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‘We the people’ is a timeless ideal of American democracy. What’s gone wrong?
(news.berkeley.edu)
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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politics
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As I was suggesting with
the barriers to change it (process, legal requirements) aren't something to easily dismiss (are you aware of the process & requirements?) especially with today's political obstructionism. It requires approval by supermajorities (²⁄₃) of both houses & ratification by ³⁄₄ of the states.
That’s kind of my point though. In Canada, the only reason I know our constitution is even looked at in 2025 is because my friend works in environmental policy. The amount of times I hear that some American was exonerated in a court case because broke the US constitutional amendment is crazy. It’s just weird to me that a short document that was mostly written so long ago plays such a part in American law, especially with what you mentioned about it being so hard to update. This has been said to death but the right to bear arms was an amendment written when guns were single shot and took ages to reload.
Fundamental principles that define & operate a government aren't supposed to change frequently or easily. Neither are fundamental restrictions on the authority of government (ie, fundamental rights).
It makes sense to me that those fundamental freedoms are written somewhere & that judicial decisions would frequently cite them & related case law especially in claims that legislation violates them.
It also makes sense to me that changing those fundamental rights requires something more substantial (to indicate overwhelming consent of the people) than merely legislating them away. Otherwise, a congress with a simple majority of Trumpy republicans could simply legislate away essential freedoms as they pleased.
While the US has problems, merely having a constitution (1) the courts meaningfully refer to (2) that demands special effort to amend isn't clearly a problem. Do you have a better solution for ensuring some freedoms aren't recklessly written away?
I can agree with that. I guess what I take more of an issue with really comes down to “American civil religion”.
Americans seem to be taught (from my outsider perspective) that the basis of which the US was founded upon is perfect and needs no changing ever. There’s so much propaganda surrounding the founding documents that even suggesting changing something is basically akin to blasphemy. Like look at the second amendment. Even suggesting that maybe it doesn’t fit into modern society is considered heresy.
That sort of thing is why I really don’t like politicians claiming that their country is “the best in the world”. You see it in Canada too, and I hate it because even if it’s true, it just sort of waves away the many improvements that can be made. There’s ALWAYS things to improve upon