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    RhodyRed (As in Communist)Hamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:39am

    Rhode Island tried the constitutional convention every 25 years route and all it led to was each special interest group fighting for their own little pet amendment. In a better America, it might work. But in the cash-flushed narrow special interests of 2015....worst world.

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      under196RhodyRed (As in Communist)
      8/13/15 11:50am

      Yes but what most people don’t understand is that Rhode Island is a corrupt corrupt place therefore nothing ever really works as intended in our state.

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      BulugaRhodyRed (As in Communist)
      8/13/15 12:02pm

      This is the correct answer. We can’t get a single bill to go through Congress without more riders than a K-Mart denim section. The amount of money and attention special interests would put on this event would be insane.

      Leave well enough alone, and find other means to achieve your vision of the more perfect union.

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    Andrew MochulskyHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 12:45pm

    It really is worth noting that the idea of natural rights is complete horseshit, and people that cite to them are heaping piles of soiled diapers baking the midday sun. It’s a silly canard that excuses hand-waving of some purely society-driven rights in favor of others, invoking some stupid and shamanistic “it’s natural” consecration. Fuck any idiot that thinks natural law is something other than religious hokum in a powdered wig and buckled shoes and whatever else those dummy founders wore.

    founders : powdered wigs :: nowadays assholes : cargo shorts

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      Rick FitzAndrew Mochulsky
      8/13/15 1:17pm

      So, you have no natural right to your body. Interesting. Who told you that?

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      Andrew MochulskyRick Fitz
      8/13/15 1:21pm

      Where can I look up this list of natural laws? Or do I just have to pray for guidance?

      “It’s self-evident” isn’t an argument. There are libraries full of books on the philosophy of law, society, politics, etc., that don’t just shrug and go “well, nature,” and end with the conclusion “we have rights.” Dismissing natural law as the complete idiotic horseshit that it is has nothing to do with the abrogation of individual liberties.

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    Misteaks were madeHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:38am

    The worst thing to happen to the Constitution...passing of the 18th amendment.

    The best thing to happen to the Constitution...passing of the 21st amendment.

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      TopherMisteaks were made
      8/13/15 11:43am

      While alcohol is certainly good, is repealing prohibition as good as, I don’t know - just randomly throwing this out there - the 13th or 14th amendment?

      Edit - or the 15th or 19th? There’s some pretty good ones out there.

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      festivusaziliMisteaks were made
      8/13/15 11:44am

      I might give “best” to 13/14, but you make a good point.

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    Joann PrinzivalliHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 12:01pm

    I’d suggest some minor rewriting that ties in liberties to concurrent responsibilities more clearly. The founding fathers had the idea of tying the right to bear arms to the responsibility of serving in a “well regulated militia” but the SCOTUS, (including the so-called “strict constructionist” types like Scalia and Thomas) doesn’t understand the concept. With the ancient Roman republic, the Roman citizen was obligated to maintain arms and armor, and while the equestrian class also got a single “public horse,” they also needed to supply their own remounts.

    The founding fathers decided to inject the freedom of the citizenry to have a right to arms, rather than an obligation. But the tie-in of the purpose of the right, which seems clear from the phraseology, was conveniently unclear to the justices.

    There are other rights that could have tie-ins to responsibilities. The rights would be the reward for taking on the responsibilities, though those who choose not to bear the responsibilities would merely forego the appurtenant rights.

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      I am Jack's complete lack of compassionJoann Prinzivalli
      8/13/15 1:16pm

      Great troll 10/10. Would read again.

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      theunseenoneJoann Prinzivalli
      8/13/15 1:40pm

      That’s a willfully incorrect interpretation. Private gun ownership was the norm both before and after the Constitution was adopted, and was vital especially on the frontier of American’s push westward to protect from Native Americans and wildlife. I think if anything YOU don’t understand the concept, as if you were right then the Founding Fathers would have addressed such a discrepancy before the Constitution ever came into being after they noticed all those “gun nuts” with their rifles and revolvers strutting around.

      I also don’t like the idea of tying “rights” to responsibilities, as that makes them privileges, not rights. Rights are inherent, while privileges are earned through action or agreement, and you advocate the latter. That’s a bad system in my opinion, and sounds a shit ton like Starship Troopers. Service Guarantees Citizenship!

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    ThrumbolioHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:43am

    Why not have a new Constitutional Convention once a generation—say, every 25 years—to make amendments as necessary, so each generation of Americans could feel that they had input on the document?

    Might be fun.

    On the one hand, I’m not averse to the practice in theory.

    On the other hand, ::looks back at history:: - yeah, do we really want to have 25 years of, say, Constitutionally-mandated Stop and Frisk policies? Or abortion limitations? Just seems like we’re pretty “fad-driven” in our collective interests, and that can lead to some dumb things.

    On the third, fingerless hand...can’t say that what we currently have is perfect.

