You would:puke:

Actually, a more defined 2nd Amendment would serve your purposes better than the present wording, which remains foggy and open to interpretation by 9 people every so many years.

There is a very good reason for the difficulty to make changes to our Constitution.

I agree. As an aside, I always get a kick out of listening to Justice Scalia try to divine "original intent." I believe slavery is mentioned three times in the Constitution. God is mentioned zero times.

I wouldn't say it was outdated. Certain parts of it are problematic.

 

We have a massive problem with the two major political parties holding all the power despite the fact that neither one really represents the majority of the people all that well. Even the founders recognized the future problems political parties could lead to in the late 18th century. Personally, I'd start with proportional representation in Congress. It reduces or makes unnecessary the gerrymandering process (depending on the method for seat assignment) and makes it far easier for additional parties to make inroads into the political process.

 

And to go right to 02Ram54's point, there's a very good reason we haven't exported our system of government around the world: it has a tendency to lead to problems; problems we're facing more and more here at home all the time. We don't like it when new democracies have an independent, strong executive branch because it has a tendency to lead to an imperial presidency. Our own Constitution has proven vulnerable in that respect as there isn't a single decade in American history that hasn't seen the executive office gain more power than the decade before.

 

The one we've heard about so much lately is entirely dependent on your political viewpoint: the makeup of the senate. Those who favor change want the body to be constituted to more accurately reflect the makeup of the country and of the electorate so as to push through new ideas and laws more easily. Those who would likely describe themselves as conservative and therefore, by definition, favor changes to governance to happen very slowly or not at all love the idea of a body constituted seemingly for the purpose of being a political stalwart through which it is very difficult to press through legislation without it being wildly popular across an overwhelming majority.

 

The senate, as currently constituted, could be brought to an absolute standstill if the Senators from the 21 smallest states, representing about 10 percent of the population of the United States, were to oppose cloture on any bill. Now, those 21 states don't tend to vote the same way (Wyoming and New Hampshire's senators tend not to see eye-to-eye), but some believe that the simple fact that the will of the nation could be held up by the representatives of 10 percent of the population to be a symbol of broken governance... but that all depends on your viewpoint.

A wonderful feature of the Constitution is the ability to amend it. It WAS designed for change. It was designed to be a living document.

 

But it seems that as the number of states expanded the ability to amend the Constitution has become harder and harder, if not almost impossible. It takes 30+ states to ratify an amendment (3/4s). There are 2 legislative branches in each state and a governor. So you must get 100 entities made up of thousands people to agree on the exact same verbiage. The change process has stagnated at best.

Excellent topic. Constitutional tweaking every so many years sounds good in theory, but with the two-party divide, consensus for change might be impossible. If we can't even agree on filling judicial vacancies, how would we tackle something like the rewriting of the 2nd Amendment?

 

What part of '...shall not be infringed.' is broken?

Thank GOD for the 22nd Amend, and I still say Obama hopes a tragic event happens that will enable him to abmonish the 22nd Amed.

I always think that the Constitution should be something that binds us. It should be understood and discussed by all of its owners - The People.

 

What part of '...shall not be infringed.' is broken?

A more left-leaning court might try to connect the dots from "militia." But you already knew that. The 2nd Amendment wasn't written as clearly as the 1st Amendment. Hence, it would serve the purposes of gun enthusiasts to have the 2nd rewritten to preserve their God-given rights.

As far as things that are "outdated" I think it has more so to do with changing circumstances and interpretation. Obviously, things like the internet, quick transportation, modern corporations, etc. didn't exist when it was written, so we are stuck with applying it to these new things which becomes problematic in that many of us strongly disagree with the varied interpretations and I'm not sure the system runs as designed in some of these new applications. Or at least doesn't run as it was foreseen. I posted a thread a little bit ago about how the Fourth Amendment has been applied in the age of technology, and it's interpretation thus far has been far looser than in any other area. I think this is a problem.

 

I think Getslow is right about factions. I think they lead to the tribalism and disillusion so many people detest about politics. When the design of the system creates two opposing teams it encourages a lot of this. Some people have complained here about politicians being "out of touch" with the people and things like this. I think they are divorced from reality and live inside a system where only perception matters, where facts and language are manipulated in the pursuit of portraying a winning perception. But, I very much think they are in touch with the voting public. We are as much a part of it as they are. And it's very easy to find a politician to be out of touch when they are a member of the other tribe. Our guys have all the facts and arguments on their side. I do think this is partly a product of the factionalization of politics. Perhaps if these factions were eliminated (perhaps impossible) or severely diluted (perhaps even through more of them where compromise is necessary to form a government) then the corresponding tribalism and its ills would be curtailed. Proportional representational would help that.

