Why worship a constitution?

[Coito ergo sum]

Even funnier is when people respond to comments on the US Constitution with "Well, it was founded on our Magna Carta, you know."

LOL... The British Constitution is far better - by comparison the American one is cheap and watered down.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's the American Bible - couldn't run a fundamentalist state without one.

The Free world has laws to say what you can't do. The US only alllows it's people to do what they have permission for. sad.

Err...actually, the opposite is true. The Constitution does not constrain people much (it's only proscription on private action is with respect to slavery, otherwise, it sets out government power and limitations thereon). The US, like the "free world" has laws to say what you can't do. A fundamental principle in the US is that whatever is not prohibited is permitted. We do not have a system which only allows its people to do what they have permission for. You are thinking of some other country.

[Coito ergo sum]

Something in the American psyche that wants moral absolutes, whether its religious or secular?. I don't think other countries treat their very similar constitutions in the same sort of way

Countries such as...?

[Thinking Aloud]

Even funnier is when people respond to comments on the US Constitution with "Well, it was founded on our Magna Carta, you know."

LOL... The British Constitution is far better - by comparison the American one is cheap and watered down.

Yep - ours is unwritten.

[Geoff]

Even funnier is when people respond to comments on the US Constitution with "Well, it was founded on our Magna Carta, you know."

LOL... The British Constitution is far better - by comparison the American one is cheap and watered down.

Yep - ours is unwritten.

Indeed. The EU occasionally tries to foist some sort of European constitution on us, and it gets dumped every time.

[Coito ergo sum]

Isn't it very like religion, for Americans to hold the constitution in such awe? That's why they say "enshrined" in the constitution.
It's just a document, drawn up years ago, by people who were just as flawed as today.

It's not a good principle. I've read people on here, saying that the constitution is a good thing, it's a brake on the power of modern politicians. That's only true, if it's a good brake. What if slavery was "enshrined" as a right? Or birth control forbidden?

Modern people, who know better, would have to change it. That's all. The same applies to the constitution as it stands. If it's wrong, change it.

People won't improve it while it's held in such quasi-religious regard. It's just the views of some politicians. Get over it!

But they do change it when they feel like it anyway, that's what all those amendments are about.

Average of one every 10 years. Hasn't been one in almost 30, though. It's not "when we feel like it." There has to be up votes of 2/3 of the State legislatures to pass one.

What I find more strange is all the different states having different laws.

Why is that strange? It's no different than in Germany, or Brazil or any other country that has States. They have laws that apply to those political subdivisions, and cities have city ordinances that apply to the particular needs of given municipalities.

Moreover, the US is huge...



...and that's not including Alaska...

...so why would it be "strange" that Maine, which is the size of Austria, and which is 5000 KM away from New Mexico and has completely different geography, climate, ecology, economy, culture, etc., would have some different laws that work better for people in Maine?

[Coito ergo sum]

Even funnier is when people respond to comments on the US Constitution with "Well, it was founded on our Magna Carta, you know."

LOL... The British Constitution is far better - by comparison the American one is cheap and watered down.

Yep - ours is unwritten.

Partially unwritten. Much of it is within statutes, court judgments, and treaties.

[Pappa]

Average of one every 10 years. Hasn't been one in almost 30, though. It's not "when we feel like it." There has to be up votes of 2/3 of the State legislatures to pass one.

That seems like quite a lot actually.

[Coito ergo sum]

Average of one every 10 years. Hasn't been one in almost 30, though. It's not "when we feel like it." There has to be up votes of 2/3 of the State legislatures to pass one.

That seems like quite a lot actually.

A lot is a relative term.

Ours has been changed less than the UK's in the last 225 years, but I'm sure more than others.

The first 11 of the amendments were enacted very shortly after the Constitution was enacted in the first place, in the 1700s.

14, 15 and 16 were enacted right after the civil war in 1865ish.

So, we've had 11 since 1865. One was women's right to vote, another was the income tax. One was Prohibition and another was repeal of Prohibition.

