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I’ve had the feeling for many years now that our Constitution no longer serves us well, but I’m afraid to say that too loudly because my fear is that our country is so fucked up that whatever might replace it would be even worse than what we have. You just know that if there were any serious move to rewrite our constitution from scratch, it would somehow wind up being a document that gives the large corporations and the rich (“the 1%”) free rein to do just about whatever they want, while taking away what few remaining rights the rest of us still have. Also don’t forget the influence of the nutcase fundamentalist religious crowd, which would probably like to see the separation of church and state abolished completely, so they can legally discriminate against people who are not like them.
But in any case, it’s telling to me that other governments are looking at the United States, realizing that things are NOT working as they should here, and taking their constitutions in different directions:
U.S. Constitution Losing Influence as Model for Other Nations (AllGov)
I personally think our existing U.S. constitution could be fixed, without “throwing the baby out with the batch water”, as it were. But we will never be able to fix it as long as dishonorable men (and they are still mostly men) hold the keys of power in this country.
What I basically think we need is a new “Bill of Rights” for the 21st century that would declare beyond the shadow of a doubt that corporations are not persons, that the rights and protections given to persons in the constitution (and in other laws) do not apply to them unless the law specifically states otherwise, and that there is no “corporate veil” that individuals can hide behind to evade responsibility for their actions (and also that religious institutions cannot hide behind the constitution to evade responsibility for their criminal acts). We need to decriminalize “economic crimes” (laws that exist only to protect the profits of some industry, and that includes some of the laws against “illegal” drugs that are not as harmful as many legal substances, and exist only to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries), and then we need to give people the rights found in the constitutions of most other industrialized nations, such as a right to health care. And finally, we need to put something in there to protect young people from being sent to war when American soil has not been threatened in any way (that thought could probably use some work, but you get the idea – the days of the United States sticking their nose into every conflict around the world needs to end, and the sooner the better).
I also think our constitution could benefit by explicitly including protections against “bad cops” and making it a conspiracy when good cops fail to report crimes committed by the bad ones. I know there are a lot of “good cops” that are disgusted by the actions of certain of their peers, but the culture in many police organizations is that you never tattle on a fellow officer. The problem is that very often, other cops are the only witnesses to crimes committed by their peers. And worse yet, when the cops get away with it then people in other organizations feel no shame in operating in the same manner. Thus you have religious leaders, schoolteachers, and others failing to report the criminal activities of their peers (and how often do you suppose that happens and does not make the news, because it is never revealed?). Hey, if the cops can get away with it… Since police officers are government employees, they should be held to a higher standard, and it sure wouldn’t hurt if a new bill of rights held them to that standard. We don’t really need protection against not being forced to quarter soldiers in our homes (the third amendment) anymore, yet we still have it, but in the 21st century it appears we do need protection against bad cops violating our constitutional rights and getting away with it because the only witness was another cop, who might have reported it were it not for that whole idea of not ratting out another cop.
That last paragraph is just an example of how our constitution could benefit by being brought up to date. Many of the problems faced in the 18th century are pretty much irrelevant today, but since then many new issues have arisen, and because the constitution does not address them specifically, it’s left to nine political appointees (the Supreme Court) to tell us how they think the constitution should be applied, and that’s how we come up with ridiculous absurdities like “corporations are persons”, or that forever broadening our copyright and patent laws somehow benefits the sciences or the arts (I suppose you can blame that one on Congress as much as the courts). But again, my belief is that nothing good could come out of any sort of constitutional rewrite until those who are currently in power in our country are no longer as powerful, and the people actually have a voice. Will that ever happen in my lifetime? At my age, it’s starting to look less and less likely, but there is always hope.
Jimi said
It was Thomas Jefferson that proposed the idea of a Living Constitution, a Constitution that was revisited every 10 years or so and updated to reflect the current state of the country. Unfortunately this was never implemented.