 

I agree with 02Ram about the mythology of the constitution. Much of it was written as compromise, making it often ambiguous and occasionally contradictory. It's also clear that the men of the era didn't adhere to it all too strictly once they began governing under it either. However, I do think it more or less runs as intended. The US does have a comparatively limited government and a government that is severely resistant to change, even in this modern era. Perhaps we could say it's outdated in that there are more efficient and representative forms of government that have also prevented monarchy and autocracy. But, I also don't know of a system that is without flaws.

But, I also don't know of a system that is without flaws.

 

I had a professor of political philosophy in college whose favorite line always was "The history of politics is the history of failure."

Changing the Constitution doesn't just affect the Legislature and Executive branches. There are 240+ years of Judicial review and precedent that will be thrown out. We would have Constitutional issues that would get backlogged by decades if we rush to change too much. The way that Madison and crew wrote the thing allowed for ambiguity and open interpretation to change shape without losing the character of the document. The Constitution was written prior to the Presidency (since it created the position) and couldn't possibly set the guidelines for parties to follow. Maybe that it a major flaw, the the US would never fall into the same trap as England with the Tories and the Whigs.

 

However, isn't that what the Amendments are for? To make changes. As I said before, until the American Public stops being lazy, nothing will ever change and a new Constitution will do nothing to prevent the decay.

A more left-leaning court might try to connect the dots from "militia." But you already knew that. The 2nd Amendment wasn't written as clearly as the 1st Amendment. Hence, it would serve the purposes of gun enthusiasts to have the 2nd rewritten to preserve their God-given rights.

 

Fair enough. The 'operative' part, that following the semi-colon, is clear. The non-independent preparatory phrase has caused much interpretation.

 

It would seem that there was the 'assumption' that all free men were already armed and had the natural right to be armed for personal protection and other needs (hunting, etc.). But the ability of an individual to protect themselves with 'arms' was never, ever in question or even considered.

 

It seems that 'collective' defense is what the introduction is attempting to protect with a simple, yet non-operational narrative phrase. There was no standing army back then. There was no state or local police. But there were nation-states surrounding the new country (Britain, France, Spain...) and the (state-managed) militias would be necessary to form armies (periodically) to defend the new nation. When you talk about 'original intent' I do believe that was intent of combining the phrases in this simple amendment.

 

I believe the founder actually 'got lucky' on this one. By keeping the description of the 'collective defense' need separate from the operative part of the actual sentence they ended up protecting something they probably never thought would happen - free men being denied access to arms. Does this mean that the amendment only protects ownership of arms IF your part of militia. NO. the words before the semi-colon could be anything. The functional part of the amendment and the specific instructions from Constitutions owners (the People) to the government are - "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

 

By using as few words as needed (a concept carried throughout the writing of the Constitution) they got lucky and protected us.

There has never been in the history of this world a better written document than our constitution. I would argue that it doesn't need changed, I would argue that we are to loose with our interpretation in this present era and drift to far away from our founding principles. Most people in this country don't even truly understand our Federal system and that we are a Democratic Republic. But even if you did want to change there is a process in place called the ammendment process and their is no short cuts to changing such a great document.

Fair enough. The 'operative' part, that following the semi-colon, is clear. The non-independent preparatory phrase has caused much interpretation.

 

It would seem that there was the 'assumption' that all free men were already armed and had the natural right to be armed for personal protection and other needs (hunting, etc.). But the ability of an individual to protect themselves with 'arms' was never, ever in question or even considered.

 

It seems that 'collective' defense is what the introduction is attempting to protect with a simple, yet non-operational narrative phrase. There was no standing army back then. There was no state or local police. But there were nation-states surrounding the new country (Britain, France, Spain...) and the (state-managed) militias would be necessary to form armies (periodically) to defend the new nation. When you talk about 'original intent' I do believe that was intent of combining the phrases in this simple amendment.

 

I believe the founder actually 'got lucky' on this one. By keeping the description of the 'collective defense' need separate from the operative part of the actual sentence they ended up protecting something they probably never thought would happen - free men being denied access to arms. Does this mean that the amendment only protects ownership of arms IF your part of militia. NO. the words before the semi-colon could be anything. The functional part of the amendment and the specific instructions from Constitutions owners (the People) to the government are - "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

 

By using as few words as needed (a concept carried throughout the writing of the Constitution) they got lucky and protected us.

The high court, for the time being, has adopted your point of view. However, there are words before the semicolon, and they must be considered for the weight they carry in any analysis of the 2nd Amendment. In other words, I disagree with your statement that "the words before the semicolon could be anything." If that were true, then the 2nd would simply be 14 words long: "The right of the people to keep ... "

 

Of course, "militia" also has evolved over the years. Is there a present-day equivalent of "militia"?

People on the left can dream of a rewrite but there is no way legally it could be done without 2/3rds of the states and that is not happening anytime soon.