healthcare is better, then why did only two out of fifty states have a state healthcare system prior to "Obamacare"?
I always find it silly when someone says "We need to let the courts interpret the constitution in a modern context, because the framers couldn't have imagined a world like ours." And which I agree with that statement. But the framers also put in place a way to modify the constitution anytime we wanted to change it, it is called an amendment. If the constitution needed to be changed, we can change it anytime we want.
Your arguments are simply illogical.
I don't believe that a president should serve more than one term. The president should not be out campaigning while he is president of the United States. I don't know how long the term should be. Maybe five years is more appropriate. I would say five or six years seems reasonable.
Ok, lets address the enumerated powers act, line-item veto, and the limit of an act to one topic.
The enumerated powers act, requires the Congress to put in any act of Congress, from where that act of Congress gains its constitutionality. Not only does it help prevent acts of Congress that are obviously unconstitutional. But at least would help the American public understand from which areas of the constitution an act of Congress is valid. Obviously the Congress could lie, but it at least is an attempt to limit abuses of Congress. And it can't make things any worse than they already are.
The second two really work in tandem. The problem we have with Congress, is that they tend to throw a whole lot of crap into bills, usually to benefit one special interest group or anything. A spending bill for instance, will generally have hundreds or thousands of provisions with hand out money all over the country. These kinds of provisions are generally called "earmarks", and I'm sure you have heard of them.
By limiting any act of Congress to a single topic, you prevent "omni-bus spending bills". A lot of times some members of Congress will basically insert some "Amendment" to that bill while people really aren't even looking. A lot of Congressmen don't even read the bills they are signing because they are so long. Secondly, the bills a lot of times are called all kinds of weird names, which have absolutely nothing to do with the bill itself. For instance, the patriot act, should be the "spying on Americans for the purpose of national security act". And with a line-item veto, I think the Congress will be more timid in trying to pass anything that isn't well thought-out, carefully worded, and popular with the American people. If a president veto's parts of a bill to the detriment of popular opinion on the matter, then his party and ideology will suffer in the future, and the next Congress will likely enact the parts omitted. So, the line-item veto isn't perfect by any means, but would certainly help to limit the Congress from trying to push through things that aren't very popular, or trying to throw into a bill any kinds of "special provisions" for "special interests".
Getting rid of birthright citizenship isn't meant to deny citizenship. Birthright citizenship hands people citizenship at birth. Those people can still apply for citizenship just like everyone else. Birthright citizenship in this country didn't even come into existence until 1868, no immigrant children were automatically given citizenship simply because they were born here before 1868. Yet, millions upon millions of people became citizens of this country during that time. There is no reason to allow immigrants to find ways to bypass and exploit our immigration system(anchor babies anyone?).
I would limit the commerce clause to its original purpose. To make sure commerce was made regular between the states and foreign countries. Basically, to prevent states from intentionally putting up obstacles for the sole purpose of inhibiting trade. I would clarify the commerce clause to take away the concept of the "dormant commerce clause" theory.
A good example of court cases that never should have been, and which are obvious violations of the intent of the commerce clause, are Wickard v. Filburn, and Kassel v. Consolidated freightways. And also NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation.
The reason why I like the instant run-off system. Is that ultimately we are stuck with a system of proportional and disproportional representation, just like we have now. Basically, we will have a bicameral legislature, where one house is proportional, and one house is the same for each state. It is simply going to be impossible to have a parliamentary voting system, when the individual states vote for their representatives independently. We will also be stuck with a party system, because parties are necessary to organize campaigns properly.
The problem with our system isn't really the parties themselves, its that the two parties sort of hold an effective monopoly on the election system, because we have an all or nothing election system.
When people say "if you vote for a candidate who isn't a Republican or Democrat, you are wasting your vote". They are absolutely correct. All you end up doing if you are a libertarian, voting for a libertarian, is guaranteeing that the Republicans will lose.
Moreover, we can't overly complicate the election system by requiring people to vote multiple times. Voting should be a one-time thing, but we also want to have the ability for a third of fourth of fifth party, etc, to have a real shot at winning.
So, with all that said, what would be the best voting system that would work in this country?
The only system I could come up with is the instant run-off voting system. Which still allows the "first over the post", all or nothing system we have today. But it allows us to have several different parties, with different voices, and which wouldn't result in people feeling like they wasted their vote. Neither would it require people to vote more than once.
