Anti-Neocons Forum

Does anyone else feel that the USA needs a new constitution?

well, I just wish we could obey the original one.

COMPLETE SOCIETAL COLLAPSE

Well, Iconoclast, that was certainly a thorough and well-substantiated response. However, I disagree. Certainly we can look at the United States' prior shift from the Articles of Confederation to our current system to see that social collapse does not a priori result from such a change. Granted, the societal praxis we face today is far different from that of our forebears (underscoring the need for a new legal framework) but it is my hope that a constitutional transition could be managed with minimal disruption. Regardless, me question related to the need for a new constitution, not the practicability of putting one into effect.

No--- societal collapse is the desired alternative to the constitution; the constutition is a mess of a document that only relies on people to uphold.

I know what I would "like" to happen. But to be realistic and pragmatic, I find that we have a better shot at aiming at enforcing the constiution we already have in particular the Bill of Rights which is vurrently being ignored.

I think we could write up a better constitution but it won't matter, like Icon said, it relies on us enforcing it.

However I think the general majoirty of people do agree with want our current Bill of Rights to be enforced.

We need to get rid of the Zionist cabal controlling our government. Our democratic experienment has within it the means to be a good enough system. There are plenty of democratic republics to point to that do not act like the US and Israel.

For example where I live, Japan, I think it is delightful in contrast to the US. Certainly Japan has its problems and trust me I bring them up enough here and I am working on change. However culturally and politically this place is not fascist and it does not aim at a police state as does US/Israel god worshipers. (Isis-Ra-El) three gods of greed.


We have free speech, you can not be arrested without due process of law, the government can not take away your land and sell it to be used for private interest. We are not at war. We dont send any money to Israel. The educational system is better in many ways. The news actually talks about current events more than celebrities and best of all there is no Pat Robertson here.

Call it a long-term goal but I think America would be better off with a new constitution. The United States Constitution, as written in 1788, is inadequate to the exigencies of the modern world. It was written by men who condoned slavery and believed property owners should make the decisions for the nation. It was written in a time of relative ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity. It was written in a world where the greatest technological threat to privacy was listening at the door. It was designed for a nation that no longer exists and thus it can no longer apply.

Modern America would be better served with a new constitution, one that takes into account the changed character of the country’s population and the abundance of new information gained in areas relevant to the governance of a nation.

The federal system is designed to preserve the supremacy of the states in their own spheres of control. However, this system suffers from several flaws. The most obvious is that the arena in which the state is considered sovereign has eroded significantly in the two and a half centuries since the founding of the nation, generally leaving the states autonomous in name only. Also, the boundaries of the states themselves were arbitrary political creations reflecting the settlement patterns of British colonists which fail to take into account the cultural, ethnic, and ecological reality of present-day America. The State of New Jersey, for example, is one of the country’s smaller states but consists of several vastly different regions. The northeastern portion of the state is dominated by the huge conurbanized sprawl surrounding the city of New York while the northwestern area is largely rural and suburban with high-income residents predominating in some areas. South Jersey is defined by the Pine Barrens ecoregion and the Jersey Shore is a coastal tourist area with a boardwalk economy of casinos, arcades, hotels, and restaurants. In what few areas the culturally and geographically distant federal government leaves to the states, policies must somehow benefit all these different regions. This is extremely difficult under the current system and generally results in unsatisfactory compromises rather than consensus. The nation needs a system which recognizes the autonomy of local regions to make decisions in those areas where it is practicable. This would move the locus of control from remote decision-makers with little or no connection to the area affected directly to the people who best know their situation. Of course, certain national standards must be enforced to prevent localities from pursuing practices contrary to the nation’s cherished ideals of democracy and equality before the law. Furthermore, the borders of each local region should accurately reflect the composition of its population and the character of their local ecology rather than conform to an area established for political reasons. This will emphasize what some social scientists call “the experience of place” and reinforce the tendency for people to identify with their local area--a development with positive results for ecologically sustainable behavior as individuals who feel a logical connection with their region are more likely to extend their mental boundaries to encompass that region as a home and thus treat it with more care.

The division of the government into judicial, legislative, and executive bodies is a system intended to block any one part of the governtment from becoming too powerful. However, the designs of each institution have shown to suffer from flaws in the time since their inception. The executive branch currently consists of a single person, in whom the roles of chief executive and chief of state are combined, his cabinet, and a number of autonomous agencies which exist outside the cabinet departments. There are numerous other functionaries such as the President’s White House staff but these are largely extensions of the core institutions of the executive branch. The position of the president incorporates two roles--chief executive and chief of state. One role is essentially symbolic as the chief of state’s task is to represent the national identity while the other is arguably’s leader is unable to fully focus on his or her duty to enact Congressional legislation. A more appropriate arrangement would call for a dual executive system in which the chief of state is elected to represent the nation and the chief executive is elected directly by the populace to fulfill his or her role as the head of the sundry executive departments. This would enable both individuals to concentrate on their main task instead of splitting a single person between two separate areas of concern. Or, the adoption of a collegiate executive system like the Swiss Federal Council might obviate the trend toward a "rogue exucutive" with powers unchecked by an unwilling or unable legislature. The multitudinous agencies should be directly accountable to the chief executive as part of a relevant department to decrease the size and cost of the bureaucracy. A permanent Congressional committee to yearly review the activities of all executive departments would be beneficial to this arrangement.

Term limits are an important feature for any truly democratic government. Our laws should establish a limit on how many times a Congressional candidate can hold office. Those required by America’s original constitution, the Articles of Confederation, required elections be held yearly and state that, “no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years” This requirement should be reapplied to the Senate to decrease the number of career politicians running for personal gain rather than civic duty. The House of Representatives should have elections every two years with a limit of two terms.

An improved constitution would also require explicit language describing the electoral system including strict campaign finance regulations and provisions for an instant-runoff voting system for single-member offices and a single transferable voting system for elections with multiple seats such as the House of Representatives. Both systems are designed to avoid the situation of plurality voting in which a candidate can win a seat with the largest percentage of votes without an overall majority vote. Such systems would likely mobilize citizens that currently do not vote because they identify themselves as Independent and feel marginalized by the traditional system which entrenches the two-party arrangement.

The constitution should also contain an article describing some kind of ecological safeguards more comprehensive than the Environmental Protection Act. A constitutuinal provision with firm and candid language would outline a clear commitment to preserving the nation’s biosphere; the importance of which cannot be overstated considering the scale of the anthropogenic mass extinction currently underway. The United States should lead the world in sustainable behavior instead of perpetually dragging its feet while scientists estimate roughly half of all living bird and mammal species will be extinct within a century.

IF CONSTITUTION

THEN STATES RIGHTS > CONSTITTUION

DEATH TO FEDERALISM

An improved constitution would also require explicit language describing the electoral system including strict campaign finance regulations and provisions for an instant-runoff voting system for single-member offices and a single transferable voting system for elections with multiple seats such as the House of Representatives

Yes

IF CONSTITUTION

THEN STATES RIGHTS > CONSTITTUION

DEATH TO FEDERALISM

double yes. The federal government is out of control. It exist to serve corporate interest only.

Ry, you'll like this:

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mwhitake/biost ... C_1-3.html

It's an argument for keeping the electoral college from the point of view of bioregionalism.