Guestus Aurelius wrote:
Hm. I agree with some of what you've written here, but there are some problems.
First, a relatively "ineffectual" Congress is precisely what the framers had in mind. As a leftie, how do you feel about the "ineffectual" nature of Congress when Republicans are in control?
This is a valid question. However, one should keep in mind that the framers also lived in an era where the world was not an interconnected network where news could travel near-instantaneously. In their day, the legislative and executive branches being in deadlock was okay, because news travelled so slowly that there was plenty of time to deliberate. They also likely did not envision the sort of mudslinging realpolitik that would emerge in the late 20th century, where Congress would hold the nation's economic fate hostage for political reasons right before crashing everyone off the fiscal cliff.
Canada, for example, has been under a powerful Republican-like Conservative majority for quite a while now and will remain so for at least one more year. Such is the nature of the beast, and one trades governmental efficiency with a greater risk of a runaway government causing greater harm. Nonetheless, even the Canadian Conservatives, who have the benefit of merged legislative and executive power, have not been ruling like utter tyrants (though many, including me, may tell you otherwise in moments of impassioned hyperbole). They still must hold themselves accountable to the opposition and the people, as per the Canadian constitution. The US could learn a thing or two from the way Canada runs things.
Guestus Aurelius wrote:
I'm really not sure what your justification is for blaming the Constitution for everything you think went wrong with the US in the 20th century, especially since at least some of that stuff runs directly counter to both the letter and the spirit of the document. Take, for instance, the military-industrial complex—please show me where the Constitution states or implies that it should be a simple and easy matter for the US government to involve itself militarily all around the globe willy-nilly. In fact, the Constitution makes the declaration of war pretty damn difficult. But 20th-century leaders created a loophole to bypass all that inconvenient "declaration of war" business: they simply stopped calling their warfare "warfare." Is it fair to blame the document whose clear restrictions they've circumvented? (That's an open question; I'm honestly not sure.)
I'm not blaming the US Constitution for allowing these things to happen. I'm saying that if the people didn't hold the Constitution in such blind adoration, such loopholes would be more easily patched. If the people and Congress were more willing to fix the problem, they would've stopped undeclared wars at least by the end of Vietnam.
There are countries where constitutional amendments are an ongoing endeavour, and they're doing very well.
Guestus Aurelius wrote:
You also say: "Despite the fact the constitution has been amended more than a couple dozen times (last in the 1990's), most Americans seem to think of it as the unerring and inspired word of the Founding Fathers." I think this is a bit of a straw-man, with the caveat that I don't actually know what "most Americans ... think." You speak of the Amendments almost as if the amendment process itself isn't part of the Constitution (or at least as if most Americans aren't aware that it is). Perhaps the general populace is more ignorant than I realize, but, judging from my middle-class experience, I believe that it's common knowledge here that the amendment process was part of the framers' conception. So I think it's maybe misleading to point to the Amendments as evidence that those who revere the Constitution do so blindly. Part of what they revere is the amendment process, I'd say.
It might possibly be a strawman, but judging from the vehement response from Guest earlier, I'd say there's definitely some truth to it. Many Americans are also sticklers for what they wrongly believe to be the tradition handed down from the Founding Fathers. I'm sure you're familiar with the religious right's arguments for "keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance" despite that being a 20th-century addition or the meme that "America is a Christian nation".
Heck, there are even people who think there have always been 50 states and use that as a reason to argue against statehood for Puerto Rico.
Guestus Aurelius wrote:
You ask of the Second Amendment, "What purpose to public welfare and freedom does it serve?" It strikes me as utterly self-evident that governmental restrictions on bearing arms (just like governmental restrictions on anything) indeed curtail freedom in some ways. There's more to consider, of course ("public welfare"), but that's in large part what governments are for, isn't it? Balancing the often-(but-not-always)-competing interests of individual liberty and public welfare?
Then you write, "Even in the country's earliest days, it was clear that arm-bearing citizens could never possibly overthrow the federal government"—that's a funny thing to say, considering that the country had just been formed by a grassroots revolution against a superpower. With modern weaponry, it goes without saying that armed citizens aren't going to overthrow the US government. But it also goes without saying that there are other reasons that people value the right to own guns.
The word "disarm" has more than one definition. When you talk about "disarm[ing] the populace," are you referring to placing resaonable restrictions on "bearing arms"? Or are you referring to eliminating gun ownership among citizens altogether? If the former, I'm with you all the way (the recognition that "bearing arms" could conceivably encompass possessing a nuclear bomb should convince any reasonable person). If the latter—if, that is, you believe that only the government should possess guns—well, suffice it to say that I strongly disagree with you.
As I've written multiple times in caveats, I don't care one way or another whether American people get to have their guns. My opinion is that gun culture may be so deeply entrenched in the US that the best way to combat high gun-related crimes may be to maintain the status quo while chipping away at the honour culture prevalent in the South and amongst those who are socioecnomically disadvantaged.
In most countries other than the US, I think disarming the populace, in the sense of restricting civilian gun ownership rather than eliminating it altogether, is an acceptable tradeoff in a social contract. I see that the same way as I saw feudal Japan confiscating swords and arquebuses from the people. It's quite arguable that a credible government needs to hold a monopoly on the use of force (and I say this contrary to my anarchist leaning). In a state under the rule of law by threat of force, the law must be sufficient for people to have little need to resort to force on their own; otherwise, the rule of law by threat of force loses credibility.
As for the potential need to overthrow the government, that is where the army comes in. So long as armies exist, their allegiance must be to the people first and foremost. This, incidentally, may be one of the few advantages in a mandatory draft; if all adult men in a country have served in the military, it creates a closer bond between the people and the military that may serve as a deterrent to prevent a government from turning tyrannical.
