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ofrm1 on 28 February 2015
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NobleTeam360 said:
ofrm1 said:

Are you asking me who would write the new constitution or who should write it?

If the country got to a point where a new constitution was a possibility, it would not likely contain anything nefarious in it. Those same oligarchs and politicians can't even get laws like SOPA and PIPA through congress because of public criticism. Any corrupt legislation that got proposed would be noticed immediately, would be an instant scandal, and there would be rioting in the streets.

There is a common sentiment that the U.S. system is so corrupt that legislators can pass whatever draconian legislation they want. They can't. The system is made up of thousands of people, all being pressured by competing interests. There is no one business interest that rules the legislature.

Even if a new Constitution was written, what's going to stop the same corrupt government from just passing laws that still infringe on basic liberty? It's up to the people to excite change, nothing will change if all we do is keep sending corrupt individuals to Congress and the White House and other bodies across the globe. 

The reason government is able to pass laws that infringe upon basic liberties is because the constitution has little if anything to say on modern basic liberties. So when laws are passed and challenged in court, SCOTUS rules in favor of the laws because they can only strike down laws that are at odds with what few provisions the constitution provides. So more detailed provisions would prevent the government from casually passing laws infringing upon basic liberties, because those liberties would be protected, and thus the laws would be unconstitutional. So a more detailed constitution would keep a corrupt government from passing laws. Ideally, a more detailed and complete constitution would help prevent corruption as well.

It's also important to remember that the constitution is an example of negative rights, or "free from" rights. It has virtually nothing to say about positive rights, or "free to" rights. This is because the document was written just after a long, bloody separation from the most powerful monarchy in the world and the greatest fear that the framers had was a return to the tyranny of a king. So the principal focus was to create a system of government that would protect the citizens from a tyrannical government, rather than provide them with fundamental human rights or any of the things we expect in a contemporary society. Having fundamental human rights like life, liberty and property (which is the original line that Locke wrote. I guess providing everyone with property sounded a bit too extreme to Jefferson.) would be another advantage to calling for a new constitution.

As far as it being up to people to change, it's a nice sentiment, but it's not likely to change anything. As long as we have the current system of voting in the country, we will never have candidates that can actually deliver change. The First Past The Post voting system that we have is a single winner system, so strategic voting is a natural consequence of it, since there is strategic voting, no matter how many parties you start with, you will end up with a two-party system. Further, without effective campaign finance reform, there is no way to keep the elite from buying elections. Unfortunately there is now significant Supreme Court precedent in favor of corporate personhood dating back 40 years, so the only surefire way to get money out of politics would be a constitutional amendment. Since that requires the same amount of support that calling for a constitutional convention does, you might as well just rewrite the constitution and include that provision.