In an IRV voting system. Its based on an order of preference. For instance, this year I might have put my first preference as the libertarian candidate, then my second preference would be the republican candidate. If there were three candidates, libertarian, Republican, and democrat. And lets say 10,000 people voted.... And the 4,000 people had a first preference for the democrat, 3,500 for the Republican, and 2,500 for the libertarian. Then the libertarian candidate would be removed, and everyone who voted for the libertarian candidate would then apply their second voting preference. Lets say that in this case, of the 2,500 people who voted libertarian, 2,000 voted for the republican, and 500 voted for the democrat. Those votes then get applied to the two candidates remaining, which means the end result is that the democrat would have 4,000 + 500 votes = 4,500 votes, and the Republican would then have 3,500 + 2,000 votes or 5,500 votes.
And thus, in that system, I could vote libertarian and Republican at the same time, or libertarian and democrat, or even republican then democrat, and my vote wouldn't end up wasted.
Anyway, IRV or "prefential voting" seemed like the most practical voting system applicable to the American system of government.
all that needs to be done is to have the word "expressly" added to the 10th Amendment and that would kill most of the federal goverment overnight.
It's NOT going to happen.
You are not going to your "States Rights" mandate so you and the rest of conservative Talibans can run roughshod over people how don't look like you, think like you or vote like you.
You are not going to your "States Rights" mandate so you and the rest of conservative Talibans can run roughshod over people how don't look like you, think like you or vote like you.
Thanks for sharing.
try reading the 10th Amendment sometime, it is not only states rights but individual rights. the founders always considered individuals rights to be over the states or the federal goverments.
also, just because i follow some conservative values, does not mean I am conservative. I have had conservatives call me more liberal than conservative. I am glad tell you that you both are wrong.
the people, that means you and I, and others.
BTW, a Constitutional Convention cannot change the Constitution.
The ConCon merely substitutes for Congress's role in changing it: It proposes amendments, no more. But anything that a ConCon produces, must still be ratified by 3/4 of the states, or it goes in the trash can.
The short version of this ladies and gentlemen is he wants to rig the U.S. political system to work to the advantage of conservative interests.
Don't like the fact you are losing the game, just change all the damn rules.
Your wish for a constitutional convention is a pipe dream and a hail mary pass.
It's not going work.
Wrong, I am not a conservative. I am a libertarian. And it wouldn't rig anything. It would create a system of states rights. It doesn't preserve conservatism anymore than it preserves liberalism. It just prevents red states from imposing their will on blue states, and prevents blue states from imposing their will on red states.
It is obviously true that I have an interest in changing the system, otherwise I wouldn't even be proposing such a change to begin with.
But, even if I get what I want, I think even liberal states and liberal persons would be better off than they are now, at least on average. Obviously liberal people living in very conservative states might be unhappy, but likewise, conservatives living in liberal states might end up unhappy. But the average liberal would be much happier, and the average conservative would be much happier.
Look, it really doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, the Supreme Court has made many decisions that you disagree with. I highly doubt you are happy about Superpacs because of the Citizens United agreement. You might not be happy about overturning the gun bans of Washington DC, Chicago, and New York City by McDonald v. Chicago. I am sure you despise Antonin Scalia and other "conservative" justices on the Supreme Court.
Why do you possibly believe that the system we have now is working? Why do you think that the system we have now is better than a new system, that we will all have to agree to?
If you want to look at inconsistencies in how the Supreme Court applies the constitution. Here is a good example.
In 1918, there was a Supreme Court case about Congress passing a law that prohibited child labor. The Supreme Court said that the constitution didn't give Congress the authority to regulate even something as important as child labor.
Then you have a case in 1941, about whether or not Congress can set a minimum wage and maximum working hours. Not only did the Supreme Court rule that the Congress did have that power, but they ruled unanimously that they had that power. And that ruling also completely overturned the ruling in Hammer v. Dagenhart. So in a span of 23 years, the Supreme Court goes from saying, the Congress doesn't even have the power to regulate child labor, to saying effectively the Congress can regulate pretty much everything relating to employment.
My point is, there is no defending this government, and there is no defending this supreme court. The Supreme Court has absolutely no consistency or credibility. I could probably name you at least 20 Supreme Court cases that you would believe the court got absolutely and obviously wrong. Obama's healthcare law recently was brought before the courts, that decision went 5-4. If you look over the span of important Supreme Court cases, the majority of them go 5-4 as well. What does that prove?
