My new political web site - anewconstitution.com

[shetline]

http://www.anewconstitution.com/

There's barely anything there right now -- it's just a skeleton of a web site really, but I've got forums set up at least. Getting a discussion going in the new site's forums seems like a good way to get started putting some flesh on that skeleton. I could have tried to write a bunch of political essays and put together a draft constitution all by myself before announcing the web site, but writing something like a constitution should, it would seem to me, be a bit more of a social process than that would have been.

The basic premise of the site is for people to get together to discuss political, legal, and social issues within a framework of the principles of government that they believe in. Out of this exchange of ideas I hope to generate an evolving hypothetical national constitution which expresses principles derived from the debate.

This will not be an unbiased process. The intro to the web site should make some of my bias clear, and further postings by me in the anewconstitution.com forums and essays I'll eventually write in the pages of the web site will further reveal my liberal/libertarian agenda. I am, however, given sufficient concentrated effort and browbeating, open to changing my opinions on some things. Further, there are many issue for which I don't have any clear ideas other than "something should be done to fix this", leaving me open to many new ideas in such areas.

Although I've set myself up in a very undemocratic fashion as the ultimate arbiter for what eventually goes into this constitution, there's a lot of room for collaborative effort I think, a great potential for lively debate, and a lot of opportunity for myself and everyone else who participates to sharpen and clarify their own views on the limitations and responsibilities of government, and what the proper functions and purview of government should be.

[spindler]

There's something lacking about your premise.

Almost by definition, the only things that should be decided by the constitution are the basics that all thinking people would agree upon. Otherwise, things would be locked into place and our choices cut off.

For example, something like gay marriage obviously shouldn't be in the constitution because at least 33% of people have strong feelings against putting it in there. Likewise, I don't think the debate about guns should be decided by the constitution. But I also don't think liberal ideas like helping the poor belong in there. You can't have something in there that 40% of the population could reasonably be against.

So, the only things that can go in are things like "all people are equal", or "stealing someone else's property is illegal". Other things, as depressing as it may be, have to wait until the population wakes up and decides to make things as good as they can be.

About the only thing now that might possibly be a good addition would be a right to privacy, which most people would see an obvious need for.

[shetline]

I realize there is a danger of over-specifying a constitution, taking too much authority out of the hands of the ordinary democratic process, and taking away too much of the ability of the document to be a living document, shifting in meaning (in hopefully positive ways) with changing times.

But one problem with our the current US Constitution is that, for such an important and foundational document, it's shorter than a lot of click-through agreements you accept when installing a trivial piece of software, much shorter than the typical mortgage agreement, and much shorter than most Congressional bills. Things that are considered matters of constitutional law have to be decided upon based on judicial interpretation of the Constitution, plus a long history of jurisprudence dating back to our heritage of English common law.

Some insist upon a strict literal interpretation of the Constitution. But the words are so sparse that without doing at least a little reading between the lines there isn't much there to go on. For instance, it's not until the 14th Amendment in 1866 that the issue of voting age is mentioned. What else was and is simply assumed about the rights mentioned in the Constitution and the age at which those rights apply?

Think of the number of court cases there have been regarding students in public schools and their freedom of expression, to print various things in school newspapers, to present various subject matters in class, to wear T-shirts with various slogans -- kids under 18 clearly get some, but not all, of the protection of the first amendment. In some cases, that's probably a good idea -- some accommodation for keeping order and decorum in public classrooms makes sense. But there is no clear Constitution guidance on how to resolve such cases. It all rests on the shifting sands of judicial precedent.

There are also structural matters of government that can't be handled via processes of ordinary law, but which can only be addressed by amending the Constitution. For example, I think that party politics has undermined the way the system of checks and balances between the branches of government was meant to work, and the only fixes for this problem might constitutional in nature.

As for not having something in the Constitution that 40% of the population might be against -- I actually have to disagree with that. In fact, I think such potentially unpopular items are hard to avoid. When the current Constitution was first agreed upon, it was a take-it-or-leave choice of the whole package. That package contained many compromises and no doubt a few of them were unpopular.

In the case of the hypothetical constitution I'd like to construct, the idea would be to have strong support for the principles behind and within the document, and to have as many people as possible agree that upholding those broader principles is more important than sometimes getting specific things which you want which might run counter to those principles. A majority easily support the broad notion of free speech and other freedoms of expression. But it's quite common for the majority to contradict themselves when some unpopular expression comes along -- like neo-Nazis marching in their town, or someone burning a flag.

I wouldn't put any specific mention of gay marriage into this hypothetical constitution. I would, however, include clear language about the scope of individual liberty and equality of adult citizens under the law such that blocking gay marriage would clearly be unconstitutional.

As for guns, guns already are a constitutional issue in the US because of the Second amendment, and a messy issue too because the Second Amendment has been subject to wildly different interpretations, the significance of "A well regulated Militia" being hotly debated. I'd like to see a constitution hammered out to try as best as possible to avoid such ambiguities of interpretation.

[rufusswan]

Just some random thoughts.......

I envy your cohones. This will be quite an ambitious undertaking. Had I a time machine, the one place I would 'return' to would be those meeting halls where our framers of the constitution argued and debated. Thankfully they returned a document that to this day, can not only be argued and debated, but changed as conditions require.

To set one of the goals to be "to try as best as possible to avoid ambiguities of interpretation" is a VERY HIGH goal at best. I would suggest that both the beauty and power of our current constitution lies in its ambiquity. Not that "lofty goals of moral and ethical conduct" are inherently ambiguous, but they will not be spoken or advanced without one hell of a lot of debate.

Keep in mind that our constitution is a tool to LIMIT the powers of a government OVER its people, and NOT necessarily a document to outline the rights of an individual. Do not forget that the currently reprehensible "THEY" whom we so easily bitch and bark at are US, the governed. We are reponsible for that which we have created.

OK, enought pontificating on my part. I think this will be a seminal thread.

Now, a legit question?

Is this doc to be for America as it exists today, you know, with a confederation of "autonomous states" under/with a Federal govt, or have you in mind some fictional place over which to rule?

Paz