The Constitution of the United States
Just what it says ... no surprises ... the Constitution in itself. Very nice booklet and easy to read lettering.
Why our Constitution needs serious repair
The United States Constitution is a brilliant document that has secured liberty for millions of Americans, but serious flaws have begun to emerge as well as international challenges which, in my view, require an intelligent rethinking in a Second Constitutional Convention.
My problems with the current Constitution include:
(1) Awkward transition between presidents; from election day to the inauguration of the next president, there are effectively two presidents -- one in office, one awaiting office, and this allows confusion.
(2) Under-representation of voters from populous states in the Senate.
(3) DC voters lack representation.
(4) Supreme Court has become a politicized institution. This dates back to Marshall's Marbury v. Madison decision in which the Court usurped authority, not granted by the Constitution, to strike down laws if it found them "against the constitution". The Framers never intended for the judiciary to have such sweeping power. The Supreme Court, over time, has failed to protect the federal structure (with state governments having the most economic regulatory authority) and instead promoted power shifting to Washington. The Supreme Court has made highly political choices, such as Roe v. Wade, which should have been left to individual state governments or national lawmakers.
(5) Original Constitution fails to include a right of privacy.
(6) Possibility of a military dictatorship should a significant terrorist attack happen such as a catastrophic attack on Congress.
(7) The Electoral college system is cumbersome and confusing.
(8) Popular election of senators. Here's a situation in which the original constitution was right (letting state governments choose Senators) but it was changed by an amendment. It's important for state governments to choose Senators to give state governments a voice in the national government.
(9) Inability to get rid of an incompetent president quickly. Examples: Wilson (suffered from an economic malady); possibly Roosevelt in last years in office; Bush (clearly incompetent choice to attack Iraq).
(10) Life tenure for unelected Supreme Court judges.
(11) The Ninth amendment has been seriously ignored.
These objections have been raised by constitutional scholars and there is fairly widespread agreement among them.
British constitutional scholar Adam Tomkins identifies a prime weakness in America's constitution -- that the prime role of checking government is supposedly handled by the judiciary, and not the legislature. He thinks the judiciary is ill-suited to rein in government ministers since it must wait for a court case to bubble up before it can act; plus, judges are not popularly elected and are therefore not accountable to the public. He thinks Britain's system -- where the Prime Minister must defend choices each week in a 30 minute meeting before Parliament -- is superior to America's. I agree.
I see more serious flaws with America's governmental structure than the list above. The foreign policy architecture is deeply flawed -- entrusting too much power in one overburdened official (the president, who has both domestic and foreign policy duties.) America's foreign policy can only be as good as the president. An incompetent president, or one distracted with domestic matters, means that America's foreign policy is likely to be mindless and erratic. Any intelligent review over the past 50 years of America's foreign policy would see a long list of obvious mistakes (along with some successes, to be sure.) In the past, America could get away with this mindlessness because of its size and wealth; but in the nuclear age, foreign policy can't be an experiment, a happenstance, rather it must be consistently sound and smart. So I propose a structure more like the Roman Senate (during the Republic years.) It rarely made mistakes. And therefore, this requires major changes to the constitution.
Further, the United States lacks an intelligent strategy to prevent terrorism. The Constitution is partly to blame here. It needs to confront the whole issue of anonymous movement in public -- that is, how can we identify movement while preserving privacy? This is the key to preventing terrorism in my view. I argue in my book "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism" that there is no adequate way to prevent serious terrorism without overhauling the Constitution.
Today's US government is highly corrupt. Power has shifted to the president. Power is dangerously concentrated in this one office. The executive can essentially legislate by using a vast bureaucracy of agencies that are largely unaccountable to the public and hidden from debate. Presidents have begun issuing "signing statements" -- a fairly recent innovation -- when they describe how they intend to interpret a law made by Congress, which effectively puts an executive twist on a law. The most egregious sign of concentrated executive power is, of course, the power to start wars without Congressional approval (Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (there was a token vote)). The Constitution explicitly gave the war-making power to Congress. So why does the president have this power?
So, for these reasons and other reasons, I'm advocating a Second Constitutional Convention to fix these flaws, and as a private citizen, I am summoning delegates to Independence Hall in Philadelphia beginning July 4th, 2009.
Required Reading for American Voters
If you vote in this country, this is required reading. Understanding this single document on which our entire government is based is essential to making informed decisions when electing leaders.
Copyright page is arrogant!
This Constitution is published by Wilder Publications. The copyright page says this:
"This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."
I don't know what to make of that. If it says what I think it says I think I want a Constitution from another publisher! That statement seems to say that the Publisher is telling us how to read it! They are saying that it's principles couldn't possibly mean the same thing today! What arrogance! I hope they don't mean these things but how can I not come to these conclusions?
sloppy
i just got this so i'll just tell you what i noticed so far.
1) the pages aren't all numbered. so you can find something in the index and not find the page. not sure what the rational is for this but it's not helpful. a few pages numbered, then nothing, then a few more numbered, again nothing and so on.
2) on page 23 (i assume) the following sentence appears:
"The first ten Amendments collectively are commonly known as the Bill of Rights. History"
i find this confusing. the word "History" is not part of a sentense, has no punctuation, and it is followed by nothing. the rest of the page is blank. this looks to me like an obvious misprint.
so i'm not exactly confident in the book. and yes it is more like a pamphlet.
(10 reviews)
