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[-] drekly@lemmy.world 75 points 1 year ago

How dare you try and change an amendment

[-] Makeitstop@lemmy.world 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Because the constitution is the document that lays out the foundation for all of our legal rights and the limitations placed on the government that are intended to keep it accountable to the people. It's not perfect, but it does cover a hell of a lot, even more gets expanded on through legislation and the courts, and when necessary it can be (and has been) amended.

But it's also just ink and parchment. It can't do anything if the government decides to ignore it. It's the people who give power to the constitution. The more it is valued by the people across the country, throughout the political spectrum, both inside and outside the halls of power, the more likely it will be that those protections are respected. And when those protections are violated, people are far more likely to push back. And many within the government are also more likely to push back. That's literally the only reason we didn't have an overturned election, because numerous people at all levels of government said no, many despite being aligned with the assholes that were trying to stay in power.

So yes, I would very much prefer it if everyone would treat the constitution with some reverence if that's what it takes. The alternative is not pretty.

[-] Apepollo11@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Maybe.

But we don't have people storming the capital in an attempt to overthrow elections here (UK) and we don't have a formal constitution.

The two things might be unrelated.

[-] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And we did have some guys trying to storm the Reichstag in Berlin, we do have a constitution, but we don't call it constitution and it's also more of a permanent draft.

[-] ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

IMO the constitution is that important to Americans, because they don't really have tradition or culture to draw from. The USA is a very young country. Yes I know that technically modern day Germany, Italy and others are younger. However, those countries have many centuries of tradition and culture to draw from.

Pretty much every country has some form of 'the highest law', which is intentionally kept rather abstract. Afterall it is the framework for more specific laws to fill in and regulate daily life. But an identity and feeling of self for the USA pretty much started with the civil war. Which lead to the writing of the constitution, their 'highest law'. The constitution is part of the creation mythos for the USA. A marking point of when people start to think of themselves as Americans, a sovereign entity. Since the USA, compared to other countries, doesn't have much more culture to draw from, the relative importance of that one piece is inevitably higher.

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[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

This comment and this title are two separate things in my opinion. I don't give a shit what the founding fathers wanted either. That's why we've amended the Constitution several times. The originalist viewpoint of the Constitution is ridiculous and completely counter even to how the founders wanted the document to act, funny enough.

As for why it's treated like a holy book -- it's basically a set of rules for our government and what laws are okay and which laws aren't okay. Think of it like a social contract that everyone signed. It's how we've agreed to live together and treat each other. Unlike a holy book though it can and has been changed.

It's quite literally the legal foundation of the country.

[-] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I don’t give a shit what the founding fathers wanted either. That’s why we’ve amended the Constitution several times.

Repeating myself here, but, the founders wanted us to adjust the Constitution over time, to meet the needs of the current generation.

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[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 year ago

Can we please not turn microblog memes into the new whitepeopletwitter where we just post unnuanced political opinions rather than funny memes? Microblogs are a bad platform for political discourse.

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[-] w2tpmf@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

Well the very first and most important thing they wanted was to give you the right to say that or whatever you want about them.

Before they enshrined that concept in their document, saying such things about members of your government would get you jailed or executed.

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[-] Gigan@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

Why? Because a lot of their ideas were good. Creating a system of government that is immune or even resilient to corruption is very difficult, but the US has done pretty good all things considered.

[-] forrgott@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

One of their ideas I personally think would be amazing: allegedly, Thomas Jefferson predicted the Construction would only last less than twenty years before we would completely overhaul our core document of governance. I believe rebuilding the specific details every couple decades would've helped tremendously....

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah but a lot were also bad which is why it’s stupid when people act like the opinions of the founding fathers should matter more than the opinions of contemporary Americans when the same founding fathers were smart enough to realize the constitution should be a living document and not a holy totem to use as a club to stifle any progress.

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[-] yata@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

It has done a horrible job of it all things considered. Basically all the fabled checks and balances have turned out to be based on nothing but good faith. The founders refused to consider that partisanship would evolve at all, let alone to the extremes it has turned into today.

Lots of other Western democracies are doing a lot better job at it, not least because they have been allowed to evolve and change with the times, while the core of the US political system has petrified in all its archaism.

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[-] Otakat@reddthat.com 26 points 1 year ago

I like the constitution because I don't want Matt Gaetz to be able to propose whatever nonsense he wants. It's not a perfect document, but it enshrines certain fundamental protections that really shouldn't be fucked with.

[-] yemmly@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

In any governing system, something has to be supreme. Something has to be the final word in settling disputes. There are basically three options: Fiat, convention, or consensus. Consensus is really only practical in small groups, so we can put that option to the side. What remains is the choice between rule by the whims of a person or group, and the rule of law.

Despite their many flaws, the founders of the American republic were at least smart enough to realize that there would be a constant temptation to set aside the rule of law and let a person dictate things. So the foundational law (the constitution) was made sacrosanct in the way that the king had been. To lose the rule of law is to lose the republic, and return to tyranny.