You Brits have had more than 11 changes since 1997. What of it?

[Geoff]

What I find more strange is all the different states having different laws.

Why is that strange? It's no different than in Germany, or Brazil or any other country that has States. They have laws that apply to those political subdivisions, and cities have city ordinances that apply to the particular needs of given municipalities.

Moreover, the US is huge...



...and that's not including Alaska...

...so why would it be "strange" that Maine, which is the size of Austria, and which is 5000 KM away from New Mexico and has completely different geography, climate, ecology, economy, culture, etc., would have some different laws that work better for people in Maine?

Sure, I can see the point regarding purely local considerations, but State laws seem to differ in aspects that I don't see are affected by local factors.

I don't know a huge amount about your laws, admittedly, but to take just one example, why do the age of consent laws vary from state to state? I really don't see how children in, say, Nevada, grow up faster than those next door in California.

[Coito ergo sum]

What I find more strange is all the different states having different laws.

Why is that strange? It's no different than in Germany, or Brazil or any other country that has States. They have laws that apply to those political subdivisions, and cities have city ordinances that apply to the particular needs of given municipalities.

Moreover, the US is huge...



...and that's not including Alaska...

...so why would it be "strange" that Maine, which is the size of Austria, and which is 5000 KM away from New Mexico and has completely different geography, climate, ecology, economy, culture, etc., would have some different laws that work better for people in Maine?

Sure, I can see the point regarding purely local considerations, but State laws seem to differ in aspects that I don't see are affected by local factors.

Like?

The way the US is set up, the States make laws of general applicability within their borders. State laws involve criminal law, taxing/spending, environmental/conservation, business regulation, etc. The federal government makes laws of national applicability that are within its Constitutional authority.

I don't know a huge amount about your laws, admittedly, but to take just one example, why do the age of consent laws vary from state to state?

I would surmises that it's the same reason that the age of consent varies throughout Europe, and may be different in France or Austria or Greece. The people there think differently about the issue.

I really don't see how children in, say, Nevada, grow up faster than those next door in California.

I don't see how children in, say, Germany (14), grow up faster than those in Poland (15), Netherlands (16) or Belgium (16).

The US is a federation of States.

[Pappa]

Ours has been changed less than the UK's in the last 225 years, but I'm sure more than others.

The first 11 of the amendments were enacted very shortly after the Constitution was enacted in the first place, in the 1700s.

14, 15 and 16 were enacted right after the civil war in 1865ish.

So, we've had 11 since 1865. One was women's right to vote, another was the income tax. One was Prohibition and another was repeal of Prohibition.

You Brits have had more than 11 changes since 1997. What of it?

How do you differentiate between changes to our laws and changes to our constitution?

Though I do accept there have been a huge number of fundamental changes since 1997.

[Coito ergo sum]

Ours has been changed less than the UK's in the last 225 years, but I'm sure more than others.

The first 11 of the amendments were enacted very shortly after the Constitution was enacted in the first place, in the 1700s.

14, 15 and 16 were enacted right after the civil war in 1865ish.

So, we've had 11 since 1865. One was women's right to vote, another was the income tax. One was Prohibition and another was repeal of Prohibition.

You Brits have had more than 11 changes since 1997. What of it?

How do you differentiate between changes to our laws and changes to our constitution?

I suppose that's up to you to differentiate. If you can't differentiate between changes to your laws and changes to your constitution, then can it be said that you even have a constitution?

But, I suppose I would take the word of Labour, when they introduced a "constitutional reform programme."

And, aren't you blokes looking to adopt a new "Bill of Rights?"

[Robert_S]

Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.

It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like ‘They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong’, or ‘They can't do that; it's against the law’, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney's Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan's Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a ‘miscarriage of British justice’. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye


This thread just brought this passage to mind.

[Pappa]

And, aren't you blokes looking to adopt a new "Bill of Rights?"

Oh that bollock. Idk... they were talking about it being a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities from what I remember. It was/is mostly a plan to dodge the EU Constitution too, I expect.