i could say something ironic about false idols. but, this is more like blood-letting.
i mean, don't let it get as bad as it's gotten with the christians.
it's an over two hundred year old text, and you're still thumping it around like it's a state of the art document. will you be doing this when it's two thousand years old? how long before enough is enough?
don't be that country.
canada's constitution is only 33 years old. it's a modern, comprehensive document - far superior to your moldy old thing.
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jessica
somebody just asked me if that means i think communism was right (the comment was painfully stupid and has been removed).
the constitution is actually so old that it says nothing about communism because it didn't exist yet, and couldn't have existed yet. it was before marx ever wrote anything. it was before the failure of the french revolution. in fact, it was before any kind of industrial revolution in the united states.
this is actually useful in grappling with how irrelevant the document is. we currently live in a post-industrial economy; call it what you will, but it's defined by the unravelling of the socialization of labour. and, that phenomenon suggests that marx was very wrong.
yet, you want to base your society around a document written before the industrial revolution? you want to hold to it without modifications? read it literally?
i think you need to rip it up and start all over again, myself. it's become so out of date that it's an impediment to progress.
John Roy
+jessica It has been changed since the industrial revolution, it can be amended, has been many times before. Tearing it up and starting new wouldn't help much. If we did that then most of what was already on there would return.
deathtokoalas
+John Roy the modifications are minor. you replaced chattel slavery with wage slavery, for example. but, the document is still fundamentally designed for an agrarian society, and an agrarian economy. it can't and won't be able to keep up with changes in the modern world. so long as america holds to the archaic document, it will fall further and further behind.
you have routine yearly crises around trivial governing issues that most countries couldn't even contemplate. it's not an expression of greater democracy, it's just a waste of everybody's time and everybody's resources. it actually fuels mass apathy. you can't get basic agreements signed. you can't participate in international forums as a full member. it's really a noose around your neck. and, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world gets fed up and relegates you to the status of a failed pariah state.