I remember reading liberal forums when they believed that the courts would strike down the healthcare law. Did you say they wanted to push through an amendment to the constitution to allow for the healthcare reform once it was struck down? No. They were arguing that they needed to stack the court more, so that they could get their way.
Why is it that you believe our system works? Why do you believe the courts get it right? Why are you defending our election system? Why are you effectively defending the two-party monopoly? What is it that you are defending anyway?
This government is indefensible, it takes a person of absolutely no principles to ignore that fact.
Our current Constituion is very clear.
It is the Supreme Court that has muddied it.
Wickard v Filburn for one.
WHy do you think Nancy Pelosi said, "We can do anything we want". in reference to any limitation on Congress to protect the people.
Stark: "I think that there are very few Constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from rules that could affect your private life."
Thomas Jefferson: "A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities."
With too many authoritarians in our current government to rewrite of the US Constitution without us turning into a kindle gentler version of North Korea.
when the constitutionality of a case is brought before the scotus, if it is not ruled in favor of the goverment 9-0, then it should be ruled unconstutional.
You are missing my point. Certainly you can argue that slavery lasted as long as it did because of states rights, that the Civil War came about because of a conflict over states rights. But that isn't what you were saying. You were saying that states rights were only created for the purpose of slavery, and that if you are arguing for states rights, then you are arguing for slavery. Which simply isn't true.
One doesn't necessarily follow the other. Just because slavery was the most prominent issue (obviously it wasn't the only one, but it and the attendant economic and social consequences were the most salient) doesn't mean the states rights framework can't be used to benefit other issues that states for some reason feel are ill-suited for them and their apparently unique circumstances, even if those circumstances are more ideological and cultural than practical or reasonable, as is often the case today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
If you were to think of this situation more logically, you will look at it over the entire course of time. In 1789 there were 8 slave states and 5 free states. If there were no states rights in 1789, then the federal government might have said that slavery would have been legal in every state. If there was no such a thing as states rights in 1789, then free black men probably wouldn't even have been allowed to live anywhere in this country. The first time there were more free states than slave states, wasn't until 1858.
What might those "slave states" have done while they had the power to impose their will on the free states?
They didn't have the population to assert their will nationally, which is why they needed sweeteners - like giving deference to states - to join the union. They wanted to count their slaves as part of the population for representational purposes but not as citizens. Slavery was on the way out in the north and very soon abolished after 1789. Obviously not true in the South and it only became more important as time went by.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
No one wants to get rid of states rights when their views are a minority. People only hate states rights when they are the majority, and they want to impose their will on others.
I am not going to stand here and defend slavery, there is no defending it. But I will defend states rights, and if you had any consistent principles, so should you.
I understand the inclination to divorce the original dispute about states rights from slavery, and a general willingness to minimize or sweep the whole issue away as inconsequential to our current situation, but that would defy reality. The very fact that slavery existed as such an institution and so many were brought here against their will probably is why we continue to have similar regional divisions today as 175 years ago; most of the resistance to a variety of social programs today is no doubt because the perceived beneficiaries of those programs are disproportionately descendants of slaves.
Most of what I hear complaints about from conservatives are that people are doing things they should not do, e.g., abortion, gay marriage, drugs, birth control to people who should not be reproducing in the first pace if they can't independently care for their children, or that the government is discouraging people from being religious or following some specific set of values. Or that the U.S. needs to go on all sorts of military adventures overseas and other international interventions. Very little of it actually has to do with giving more freedom to people (not always so regarding corporations - I guess they are collectivists that way), which is incredibly odd considering "freedom" is the mantra.
About the only issue that has any rational traction in that regard is lower taxes (because, it is impossible to be wealthy in America, ha, ha...or maybe more principled anarchist opposition), and things can get very radical very quickly there - roll back government participation in the economy to 18th century levels? Scrap multiple Departments and regulatory bodies? It is so radical and results are anything but guaranteed to be successful, yet the idea is tossed about so cavalierly that one would think that the results are mathematically guaranteed to work to the benefit of all. Or, the convenient omission that there will be many more on the losing end, which I suppose is perhaps not only acceptable but desirable.
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