[ExI] constitution amendments

[Dan]

--- On Mon, 7/13/09, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > > Ja, agreed, thanks for that comment.  The
> American founders 
> > realized 
> > > this, and that is why America is not a democracy
> but rather is a 
> > > democratic republic.  Our current government
> fails to 
> > recognize this, 
> > > but we will survive another 3.4 years when most
> of them 
> > will be gone.
> > 
> > I'm not sure what you mean by this distinction. Are
> you 
> > referring to the US Constitution?...
> 
> I meant most of the members of the current congress and the
> executive branch
> will be changed out, if it plays out the way I
> expect.  If it doesn't play
> out the way I expect, then nearly everything I thought I
> knew about
> economics is wrong.  If what I think I know about
> economics is right, in
> fall of 2010 we will be struggling along with 11%
> unemployment and a huge
> number of the representatives will be sent packing. 
> In 2012, we will be
> struggling along with 12% unemployment and a huge number of
> the senate and
> executive branch will go home.  The new guys may be
> just as bad, possibly
> worse, than the ones they replaced.

I think the unemployment rate is higher than reported. I recall reading, last year, about how the technique used for reporting the numbers changed during the 1990s and made unemployment seem lower. Last year, I'd read using the old technique, the number would've been double-digit.
 
> Democrat and republican are two wings of the same bird of
> prey.

Pretty much, though I would judge each one individually, of course. Roderick Long basically sees them as two parts of the ruling class (in the US, of course): the Bureaucrats and the Plutocrats -- or the political ruling class and the corporate one.

>> A constitution itself will 
>> either be written and ratified by a team of dictators
>> or by 
>> some sort of democratically elected committee...
> 
> Ja, but fortunately the US constitution was designed by a
> bunch of guys who
> had suffered directly under government tyranny.  They
> carefully designed a
> form of government that has a bunch of ways of resisting
> tyranny.

And it failed miserably in the first few years. In order to make it work, it requires a way different culture, including a populace that's ready to secede or revolt frequently. I think, too, this shows the likely failure point of any attempts at libertarian minarchism: once you have a state in place, regardless of constitutional limits, it'll eventually become a threat to freedom. (One problem with constitutionalism, of course, is that the state interprets and enforces the constitution. In the US, there's the Supreme Court and all lesser courts. They're part of the state. This is no different than a criminal gang having a set of strict by-laws and getting to interpret and enforce them. How would one expect the criminal gang to rule? To never overstep the by-laws' limits? Or to interpret them loosely or ignore them at times?)

>> ...would it make it any 
>> better if a government or law could only be changed
>> if, say, 
>> 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou
> 
> Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the
> voters to agree on
> *anything* including the color of snow and whether the sun
> will rise
> tomorrow.  That fact gives the constitution some
> degree of stability.  The
> military insures that the government stays within the
> bounds of the
> constitution, for it is that document that defines who is
> in command of that
> awesome force.

While a 2/3rds majority sounds good, all this means in practice is that the 2/3rds will agree on things, more or less, when this exploits the remaining third. The same applies with a 99% agreement. Granted, this would likely be much better -- assuming we start from a position not of today's bloated managerial states, but from something much more modest. But it'll likely still be eroded and as long as the state still gets to interpret the laws, why would this matter? Only in extreme cases -- ones where most of the people would revolt anyhow -- will there be a check on laws. In most cases, limits will be interpreted loosely and most people won't notice. This is, after all, what we see now.

Regards,

Dan