All you've done here is explain the problem more clearly - that you are dependent on level-headed people to prevent deadlock, which is what you have had for the last several weeks. And when cool heads don't prevail - or are absent -  there are no effective controls to unwind all these tensions when they build up like have done in the current crisis and previously. Time to move on guys and make your constitution fit for purpose in the modern world instead of clutching onto some old scraps of paper and being hostage to outdated notions of a world that existed 224 years ago. The constitution is NOT the nation
 

All you've done here is explain the problem more clearly - that you are dependent on level-headed people to prevent deadlock, which is what you have had for the last several weeks. And when cool heads don't prevail - or are absent - there are no effective controls to unwind all these tensions when they build up like have done in the current crisis and previously. Time to move on guys and make your constitution fit for purpose in the modern world instead of clutching onto some old scraps of paper and being hostage to outdated notions of a world that existed 224 years ago. The constitution is NOT the nation

 

The united States like imperial germany cannot exist without a strong and perceptively unmaleable/unchangeable framework. We would become 50 separate nations rather than a United nation.

The oddity in the US is that the US constiturion is a common concept within a divergent nation. To remove it, you must find something else that can be a common link, which americans by in large do not have. Ethnically, we are not even majority anglo-saxon. Religiously, we have a vast mixture of protestants, catholics, jews, buddhists, atheists, and others. Politically, it is even more divisive with many americans following a personal concept of "freedom".

Our ties in economic and legal framework is all we have in common. To be honest, small town midwesterners do not understand urban northeastern interests though we are linked by supply and demand..

I understand what you've said, but consider this - the Model T was an excellent car in its day, but who would want to drive the freeway in one today?  Or in 50 years time? Or for the rest of time? Road and driving conditions today are unrecogniseable to what they were 105 years ago just as the world of politics and government is unrecogniseable to how it was in 1789. The US govt system has presented itself to the world as a broken down old croc [it ceased to function!] in need of a revamp to bring itself up to a standard fit for the modern world - no-one's talking about "removing" the constitution.

But if you're saying the US has condemned itself to remain a hostage to the past then you're in for a lot more grief

And nothing is fixed for all time ... except fundamental particles

Ah, but here's the problem with the concept, Ford had power to change his designs and adjust his cars. The US was made to be a hybrid of "Direct Democracy", "Republic" and "Monarchy".

The issue in US history has been from the "Democratic" branch of the formula (No I am not sniping at Democrats subversively ). The heart of the US constitution puts a lot of power into the hands of the US House of Representatives, believing that the "common" man knows what they want the nation to do or what direction the nation should be going towards.

The UK system is far more Republican than it is either a Democracy or Monarchy. You have rules built in that can cancel out popular dissent, plus under parliamentary rules, you have the ability to kick out an entire government if necessary.

Truthfully, I feel that the US has slid far too much to the Democratic traditions and probably should be led by peerage with vision rather than the common man. However, the common man does not want to be led due to the long developing philosophy that hast festered into the Conservative heart.

The basic principle of many US Conservatives today is the same as Revolutionary Communism (Gasp, I won't lie it a shocking truth that I realized recently)

Among the Chinese community, especially those from China with family who had faced the Cultural Revolution, we see the same patterns with the Red Guard as we do with the Tea Party and their allies. It is a "selfish" movement hiding itself in the name of nationalism. (I'll write another Blog explaining the Parallels later)

With such ideologies, the problem today is that the US probably cannot form a true consensus on what to change or how far to change it. The Nation might reject those ideas, but it does not have the will to prevent it.

We know the bomb will go off soon, but no one is willing to open up the case and try to diffuse it.

You're right about the British system of representative democracy. And that's a good thing It's probably best described by Edmund Burke in his seminal speech to his electoral constituency in November 1774:

"Your representative owes you ... his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion ... government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination ... Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole" (if you don't know it - and I'm sure you do - the whole thing should be read here http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html)

It's a short speech but it powerfully encapsulates the nature of democracy in Britain. MPs are not mere delegates and Burke understood the dangers of angry passions being fomented by rabble rousers - boy, was he prescient with what has happened in the US with the rise of the Tea Party and your toxic rabble-rousing media! And he was true to his word - in 1778 he ignored constituency demands to oppose free trade with Ireland because "his judgment assured him they were wrong".

The fact is "Democracy" can be just as evil as any other system, ending up with the majority bullying and oppressing the minorities. So it needs to be controlled. And Burke explained how it's done in Britain. This is how we abandoned capital punishment, and why we are getting gay marriage There are always pressures to revoke this principle. And they must always be resisted.

