Bucket Guild | FUBU BH Forums

Try and paint it however you like, everything boiled down to Slavery and the South refusing to give up their slaves. The more recent trend to claim the rebellion was not about slavery is the south trying to distance it's racist past.

Dvergar /
Quisling

dvergar you're younger and haven't gone to college right yes?

there are things they will teach you in college that directly ruins the vision you have of the past.

also, lincoln was racist.

You're absolutely right that the framers were a product of their time. That is why it's ridiculous to regard their views on justice and good policy as being sufficient for a modern society, however brilliant or sophisticated they were in 1789.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Despite their views on slavery, they established a form of government and law that can be changed if people want to change it. The constitution can be changed with the times as was done 13th amendment; an amendment which abolishes slavery which you use as an argument against the framers views and maybe legitimacy of the Constitution itself. Kind of a self-defeating argument if you ask me...

The 13th amendment wasn't passed until after a civil war. I think that supports Tuhl's suggestion that changing or even completely rewriting the constitution should be easier.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Of course the amendment came after war; most amendments and legislation are reactive and only after there is a problem...

I'll play along tho. Let's pretend there is going to be another constitutional convention and we're going to re-write the constitution. At that point, any and all amendments can be thrown out, re-written or created... but, to have one we'd need to know who would be the delegates for each State to actually write a new constitution. Would it be lawyers, current politicians, governors, scientists? In which way will compromise be made in such a polarized America and who will have the final say? Which form of government would the new constitution take? What happens during the interim period? What happens to centuries of legal decisions by the Supreme Court - wouldn't they be useless? Also, under what power and authority will we give ourselves to rewrite the document which is the foundation for this country... an oh-so-hard-to-pass-amendment?

So easy, isn't it?

It wouldn't be easy, but that doesn't make it worthless. There are lots of smart people in the US who could figure out these problems and write something that's clearer and more suited to a modern society, but that will never happen if the current constitution is treated as a sacred document. France managed to rewrite their constitution as recently as 1958; see that as a challenge if you wish.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Not sure why you're issuing a challenge - I have no problems with the US Constitution and I'm pretty comfortable with the way our three branches of government function. You're the one who thinks the constitution (and the process for amendments and whatever else) needs to be modernized and more clear... why? What needs to be more modernized? What's not clear about the constitution? (inb4 lol den y u need supreem kurt 2 interpret?) How is amending the specific articles and amendments not enough to modernize and clarify? I'd be interested to see your specific gripes because I'm sure most of them can be addressed via amendments.

PS: Our 'smart' people are the ones who over-complicate things. Do you really think we could get a constitution to be short and concise and limited in scope with todays mindset? I don't. Hell, we can't even get health care legislation that isn't in excess of 2000 pages.

I'm not suggesting any particular changes, I'm saying that the mindset that whatever the original authors of the constitution thought was good must be good is silly. If a good policy is against the constitution, the logical response isn't to say that the policy is actually bad because the original framers didn't like it. If it's too hard to change the constitution to accommodate good policy, then it should be easier to change. If the constitution is so unclear that it requires mental gymnastics from the Supreme Court to determine whether or not a given policy is constitutional, it should be made clearer. If you think the constitution is perfect in its current form because you actually agree with everything in it, that's fine, but that's a different argument from the one that the constitution is perfect because it's the constitution.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

The document was written, especially with the addition of the first ten amendments, for keeping government power in check, protecting the rights of the average citizens, and preventing the sort of abuses they'd just fought a war to end. Any "good policy" that can't meet the basic requirements outlined in such a document cannot possibly be that "good."

And "mental gymnastics" cross the line of following the letter of the law when the court starts saying shit like "growing wheat on your farm that never leaves the farm, much less the state it's grown in, constitutes interstate commerce." That's not "mental gymnastics," that's complete and utter politically-motivated bullshit that completely changes the plainly written meaning of the law without the required amendment process.

Amending the Constitution was meant to be a chore. It's done that way for several reasons, not the least of which is to avoid rash change based on temporary public sentiment. It's also structured to ensure that the rights/obligations of all involved parties (the federal government, the states, and the people) are protected.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

This is a pretty significant oversimplification of what's actually in the US constitution. Most countries' constitutions follow the same general principles of defining government powers and protecting citizen rights, but they allow implementation of rather different policies in some cases. The specifics are important, and it's possible that the specific way the US constitution is written could get in the way of implementing what would otherwise be good policy. Saying that a policy that could be interpreted as contravening the US constitution is automatically bad policy is exactly what I was talking about.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Really? This is the best you've got? Don't defend your position, just assert that you're superior. You're turning into Aestu. I'm older than you by a few years (I don't know how old you are but I stand by that). I've also spent two and a half years as a history major in college.

The civil war was about slavery. I know the arguments, states rights is the most common. The north didn't fight to free the slaves, they fought to put down the rebellion, but the rebellion happened because of slavery. The states rights the confederates were fighting for wouldn't have been an issue without slavery.



I strongly suggest you do some research into how wheat is priced, I would also look into the recent arabic protests.

Dvergar /
Quisling

If you actually, really believe that, and it's what you were taught, you need to ask for a refund. I went to a community college and got better than that tripe.



I don't need to know how wheat is priced to know that interstate commerce is trade that is conducted across the boundaries of two states, and that until some "mental gymnastics" the federal government had no authority to regulate goods not specifically involved in such trade. When you start taking shortcuts around the rules, you eventually find yourself running off the road. Furthermore, most of these "mental gymnastics" have been performed to implement liberal policies that couldn't/wouldn't pass muster at the ballot box/legislative level, so what happens when "the right" abandons the scant principles it has regarding judicial activism and starts borrowing from that play-book? Most of you were/are in a snit about Bush winning 2000 by judicial fiat, imagine the shit-fit spasms you'll have should what I just described ever happen...and yet, you won't be able to legitimately complain, because you've already endorsed the glory and righteousness of "mental gymnastics." What happens if there is some conservative ground-swell, half the court goes tits up, and some right-wing weenie puts wackos on the court that decide to flip the bird to stare decises and they start tossing shit like Roe v. Wade out the window because going back to prohibiting abortion is "good policy?"

There's a right way and a wrong way to do things, and this "mental gymnastics" easy-way is more the former than the latter. It's unfortunate that so few demonstrate the foresight necessary to realize where this sort of behavior can lead.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

That's twice now that people have argued I'm wrong with no supporting evidence.



Right, why understand the issue when you can just get mad at it!

Dvergar /
Quisling

Just because you agree with it doesn't make it 100% true.

Then again, dudes who take community college courses on history are always more qualified than history majors.

RETIRED.
[armory loc="US,Bleeding Hollow"]Mayonaise[/armory]
[armory loc="US,Bleeding Hollow"]Jerkonaise[/armory]