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[-] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago

Because according to our education system, we're the only country that has a constitution, and we used it to beat the greatest evil: taxing rich people.

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[-] nexguy@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

The Forefathers didn't come close to living up to their own words. We are still striving to meet them hundreds of years later. It's a good goal.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 9 points 1 year ago

Equally however a lot of that stipulations make no sense.

For example the gun laws were developed back when firing a shot required about a 45-minute reload session. I somehow doubt that automatic rifles were predicted and considered.

I highly suspect they thought that the American people would be intelligent enough to make their own constitution when the current one became invalid, sadly not.

[-] Patches@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just as the founding fathers intended

Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended

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[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Because many of those men were flat-out geniuses. They penned a fine constitution and outlined ideals we should strive to achieve. That doesn't mean they knew the best way to legislate modern issues though , like the internet. That brings us back to their genius. They outlined a process to revise, or amend if you will, the laws of the land. The biggest problem that they didn't foresee is that America would regress into fervent tribalism, completely unwilling to amend anything that might benefit another tribe. So we're stuck, locked in the year 1992 when the last amendment was written. Actually that's not completely true. Many of them did foresee the dangers of a bicameral partisan system, and issued abundant warnings about it. Unfortunately they really didn't anticipate just how insulated and shameless many of our politicians would become, probably because tar and feathers in the public square was still a possibility back then.

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[-] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The forefathers had some of the most sensible ideology in the history of humankind. What other country established limits on the power of their government as a foundational document?

They're still very sound principles to this day.

Unfortunately our current government doesn't concern themselves with those principles.

But I will agree with what was likely the point of this post, which is that the Constitution is not and was never supposed to be timeless, and the founders would agree with that too.

[-] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 year ago

Every country with a constitution?

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[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

established limits on the power of their government as a foundational document

I'd argue that's a blessing and a curse.

The framers were coming off a monarchy. They saw government power as dangerous and thought that it had to be limited. But they didn't really consider that other groups might gain greater power than governments.

Unfortunately, we have exactly that problem. Organizations with sufficient money often rival governments for power.

The checks and balances that were designed to protect ordinary citizens from government also protect large multinational corporations and ultra rich families and individuals. The result is often that those powerful non-government actors can often subvert government and ultimately cause the same, or even worse, problems.

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[-] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 year ago

The constitution is the foundation of the entire US legal system. Without it the whole thing collapses.

[-] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

There is so much nuance to it, and it outlines a good system. However it is based on assumptions about the integrity, awareness, and independence of thought each citizen would have that have been systematically undermined.

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[-] MellowSnow@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Yes, but that doesn't mean it is infallible.

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[-] PizzaMan@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

True as that may be, the sanctity it is held to is immensely harmful, as it kills any chance of improvement and progress.

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[-] Rooty@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

A lot of money is spent in order to propagandize Americans into thinking they're living in the greatest country in the world (tm), and the weird veneration of the founding document, and the people who wrote it is a big part of it.

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[-] candyman337@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

because it's a manufactured reverence for their idea of the country by our education system. Our history classes are laden with U.S. propaganda that makes a lot of Americans think a lot of incorrect things about our history. The infallibility of our founding fathers is one of those things.

[-] PatFussy@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

This is a pretty ignorant take. We can change the rules whenever we want. This is the whole process of amendments.

[-] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

I would be mildly surprised if there's every another amendment again, very surprised if there's one in our lifetime.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

We can change the rules whenever we want.

Can we? The Equal Rights Amendment was supported by a majority of Americans but it never passed.

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[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Either the constitution has the ultimate authority in government, or our presidents do. And have you see the kind of people we elect president?

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[-] BromSwolligans@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Because we're taught to in school and everything we're meant to learn about enlightenment ideals and free, critical thinking is contradicted by our nonstop exposure to 'patriotic identity as a brand'. Our football games, our truck commercials, our news stations, everything is stamped with an American flag in the way a church might use iconography of crosses and saints. And since our education system is actually pretty bad at teaching nuance and critical thought, we latch onto it like "yeah, I like America, and I will glorify it because I'm being told to." And then you get into this really lazy binary of ideology as a commodity where people crave the dopamine hit of feeling like they're associated with a 'side', and a side which has all the most DeVaStAtInG hot takes to pwn the other side's strawmen. And then you're in "my country, do or die" territory because some wealthy person in the media is able to "rah rah" you into being a class traitor because of the trivial fandom associations they've taught you to make about culture war issues that actually have nothing to do with you or your day to day life.

[-] damnyouclouds@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

"Founding fathers"

White man came across the sea He brought us pain and misery He killed our tribes, he killed our creed He took our game for his own need

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's only some Americans that treat it that way. That the way it was written is the only way to ever take it; ignoring the fact it lays down rules for how to change it or add to it, like we have done 27 times in the past.

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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
1186 points (90.1% liked)

Microblog Memes

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