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Our Outdated Constitution
Defining Ideas - Hoover Institution ^

Posted on 06/05/2016 5:36:54 AM PDT by ameribbean expat

The media’s wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump and the presidential horserace is a distraction from the main event. The point of the horserace—and of all politics—is to run a government capable of dealing effectively with the nation’s problems. But effective government is precisely what we don’t have. America’s greatest challenge is that it is burdened by a government that doesn’t work, and indeed is dysfunctional.

Why is the nation so poorly governed? This is the question that we address in our new book, Relic. What we show is that the fundamentals of an answer can be traced to the Constitution—which, for all its admirable qualities, imposes a structure of government that has long been outdated, and is ill-suited to modern times.

(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: communists; constitution; declaredcombatants; fascism; fascistauthor; fascists; hooverinstitution; ntsa; nuttery; pages; relic; tinfoiledagain; treason
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To: ameribbean expat

Our form of government will work only if honest, God fearing moral people are put into office. That is OUR responsibility as citizens.


21 posted on 06/05/2016 6:14:12 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Ouderkirk

So did I. Remember when they were trying to get obamacare enacted? Every hour a new story came out on how broke our medical system was.


22 posted on 06/05/2016 6:14:54 AM PDT by sport
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To: ameribbean expat

Hoover Institute...just like the vacuum—you suck. Your tyranny is outdated.


23 posted on 06/05/2016 6:15:24 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: central_va

Sad but true


24 posted on 06/05/2016 6:24:26 AM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: central_va

Yeah, those good old days where we could own other human beings were so much better


25 posted on 06/05/2016 6:30:15 AM PDT by bigdaddy45
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To: ameribbean expat

The problem is not the Constitution. The problem is the infinitely corruptible nature of human beings, and the ability of the most corrupt among us to wear a veneer of caring and compassion while serving their own ends.

There is no way to draft a constitution that is corruption-proof. The best we can do is try to reach past the media enablers to shine the light directly on corruption and to educate people to use logic, not emotion, to make decisions.

The answer is not to invest ultimate power in the president.

I skimmed through the comments under the article, and every one that I saw correctly noted that the article’s “solution” of investing more power into the president and making Congress into no more than an advisory body is the making of a dictatorship.


26 posted on 06/05/2016 6:31:05 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: ameribbean expat

They want an even weaker Congress and more Dicktatorship. That’ll be good....


27 posted on 06/05/2016 6:51:50 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: JBW1949

You are absolutely correct! We do not want or need a dictatorship which this article is proposing under a cloak of
gobbledegook! Obama has IGNORED the constitution and THAT is our problem!


28 posted on 06/05/2016 6:59:32 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: ameribbean expat

The author appears impatient with government because it doesn’t act quickly enough. I don’t want a government that acts quickly - I want a government that acts in a measured manner. I prefer a government that experiences gridlock - that is a sign that the natural forces of self-regulation are at play.

A legislative branch that only pass laws when they make sense. An executive branch that leaves it to the legislative branch to enact laws. A judiciary branch that doesn’t attempt to pass laws or make policy. That’s what the founding fathers had in mind.


29 posted on 06/05/2016 7:00:14 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: central_va

Well the bastard southron would-be republic certainly did.


30 posted on 06/05/2016 7:01:41 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Don Corleone
Our form of government will work only if honest, God fearing moral people are put into office. That is OUR responsibility as citizens.

But sadly a growing and now near-dominant part of the citizenry is no longer honest, God fearing, and moral. So we are on the verge of electing to the presidency either a crook or a charlatan, both of them dishonest, not God fearing, and amoral. And we are likely to re-elect to the House and the Senate most of the people we are complaining about. So it seems that nothing short of a near-total collapse is going to make people see the light and return to constitutional principles.

31 posted on 06/05/2016 7:08:04 AM PDT by SFConservative
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To: ameribbean expat

The Hoover Institution, who claims to be on the right, now casts themselves in with Globalists and the left.


32 posted on 06/05/2016 7:15:37 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Chuck Norris finally met his match in Donald Trump.)
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To: ameribbean expat
Why is the nation so poorly governed? This is the question that we address in our new book, Relic. What we show is that the fundamentals of an answer can be traced to the Constitution—which, for all its admirable qualities, imposes a structure of government that has long been outdated, and is ill-suited to modern times.

In other words, because we haven't actually followed our constitution for decades, we must now eviscerate the document to fit what we know does not work.

The author is an idiot (at best).

33 posted on 06/05/2016 7:35:01 AM PDT by MortMan (Let's call the push for amnesty what it is: Pedrophilia.)
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To: JBW1949
The problem is that politicians and judges do not follow what it says because it doesn’t fit their agendas...

Exactly!

With Congress’s pathologies rooted in the Constitution, the ultimate problem is the Constitution itself.

No, it is not! In their wisdom the Founding Fathers knew that the Constitution would require change over time and added a way to modify it in an orderly manner. What we have now are judges who ignore what it says and a president who wants to be king.

34 posted on 06/05/2016 8:01:42 AM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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To: ameribbean expat
In 1963, Sen. Joseph Clark (D-PA) wrote a book titled Congress: The Sapless Branch. In that book he suggested exactly the same thing as the author of this article.

It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now.

35 posted on 06/05/2016 8:10:30 AM PDT by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: ameribbean expat

The problem with the constitution is one of omission. They neglected to create a permanent mechanism to “prune” the government.

The best way to address this imbalance would be to create a special court, not a federal court, but one with justices appointed by the Supreme Courts of the individual states. State justices, who would perform some unusual functions.

First of all, they would review the 8,000 or so cases on appeal to the US Supreme Court from the appellate courts, not deciding on their constitutionality, but on their jurisdiction. That is, taking into account the constitutional arguments of the federal appellate courts, they would decide if the case is indeed a “federal matter”, or one that should be returned to the state or states of origin as “not rising to the level” of the federal courts.

Throughout US history, the federal courts have in effect created vast amounts of “new law”, not based on legislation *or* precedent.

So this court would give the states a say in whether or not the federal courts have the authority to involve themselves in the first place. Importantly, if the court found this with a simple majority, it could still be appealed to the SCOTUS. But if they found this with a 2/3rd majority, its decision would be final.

The other purpose of this court would be to act as the court of origin to decide lawsuits between the states and the federal government. Instead of having to take years for such lawsuits to wend their way through the many layers of the federal courts, the “first say” would be by the states. This would give them the advantage currently enjoyed by the federal government.


36 posted on 06/05/2016 8:19:47 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: JBW1949
"Add to this term limits..........."

...for elected officers and their staff members

37 posted on 06/05/2016 8:32:17 AM PDT by Thom Pain (If you like your country you can keep it. Period. REPEAL 17 !!)
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To: libertylover

That’s about the gist of it...We need to clean house...(and Senate)


38 posted on 06/05/2016 8:46:09 AM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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To: Thom Pain

There you go.......


39 posted on 06/05/2016 8:46:37 AM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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To: JBW1949
If anything, human nature is in retrograde today. And Mr. Jefferson's warning is more urgent now than then: "In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in men but bind them down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution"

Photobucket

And before I’m accused of simply flogging the problem, the solution is to RE-ELECT ONLY those who pass Constitutional muster. Before you say “My guy’s doing a SWELL job,” check him out at http://www.gradegov.com/

WE STILL HAVE MORE TRASH TO TAKE OUT IN 2016! MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!!

40 posted on 06/05/2016 8:49:50 AM PDT by Dick Bachert (This entire "administration" has been a series of Reischstag Fires. We know how that turned out!)
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