Mr Khan said:
In this age it would be almost unthinkable. Certainly for the kinds of things the author took issue with: this kind of procedural junk that neither party likes when trying to get something done, but both parties love when trying to stop something from getting done. But we'd need a hell of a lot more political consensus in this country to do that at this point. |
That's... sort of the point though isn't it. The things in the constitution require political consensus... for good reason.
He whitewashes over it... but ignoring of the consitution has in fact led to some of our worst moments in history.
The alien and sedition act he mentions. He doesn't mention Lincoln shutting down the press, or the ethnic cleansing of the native americans (Jackson even went against the courts on that one.) FDR's imprisonment of people without trial who found out he was lieing to the american people.
The fact that we should give up consitutional protections because sometimes we ignore them and shit happens because of it. (often bad) Is silly at best.
That's like saying we shouldn't put warning labels on products, because sometimes people don't read them. Or not build flood protection because sometimes the storm is worse.
All one needs to look at is the UK to see what happens when one doesn't have rights such as freedom of speech protected via the courts. People end up in jail for what they say on twitter.
The consitution didn't suddenly just ruin government... that shits been around forever, and government has worked moderatly well for a long time.
