Right-wing legal interests funded by the megawealthy are routinely feting lower-court judges and treating them to all-expenses-paid trips, which effectively function as a reward system for judges who espouse and maintain hard-line conservative legal views.
The framers COMPLETELY dropped the ball on checks on the judicial.
We need a new constitution. This one was designed for information at the speed of horse, a population less than 2% the size of today’s, and sets too high a bar to change the status quo. It might have been the most flexible governmental framework of its time, but that was a quarter millennium ago, before the first mass produced revolver was a twinkle in colt’s eye btw.
I think most of the framers would be shocked and not necessarily pleased that we haven’t by now. Then again, some of them would be upset that women and minorities can vote, so maybe their opinion wouldn’t mean much.
It was basically designed around nobody having enough power to do anything that would affect landowners, or doing much in general. I think the founders would be shocked at the political factions they feared so much and considered the country a failed project. They didn’t see a reason for anyone to vote that didn’t hold arable land etc. Kicked the can on slavery as far down the road as they could to avoid the inevitable confrontation. Handed power back to the planters during reconstruction. Beat down any opportunity for collective public action.
To be fair they dropped the ball completely on the whole of the judiciary. They said “Okay there’s a Supreme Court, and it’ll have at least a Chief Justice… Congress can decide how many others there are, but they serve for life. And Congress can determine how it works otherwise. There should probably be some lower courts and stuff but Congress can figure that out later.”
We’re tired, we’ve been here for god knows how long, and I haven’t been laid since I left the farm. Let’s wrap this up and let the first congress handle it. Besides, I’m wasted by this point.
If the rest of them were anything like Franklin (and I guarantee there were more like Franklin than Adams), they probably had gotten laid a lot more since leaving the farm.
I used to imagine, “What would a new constitution look like if we actually invoked the clause to hold another constitutional convention?”
But imagine if we voted to hold one now, when billionaires hold so much power already. I all but guarantee that they’d make sure they had control over a majority of the delegates, and we’d end up with something that was somehow even worse than what we have today.
Before we can even have a talk of a new government, we have to get rid of the villains destroying every government from the inside.
And that will cause a power vacuum sociopaths will use to take over. It already happened to Russia.
First and second amendments were intended to be that check. Communicating and causing damage are the two capabilities a populace needs to be respectable enough to have to play nice with.
And all this talk of revolution … that’s the check. The government was built with an off switch, in the form of specific protections for the things that could destroy it.
They knew that no structure would be incorruptible. You can have layers but eventually the layers stop. It’s a who watches the watchers that watch the watchers … and so forth scenario.
They knew that there’s no way to arrange those pieces so that it won’t go bad eventually. Sp they made a rule that the people must keep the power to destroy that structure.
Like summoning a dragon to protect you, but first making sure there are dragon-proof boxes with lances inside, because dragons are dangerous as fuck. You only summon one if there’s something even worse coming at you. But just because it’s your best option doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous as fuck and may need to be put down.