As for Henry Ford, we was quite happy to let the Model T run and run for ever!! Just like the US constitution - as you've explained it - his approach was one of "getting it right and then keeping it the same". In his view the Model T was all the car a person would, or could, ever need. But - and here's the important bit - after 19 years, and with falling sales, he finally accepted that the world had moved on and he was losing market share. So despite his original philosophy the Model T was updated and new cars have been introduced ever since to keep up with the constantly changing world

Where would Ford be today if all the shareholders had said "sorry, Henry, we don't want you a-changin' nothin' - that car served my Uncle Silas just swell, and it'll do me an' Momma just fine, and little Billy-Bob here too when he's all growed up in another 10 year or more" :funny:

The world doesn't stand still
 

Hmm...you ever thought about being a classical liberal zombie, sounds like you have been converted to free market philosophy

I loved that speech from burke and his determination to instill controls against excess democracy in the form of mobs and irrational revolution. Have you ever read his defense of the American revolution, a brilliant piece as well on civil justice and rational needs of the citizenry..

Sorry, W_L, I don't identify myself with, or belong to, any party or ideology. Never have, never will - they're all flawed. I prefer to work things out for myself

Come on, pokes the zombie...

I understand, the political spectrum is not shaped in any form that can be placed into reference; perhaps if we could picture a Hypercube spinning in its 4 dimensional glory, then a politial shape could form to suit everyone's tastes

Btw, here is Burke's defense of the American Revolution:

"I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired, more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded, that their liberty is more secure when held in trust for them by us (as their guardians during a perpetual minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. The question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, but--what, in the name of God, shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude; the importance; the temper; the habits; the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present......"

Edmund Burke Speech on Reconciliation with Colonies

Love that highlighted line, he is truly a man, who believes in reason and rationalism over populism and excess in either brutality or democracy

However, his opening lines give you a good reason why the US has an issue with fixing our own constitution that Great Britain does not:

"In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth"

The American spirit of freedom is a dangerous double edged sword, both to foreign interference and internal policies. Burke was right about the nature of Americans far more than Alexis de Tocqueville.

This doesn't mandate the US constitution to be "fixed". Burke is presenting the various notions of freedom at issue in the American cause, in particular freedom "upon the question of taxing" and from "arbitrary and boundless authority" 3,000 miles away. But I think we knew that. He also points out that the colonialists' notion of liberty is "according to English ideas and on English principles". There is nothing unique or special about American views on liberty

This doesn't mandate the US constitution to be "fixed". Burke is presenting the various notions of freedom at issue in the American cause, in particular freedom "upon the question of taxing" and from "arbitrary and boundless authority" 3,000 miles away. But I think we knew that. He also points out that the colonialists' notion of liberty is "according to English ideas and on English principles". There is nothing unique or special about American views on liberty

Except, it is 300 years old and Enlightenment based along with more God than the British system

Except, it is 300 years old and Enlightenment based along with more God than the British system

Except Burke wasn't talking about "abstract liberty" - and you don't get more abstract than God . The liberty he was talking about "inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness". Anyway, what's the big deal about 300 years - that's only yesterday

But to get back to the point - bringing the constitution out of the 17th century and making it fit for purpose in the modern world - constitutional reform could begin by outlawing the corrupt practice of allowing Governors to determine Congressional Districts to favour their party's candidates and require, instead, boundaries to be drawn by an independent commission only using non-party political determinants, that way Class A dicks like Mark Meadows - who wanted, and got, the govt shutdown - would not have been elected. Other countries manage to do this - even the UK . If you could put men on the Moon you can make an itsey bitsey teensey weensey reform like this - because *drum roll, and all together in a loud voice* ... IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

Except Burke wasn't talking about "abstract liberty" - and you don't get more abstract than God . The liberty he was talking about "inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness". Anyway, what's the big deal about 300 years - that's only yesterday

 

But to get back to the point - bringing the constitution out of the 17th century and making it fit for purpose in the modern world - constitutional reform could begin by outlawing the corrupt practice of allowing Governors to determine Congressional Districts to favour their party's candidates and require, instead, boundaries to be drawn by an independent commission only using non-party political determinants, that way Class A dicks like Mark Meadows - who wanted, and got, the govt shutdown - would not have been elected. Other countries manage to do this - even the UK . If you could put men on the Moon you can make an itsey bitsey teensey weensey reform like this - because *drum roll, and all together in a loud voice* ... IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

 

We can't even put men on the moon anymore

Problem is polarization has compromised the concept of "independent" commissions. Even when states attempted that practice, the commissions are invariably thrown truck loads of money or get phone calls from their pastors with the general thought being "God is watching you"

Too much partisanship has poisoned the prospect of an independent commission. Plus nearly half of Americans do not vote, so any commission chosen by the people would certainly be partisan.

Personally, I think we are headed for a 2nd Civil War if this continues.