The U.S. Constitution is an absolutely astounding document; anyone who has studied it would agree that the forefathers somehow managed to foresee issues no reasonable man would have expected them to be able to foresee. That doesn't make it perfect, however, and it certainly doesn't make it fully optimized for modern society. The forefathers forsaw that, too, and provided procedures for amending the Constitution as became necessary.
They reasonably made it difficult to amend. You
don't
want the
Constitution being altered willy-nilly on political whims. To see
what happens
when a constitution is too easily amended look at Florida's state
constitution, which has been amended to protect the welfare of pregnant
pigs. It has also been amended to require the State to build a
high-speed rail system, and re-amended four years later to repeal that
amendment; a review of those amendments, along with others, indicates
that voters in Florida will vote "for" an amendment even if they have
no idea what it's about, which is usually the case.
For better or worse, the U.S. Constitution is in the opposite situation: it's all but impossible to even get an amendment considered, much less actually pass it. That's arguably a good thing -- we certainly could have used a little more thought before Prohibition went into effect -- but it has the unfortunate side effect that there are several perfectly good proposals for amendments that simply haven't gotten enough attention and probably won't before something tragic brings an issue to the national forefront.
I present here several ideas that I believe would improve the U.S. Constitution:
First, I suggest that they left out some sections
.
We need to fix the electoral
college
used to elect our president.
We need to put an end to the scandals involved in redistricting.
We desperately need "term limits" in this country, but the proposals that have been considered are so inane and haphazard that they never garner enough support to actually get enacted. I present a Constitutional Amendment to limit terms of office for politicians that actually makes sense and would develop support -- if only it could be brought to national attention.
I propose we consider abolishing the 2nd Amendment -- but perhaps not for the reasons you might expect.
I would like to propose an amendment to abolish laws that discriminate on the basis of age.
The government should not discriminate in who gets benefits and services .
I offer a proposal to abolish the 8th Amendment .
We need to reestablish some rules on how we make war . I also propose some rules on how we deploy our military abroad, which is a similar issue.
I propose a guideline on how we deal with foreign governments .
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Of course, if you have questions or comments, you are welcome to send e-mail to me at "palmk at nettally dot com".