Is it time America writes a new Constitution?

[Johnw1104]

Its age grants it a legitimacy that we cannot replicate. There would be no hope of capturing that reverence we hold for the current constitution with a new one... We'd toss it out as fast as most countries we've written a constitution for lately chuck theirs.

Amend it if need be, don't replace it. It's one of the more important documents ever written, and for all the negative attention it receives for being vague and ill-defined at times, people don't consider that this was the intent from the start. Much like the Ten Commandments or the Roman's Twelve Tables, it was written simply and free of legal jargon so as to be accessible to the average citizen. That both our rights and the framework for the structure of our government is a document little larger than a leaflet was intended to make it digestible, a quality that I feel this generation more than any other desperately needs.

If you can't already tell, I'm rather fond of the constitution lol... Whenever we take an action the first question asked is whether its constitutional, even if we go on to violate it moments later. The document has its own inertia, gradually pulling us back when we've strayed too far and violated one of the amendments contained within. As we become increasingly secular it is the one thing we all share reverence for, binding us under a common law and set of rights.

We generally mark the true birth of our nation with the composition of the bill of rights, which is to say its been there from the start. You just can't replace that... The human mind, knowingly or unknowingly, holds in higher esteem the old and established over something that was written by that darn contemporary senator you share no views with.

Still, I'm in favor of trying as the notion of watching THIS congress try to both write and compromise their way towards a constitution that is as concise and brilliant as the first I find hilarious. Democrats would insert a right to food stamps and solar panels while republicans would be defining life as the moment carnal thoughts enter your mind.