The Constitution of the United States of America, with the Bill of Rights and all of the Amendments; The Declaration of Independence; and the Articles of Confederation
Product Description
Collected here in one affordable volume are the most important documents of the United States of America: The Constitution of the United States of America, with the Bill of Rights and all of the Amendments; The Declaration of Independence; and the Articles of Confederation. These three documents are the basis for our entire way of life. Every citizen should have a copy…. More >>
March 12th, 2010 at 12:41 am
The United States Constitution is a brilliant document that has secured liberty for millions of Americans, but serious flaws have begun to emerge as well as international challenges which, in my view, require an intelligent rethinking in a Second Constitutional Convention.
My problems with the current Constitution include:
(1) Awkward transition between presidents; from election day to the inauguration of the next president, there are effectively two presidents — one in office, one awaiting office, and this allows confusion.
(2) Under-representation of voters from populous states in the Senate.
(3) DC voters lack representation.
(4) Supreme Court has become a politicized institution. This dates back to Marshall’s Marbury v. Madison decision in which the Court usurped authority, not granted by the Constitution, to strike down laws if it found them “against the constitution”. The Framers never intended for the judiciary to have such sweeping power. The Supreme Court, over time, has failed to protect the federal structure (with state governments having the most economic regulatory authority) and instead promoted power shifting to Washington. The Supreme Court has made highly political choices, such as Roe v. Wade, which should have been left to individual state governments or national lawmakers.
(5) Original Constitution fails to include a right of privacy.
(6) Possibility of a military dictatorship should a significant terrorist attack happen such as a catastrophic attack on Congress.
(7) The Electoral college system is cumbersome and confusing.
(8) Popular election of senators. Here’s a situation in which the original constitution was right (letting state governments choose Senators) but it was changed by an amendment. It’s important for state governments to choose Senators to give state governments a voice in the national government.
(9) Inability to get rid of an incompetent president quickly. Examples: Wilson (suffered from an economic malady); possibly Roosevelt in last years in office; Bush (clearly incompetent choice to attack Iraq).
(10) Life tenure for unelected Supreme Court judges.
(11) The Ninth amendment has been seriously ignored.
These objections have been raised by constitutional scholars and there is fairly widespread agreement among them.
British constitutional scholar Adam Tomkins identifies a prime weakness in America’s constitution — that the prime role of checking government is supposedly handled by the judiciary, and not the legislature. He thinks the judiciary is ill-suited to rein in government ministers since it must wait for a court case to bubble up before it can act; plus, judges are not popularly elected and are therefore not accountable to the public. He thinks Britain’s system — where the Prime Minister must defend choices each week in a 30 minute meeting before Parliament — is superior to America’s. I agree.
I see more serious flaws with America’s governmental structure than the list above. The foreign policy architecture is deeply flawed — entrusting too much power in one overburdened official (the president, who has both domestic and foreign policy duties.) America’s foreign policy can only be as good as the president. An incompetent president, or one distracted with domestic matters, means that America’s foreign policy is likely to be mindless and erratic. Any intelligent review over the past 50 years of America’s foreign policy would see a long list of obvious mistakes (along with some successes, to be sure.) In the past, America could get away with this mindlessness because of its size and wealth; but in the nuclear age, foreign policy can’t be an experiment, a happenstance, rather it must be consistently sound and smart. So I propose a structure more like the Roman Senate (during the Republic years.) It rarely made mistakes. And therefore, this requires major changes to the constitution.
Further, the United States lacks an intelligent strategy to prevent terrorism. The Constitution is partly to blame here. It needs to confront the whole issue of anonymous movement in public — that is, how can we identify movement while preserving privacy? This is the key to preventing terrorism in my view. I argue in my book “Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism” that there is no adequate way to prevent serious terrorism without overhauling the Constitution.
Today’s US government is highly corrupt. Power has shifted to the president. Power is dangerously concentrated in this one office. The executive can essentially legislate by using a vast bureaucracy of agencies that are largely unaccountable to the public and hidden from debate. Presidents have begun issuing “signing statements” — a fairly recent innovation — when they describe how they intend to interpret a law made by Congress, which effectively puts an executive twist on a law. The most egregious sign of concentrated executive power is, of course, the power to start wars without Congressional approval (Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (there was a token vote)). The Constitution explicitly gave the war-making power to Congress. So why does the president have this power?
So, for these reasons and other reasons, I’m advocating a Second Constitutional Convention to fix these flaws, and as a private citizen, I am summoning delegates to Independence Hall in Philadelphia beginning July 4th, 2009.
Rating: 1 / 5
March 12th, 2010 at 3:22 am
This thing is waaaay too old for life in today’s world.
Nobody honors it anyway. Certainly not our elected and appointed officials.
I say, let’s throw it out, go back to the Declaration of Independence and start all over again.
We could update the Declaration of Independence a bit, noting that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, in all colors, all women, in all colors, all children (once they escape the womb and can make it in a solitary, nasty and brutish world), of all races, creeds, non-creeds, wealth, poverty, are created equal, and are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, health, the pursuit of wealth, education, skills, family, habeas corpus, to wear whatever clothes they choose, or ingest whatever substances they choose, or whatever else leads to their happiness, and, as the holders of all power, are endowed with the inalienable right to overthrow any government that does not honor, support, defend and obey those inalienable rights. And to that end, every man, woman and child should bear arms, in order to keep their elected and appointed officials in line.
(Because, as we’ve found out, over thousands of years of human history, once you give a hominid a little power, they keep wanting more, and won’t stop until they control every thing of value, have power over every person, etc., until they’re brought up short by We the People.)
Rating: 1 / 5
March 12th, 2010 at 6:15 am
A true American book. Its our Values,,,, WE BELIEVE
The Conservation Movement will prevail.
Lets Roll
Rating: 5 / 5
March 12th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I thought that this was going to be one of those little pocket-sized ones. It is not. Although super thin, it is larger than your average paperback. Disappointed, though possibly I shouldn’t have assumed.
Rating: 4 / 5
March 12th, 2010 at 11:41 am
The item and content of my purchase was better than described, therefore I am very satisfied with my purchase.
Rating: 5 / 5