To convene or not to convene?
Don Quixote on Aug 23 2010 at 5:06 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
First of all, thank you so much to all of you who have paid the Bookwormroom a visit while Bookworm has been gone. A special thanks to all of you who have taken the time to add your comments. Bookwormroom readers are the most intelligent, thoughtful and informed people I know, and I appreciate how generous you have been with your ideas and information. You’ve made my little stay here fun and useful.
Since I hope and expect that Bookworm will be back tomorrow I was just going to say thanks and not propose a topic today. But I can’t resist a good topic. A couple of comments to yesterday’s topic discussed the possibility of a constitutional convention. I doubt I’ll see one in my lifetime. But should we have a constitutional convention? On the plus side, such a convention is unlimited, and can do what may not be practical to do any other way. On the minus side, such a convention is unlimited, and goodness knows what it would do. Personally, the way things are going now I’d be willing to roll the dice. I’d like to see what a constitutional convention would do. As you can probably guess, I would want it to ensure a balanced budget and develop a whole new way to fund government, and a limited government at that.
So, how likely do you think we are to have a constitutional convention? Is one a good idea? If we do have one, what would you like it to do? What would you be afraid of it doing? As always, I look forward to hearing from you.
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12 Responses to “To convene or not to convene?”
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I don’t know if a constitutional convention is likely. I don’t think one is a good idea…we’re in a time of flux, and to be honest, I don’t trust the liberals. If they can twist the original Constitution, what wouldn’t they do with one they could write themselves? In other words, I think that if we could get back to the original Constitution, it would serve us better, and that won’t happen if we don’t appoint judges who are limited to _interpretation_ of simple sounding terms such as were used originally. If the Constitution were to be re-written today, it would be more like Europe’s – 2000 pages or some such, and open to all sorts of interpretation.
It’s a bit like the ten commandments. Pretty basic, pretty straightforward. But – if someone doesn’t want to obey the commandments, they find some way to make them say whatever they want them to say. Judges aren’t supposed to be legislators – if they’re going to serve in that capacity, they need to be elected, not appointed. And for limited terms at that!
DITTO suek. When the constitution was drafted the population consisted of working people. Representatives truly represented the people as a serious but part time duty. Now, the population consists of too many people who do not work, plus the majority of the people now shuffle paper instead of work as represented by the people who built this country with their hands. We have an imbalance The problem is not the law, the base problem is one of character and morality. The problem are the people who are entrusted by us lumpen proleteriats to interpret and enforce the law as orginally intended. We can’t abide by the constitution we have now, so why take on a new one?
To address this problem, we first need to eliminate all lawyers from the legislative process except as advisors to the legislation. This is simply based on conflict of interest. Lawyers are in the law business. They go to congress and create more business- i.e. more law. The current situation reflects this very well. Lots of law, no progress- but plenty of business for the law biz. Shakespeare was right.
I suspect a Constitutional Convention is better used as a threat than actually invoked.
Señor Quixote, you did a fine job. Please note how many responses you generated and discussions you got going on most of your posts. Thanks for giving Book a needed break and us some good stuff to chew on.
A constitutional convention would be the worst possible of all actions. Look at the abomination the EU wrote, long on codifying the mandarins, short on functional rights for humans. Look at the crap they wrote for Iraq and that was American lawyers. We can’t forget that the Constitution we have was because the convention went rogue.
As Stanley said, we’d have to put all the lawyers at the bottom of the sea. We just don’t have the type of people who will write a short, clear, document. Sadly, word processing has given the world the inability to be succinct.
As for a balanced budget constitutional requirement, first it is unworkable as an absolute. Soon we’d be in the permanent crisis exception. We have the power to force a balanced budget. The republicans did a decent job in the 1980s with support from the electorate, but then we looked away because of this crisis or that.
Thanks, Charles M. I’ve enjoyed my stay here.
My reply is: simply follow the current Constitution.
I like the idea about excluding attorneys from Congress, though it is pie in the sky.
What upsets me the most is our Gerrymandering. Gerrymandering insures safe districts. That has two results. First, it makes corruption more likely, as Congressmen feel invulnerable. Second, Congressmen in Gerrymandered-safe districts are less likely to compromise on legislation, as they know that nothing they will do will render them vulnerable to electoral defeat. This increases partisanship and divisiveness. Perhaps an Amendment on Gerrymandering is needed.
I am uncomfortable with a Constitutional Convention. JKB mentioned the EU. I look at Latin America. In roughly 200 years of existence, Bolivia has had about 18 different constitutions. The obvious conclusion is that a new Constitution in Bolivia has had ephemeral effect. Hugo Chavez convened a Constitutional Convention shortly after he was elected. He proceeded to amend the perfect Constitution he had created. Most importantly, he followed his own perfect Constitution about as often as an inveterate drunk is sober.
A basic flaw of the Constitutions in Latin America, as in the EU variety, is that they are more pieces of legislation than they are Constitutions.
I look at the two thousand pages of the Health Care Deformed Act, and ask: do you want ANYONE responsible for writing that monstrosity to have any input into writing a new Constitution? Better to keep the one we have. Those clowns would muck it up. Big time. As they represent about half the country, it would be rather difficult to keep them out of a Constitutional Convention.
What I see here is fear.
Fear that the Left will succeed. So it is better to do nothing.
When has allowing the enemy free reign on the battlefield ever produced victory? When has choosing to go into a defensive turtle shell, ever resulted in the defeat of tyrannical evil?
Don’t take counsel of your fears. Strategy is the only option for victory. And strategy does not include refusing to attack simply because doing nothing is a safer, more certain, path to defeat.
>>Fear that the Left will succeed. So it is better to do nothing.>>
Yes, Because the Left with lie, cheat and steal. The Right, by virtue of being the Right, won’t. Bad guys who lie cheat and steal usually win. At least, in real life.
While I agree that we need a long term strategy to beat the Left back, the problem is that it’s a very long term operation and strategy called for – starting with re-indoctrinating our children. For that, we need to eliminate a very large number of teachers – or impress on parents that they have to counter the schools’ leftist indoctrination.
For the most part, Americans assume people are basically honest. We need to awaken them to the fact that the left is not.
thank Don Q. for the stimulating posts!
Ditto for me, DQ. You did a fantastic job that launched great discussion threads.
I am with Indigo Red in the previous post: we never know what we might get with a constitutional convention but the process thereof would be like making sausage – lots of dead meat, blood and entrails all over the floor. I think the country is divided badly enough as it is.
<<What I see here is fear.
Fear that the Left will succeed. So it is better to do nothing.>>
So, because I fear fire, I should walk into a flaming furnace? Because I fear hitting the ground with extreme force, I should jump from an extreme height without safety harness? Before the bungee cord, I answered my mother, “No, if my friends jumped off a bridge, I would not do so also.”
Fear, for lack of a better word, is good. It prevents the reasonable person of harmful consequences. Unreasonable fear is a phobia, a mental disorder. It can be as destructive as no fear at all.
We do not have an unreasoned fear Liberals, quite the contrary, it is quite reasoned and based in decades of Liberal thought and action. So, yes, we are afraid of Liberals. Very afraid. As well we should be. In spite of the fear, Liberals will be confronted and thwarted as often as possible. That’s called courage.
Remember, they’re as afraid of us as we are of them.