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      ReburnsABurningReturnsThrumbolio
      8/13/15 11:46am

      Well, to be fair, I don’t think you could have gotten 2/3rds of the country to agree to those things, so I doubt they would have been pushed as amendments.

      Gerrymandering and influence peddling might be able to move laws, but the approval mechanisms and thresholds for a constitutional amendment are too high to not have broad popular support be the driver behind them.

      Which is why I think the every 25 years business would be pointless.

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      DL ThurstonThrumbolio
      8/13/15 11:48am

      There would probably have been a successful attempt to enshrine striaght-only marriage in the federal Constitution under this quarter-century scheme.

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    FauxhemianRhapshodyHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:39am

    I'm down. But only if the finished document can be published in Comic Sans.

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      BrandonFauxhemianRhapshody
      8/13/15 11:46am

      careful now, thems’ fightin words to graphic designers.

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      DengEatsEggdropFauxhemianRhapshody
      8/13/15 11:49am

      And make it a PowerPoint presentation with LOTS of clip art.

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    I Have No Account and I Must PostHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:41am

    who were not that far removed from believing in witchcraft.

    I’m pretty sure this is just a rhetorical device, but you do know this is bullshit, right?

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      cepalgI Have No Account and I Must Post
      8/13/15 11:45am

      New England delegation, baby

      Ain’t no party like a New England party cuz a New England party considers any public expression of happiness a sin against God Almighty Whose Retribution Shall Be Great And Terrible.

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      I Have No Account and I Must Postcepalg
      8/13/15 11:54am

      Well, that’s a facile understanding of the events that took place in Salem Village (and throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony) in the late 1600’s.

      Many people died tragically for very complicated reasons, but it’s beyond question that the reason the hysteria was brought to a full stop was because the Governor of Massachusetts finally had enough of the superstitious idiocy. Which is how my ancestor was released from jail before she was hanged, unlike her husband.

      So, if the educated Governor of Massachusetts in 1692 was already like “LOL NO” to that BS, you can bet that by almost 100 years later they hadn’t somehow slid backwards.

      Just because some nutballs went crazy, don’t paint everyone with that brush is what I’m saying. And in the context of whether or not the framers of the Consitution were that out of touch with reality it kinda makes a difference.

      But hey, innocent people died LOL, right?

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    sigmaoctansHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:58am

    I’ll happily go constitution-free if we can eliminate some of the undemocratic parts of our current system, especially the electoral college (replace with national popular vote), the Senate (go ahead and leave it as 2 senators per state, but dramatically reduce its power), and the gerrymandering of congressional districts (states should use mixed member proportional representation to elect a full congressional delegation, statewide, and do away with districts altogether).

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      Rick Fitzsigmaoctans
      8/13/15 1:24pm

      Or maybe devolve all current federal powers back to the states. The states with Good laws will draw people from states with Bad laws, and then the states with Bad laws will become poorer, and will be forced to emulate the Good law states. Since we have many states with many different definitions of Good and Bad laws, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which states would grow richer.

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      MetaKnight2ksigmaoctans
      8/13/15 1:26pm

      It might make more sense to make the electoral college map to the Congressional district with each vote therefore representative of the district. Another idea is that 1st and 2nd place become president and vice president, as opposed to P/VP tickets.

      I also think gerrymandering needs to be addressed, but statewide doesn’t really work when you have gigantic states like Texas and California. For those cases it actually might make more sense to force districts along county lines (since a county nominally has to serve the whole populace). The problem reappears when your population is so great (see the city-states of SF and LA) that even county lines aren’t sufficient; then it might make sense to assign a rep to the largest population city since they would have needs different than the county it sits in.

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    Flow BeeHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 12:27pm

    I’m black. I hold no reverence for the Constitution as it has never applied to me.

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      Lawyer CatFlow Bee
      8/13/15 1:02pm

      Literally untrue. But don’t let that stop your victimhood.

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      Flow BeeLawyer Cat
      8/13/15 1:09pm

      Literally untrue.

      How?

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    fudgesicleuighyrHamilton Nolan
    8/13/15 11:44am

    You can change anything under the English system of law, it’s why the UK doesn’t even have a Constitution - they just have precedent. There are some dumb things in the Constitution like the electoral college or the 2nd Amendment, but we didn’t need an amendment to end Jim Crow, legalize abortion or enact gay marriage.

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      Thornus267fudgesicleuighyr
      8/13/15 12:17pm

      A few Amendments were quite necessary to ending Jim Crow. 13th, 14th, 15th, and 24th. A few of those were in place already, but they had to actually be enforced. And in order to be enforced, they had to have been adopted at an earlier time.

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      fudgesicleuighyrThornus267
      8/13/15 12:22pm

      Jim Crow happened after the anti slavery amendments, it started after Reconstruction ie 1877. I was referring to Brown v Board of Education to make a point about the malleability of the constitution and our law.

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