i wished we even followed the constitution

Time to give up the constitution was a long time ago. It already had to be ammended serveral times including to free slaves.

I'm generally disappointed by how poorly professional writers seem to understand their own political system ...

Having lived in a parliamentary system my entire life, observed the American system, and studied both, I have noticed that a lot of the "flaws" people see in either system are by design; and if they're taken away you're encouraging the creation of a totalitarian state or a failed state. To demonstrate my point:

Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?

The president, the house and the senate each have seperate responsibilities and powers to require co-operation of the government; and it acts to prevent the rule of tyrants and protects the rights of the states. Could you imagine what would happen if the Senate and House both had their own incompatible budgets? How would the government choose which one to operate based on? What would happen if one favoured the population dense states at the expense of the more sparsely populated states?

And consider that Seidman is a "constitutional scholar".

Then again, so was Obama.

The UK is afterall the place where you can be jailed for angry tweets.

What really gets me is the utter nonsense of the right wing when it comes to things like this.

It was emphasised to me yesterday when I got bored and turned my Australian pay TV system to Fox News (yeah, I know...), and watched a bit of it. The topic of the moment was this New York newspaper that had published an online service where you could find out who in your neighbourhood has registered firearms.

Now, first of all, they were clearly in defense mode (defense of guns, not of the newspaper). But what got me was their attitude towards the law that permitted the newspaper to legally do what it did. The attitude?

"This is a thirty year old law - it was from a time before the internet, before anything like what we have today. It's antiquated, and should be removed."

But if asked why the guns themselves are OK, they'd immediately go "the constitution gives the right to bear arms". Never mind that it's much, much older than 30 years, and was written at a time when "arms" referred to single-shot guns that took about a minute to reload and had a tendency to blow up on the user. It was also a time when there was no such thing as a police force, when there was no technology that provided non-lethal methods of defense, and when they were in the midst of multiple civil wars.

No, in the Right's view, laws that are 30 years old can be antiquated, but if they're 200 years old, they're too important to dare to mess with.

The fact of the matter is that the US constitution is outdated. And despite Kasz's comment about amendments, it really isn't that easy to amend the constitution, which he'll discover if he looks into recent attempts at amending the constitution.

America's system, much like Australia's system, is now under a pressure that it was never under before. Politics used to be all about the back-room deals; now, everything they do is on-camera, or will be leaked. A politician in the past could do their job 90% of the time and play politics for the 10% that they were on-camera. Now, it's at least 90% politics, and less than 10% doing their job (recently, it's gotta be less than 2%). This is true in Australia, too, and Australia's system is more modern (and more successful) than America's is.

The 24 hour news cycle has further corrupted our political systems. They need to be updated, they need to be modernised. And to do that, constitutions will have to be rethought - not just amended, but completely revamped.

You misunderstand the constitution. It doesn't give anybody any rights. It recognizes the already inherent rights of the people when in the process of giving the federal government power. The issue was that the Articles of Confederation didn't work in unifying the states, but rather acted to enable divergent interests. The constitution was meant to provide a federal system which would make certain things more efficient, such as a unified international relationship or unified finances. Hence, the constitution is the basis for federal law. It is the contract between the states, whom the people gave power to represent them, with each other to form a federal system. In order for the federal government to get more power, IT MUST, do it through the constitution and ask for it from the sovereign power - the people. Then all people, as represented by their politicians, must agree on these changes, because it affects ALL people, and we don't live in a direct democracy or mob rule - which never works in large populations. So the ammendment to own guns represents the more fundamental right to self-defence, and it is something inherent to the people, not something the federal government can control, as the federal government is not th sovereign power, but the people are. 

As for the published article, the problem is that a power was given to the state government by the people that shouldn't have been given, and it was a mistake. Hence, they wish to take back that power. Nothing is wrong with that, as it's thepeople's right to give and take whichever powers they want from their governments. 

The constitution might be outdated, and if that's the case, a new one must be  written - otherwise a repealment of the entire constitution will be a repealment of the federal government, as it's the basic document which created the federal government. 

I don't misunderstand the constitution at all. But I think you misunderstand the difference between the mythology of your nation's laws and the actuality of it. It's nice to think of "the right to bear arms" as some sort of "inherent right of the people", but the fact of the matter is, if it was so inherent, it wouldn't need to be written into a document. The constitution was a way to establish firm ground rules to the formation of the union, a way to protect people and states from oppression. There is no such thing as an "inalienable right", because if it was inalienable, then it would actually be impossible to remove it.

And yes, obviously a new constitution would need to be written. When I said the constitution was outdated, I mean the specific one, not constitutions in general. And along the way, yes, there'd need to be a dissolution of the federal government, temporarily.

Yes it's only the UK that arrests people for tweets the USA has never done so.  Oh wait!

Last Monday, two British tourists landed at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and were greeted with handcuffs. The reason for their detainment did not stem from inappropriate behavior during their flight to the U.S. Rather, Homeland Security had flagged two of the male tourists' tweets leading up to his trip as potential threats to America.

http://laist.com/2012/01/30/international_twitter_fail_british_tourists_arrested.php

I didn't say (or mean if I did say it)  "the right to bear arms" is inherent, it's just the only means to secure the inherent right to self-defence. It was considered a duty by the government, and the right to own property of any kind is also an inherent right. So it's two-fold and compacted.  Also the distinction between a right and privelege must be made. A person can survive happily without the realization of priveleges. This is not the same for rights. They're inherent, because all people are entitled to them and strive for them. This is including things like  liberty, freedom, life, property, happiness, etc, etc. Without them, the government isn't acting in the interests of the entire people, but rather some majority or even minority, and should be abolished. Privileges on the otherhand are given by the government to enable certain freedoms more efficiently. An example would be taxing to build roads and transportation, or funding research. This is the debate of negative vs. positive liberty. Both are important, but without negative liberties people will have less freedom to make their lives better through their own actions and are dependent on government to change things, which is bad because the goverment isn't as efficient nor as interested in everyone's problems. While positive liberties are advantages, yes, but certainly one can live a happy life without them, yet they're necessary for structural improvement. One shouldn't have to give up negative liberties to obtain positive liberties, and that is important to understand.

And it is impossible to remove these rights. The government can take the means to "self-defence" such as guns, but they can't take the urge of all human beings to pursue it. They can take the means to free-speech and freedom of expression, but they can't take the urge of all human beings to pursue it. It's this pursuit that makes it an inalienable right. Tyrannical governments ignore this fact and take away the means to realize these rights, but they don't take away the human despair which comes with this oppression. This isn't even a debate in the United States, so it isn't a problem. 

edit: The last paragraph is substantiated by the absence of outright slavery in free societies, by the way. It was learned that slaves always rebel.