No that's what amendments are for.

If you want a "judicial mess" toss out the constitution. 17 amendments over the two and one quarter centuries since the bill of rights were adopted is not messy in my book, nor would it be with additional amendments.

I disagree, by the way, in regards to the way we should perceive the constitution. We must indeed view it as being of a "sacred" nature, as it is the lynchpin that both defines and limits the powers of our government while offering us certain protections from them. It has only the authority that we imbue it with, as otherwise it is simply a piece of parchment, and so we most hold it in higher esteem than any other document in the land and be vigilant in our enforcement of it.

It is a problem that we and many other nations are coming to face as we become increasingly secular. In a world without oaths, absolutes and a divinely ordained set of ethics and morality that before carried an authority no mortal man could touch, we now must prove to ourselves that, going forward, we can continue to guarantee rights (previously endowed by our creator) and protections for people through a respect and reverence for the rule of law, and the only hope of being on the same page in that regard is with the judicial backbone that is the constitution.

Really, the constitution has come to fill the void that religion once did; it is the Ten Commandments for our secular world. There's a reason Machiavelli suggested that Numa Pompilius, the legendary man who introduced religion and ritual to the romans, was the most important King of the Romans, as where there is religion one can introduce ideas that are taken at face value (aka "truths") and treasured by the population, providing stability. Our constitution, in my mind, fills that role as while many may not like some amendments contained within, they still respect the authority it holds until it is amended further. It is perhaps the only document I can think of that the majority of Americans, regardless of background, express an interest in protecting.

I agree with you, then, that laws ought to be written for the betterment of the people, but they also must be in line with the stipulations of the constitution. If they aren't, amend it. We may find ourselves in far worse times when it is in the nature of man to turn on one another one day as has happened time and time again, and I hope we still have this document to limit our options and protect us from ourselves should that day indeed come. Besides, it will always be easier to remember a few dozen amendments than to comb through thousands upon thousands of often contradictory laws that have us questioning what our particular rights are at any given moment.

Yeah... because our current system is totally up to the task of creating a fair new constitution.

I didn't mean one should throw out the constitution. What I meant is: any nation's constitution is very important. It lays the basic judical and ethic groundwork for a nation. But, we shouldn't hold it to a sacred degree where we wouldn't dare change anything.

In this case I look to Emperor Justinianus of the Byzantine Empire. The Roman law had become a mess, a pactchwork of laws, amendments, repeals and appeals. Justinianus managed to get the Roman law streamlined, bundled and modernised into the Corpus Juris Civilis. Thus, what I mean is: You can update parts of a constitution with additional laws and amendments, once every period (I'm talking multiple decades or even centuries), a constitution should be re-written and some fundamental laws and amendments should be enshrined in the new consitution, while parts that are irrelevant to the present day and age should be scrapped.

In Belgium here, we have had 6 reforms of state and we have 6 parliaments constantly making laws, royal decrees and ammendments. Our Belgian Law Book has become a patchwork to the point where it's impairing our judical system as well since the basic constitution is still the same one from 1831.

I feel like people are so afraid of change that they follow the Constitution to a T. In my mind however, it is very similar to reading and following the Bible in every facet of your life. The Bible was written during very different times, there were no trains, planes, or automobiles. People lived off the land, there were markets, but nothing like what we have today. People only had each other, their families and close friends to fall back on, there was no social media. There was no such thing as a gun, only stones to throw at those that did wrong, or ropes to hang them. The Bible is an EXTREME, people were stoned for things as little as having sex out of wed-lock, or stealing. When you read the stories of the Bible, there are lessons to be learned from each one, but the Bible is not meant to be taken literally, it is a guide for how you should live your life; a moral compass if you will.

In my opinion, there are laws, rules that we must abide by as a country written into the Constitution, but mostly the document was written as a safeguard against any more tyranny. It gave people rights to things rather than your place in society deciding what you could and could not have, the king had no say any more. The Constitution has basic rights intertwined with moral grounds that we are to live our lives by. It is another form of a guideline, and should be followed as such. People have rights, the Constitution protects those rights, and as we evolve as a society, and the technological world as well as the physical world we live in changes, so must our Constitution. It does not need to be rewritten, but definitely should be amended as we change each and every second, minute, hour, day, month, and year as a society.

Change is a very hard thing for a human, we are set in our ways, and are used to doing the same things each and every day. We are creatures of habit, and only like changes that will allow us more freedom to do what we want, not restrict it. But that too, is the purpose of the Constitution, restriction. Limits on what we can and cannot or should and should not do. Is it Constitutional? That's a question we ask ourselves from time to time, but because we are used to living a certain way, it is not in the forefront of our minds. Maybe it should be, maybe we're fine as we are, but we as humans need rules, we need structure, and the Constitution helps provide that. It should definitely change and grow with us as a society as we change and grow, not just to expand our freedoms, but to restrict them as well.

Summary: The Constitution is a document that was created 200+ years ago. We have changed as a society, for better or worse, and the Constitution should change right along with us to keep us on the right path. It is a GUIDE for us as a society to do the right thing, and to move as one in the correct direction, and should be amended, not rewritten.

Nope, America seems to be working better as it is than trying to see if it could react by pulling the rug from under it.

It's curious to see how law sciences in USA are behind other countries in terms of interpretation and application. I'm Brazil due to our controversial juridical history constitutional law science is more developed than many countries. In usa people still care about finding some base in the original fathers speech, talking about how law and constitution are about making the legislator intention coming to reality. While in brazil we already overcame this thinking and the legislator intention being somehow negligible to interpretation and application of law considering that society needs are always in change and there's not how the Constitution could predict everything but just give directions of how dealing with those problems.

Start following the original constitution? Time for slaves.

Sorry sir, but it appears typing 'end of conversation.' doesn't actually end the conversation.

Here is the problem, you got people who are even more extreme in power and people who believe they should be in power than you did when the constitution was written. I think it is the worse era to do it. You might have done some good if this was the late 70s, but now is just the worse time.