Best Constitutional Amendment

[FriendlyFire]

21st Amendment is best amendment.

Can I vote for a future amendment ?
Which ever one ushers in an AI Polity

 

[Commodore]

Can I vote for a future amendment ?
Which ever one ushers in an AI Polity

It would be close, but still wouldn't be as good as good ole Amendment 21.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I was going to make a snarky comment about legalising Pot
When I quoted you

But changed my mind, were probably a century away from the first A.Is and it will be a while before they are advanced enough to administer a government.
Imagine all that wasted time with political infighting, fund raising and elections done away with and replaced with a hyper efficient and intelligent AI

 

[Commodore]

I was going to make a snarky comment about legalising Pot
When I quoted you

But changed my mind, were probably a century away from the first A.Is and it will be a while before they are advanced enough to administer a government.
Imagine all that wasted time with political infighting, fund raising and elections done away with and replaced with a hyper efficient and intelligent AI

I remember watching something that said the earliest estimates for the first true AI would be around 2045. Of course, that estimate is based solely on the rate at which our computing power increases. However, more powerful computers doesn't necessarily translate into intelligent computers.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The 2nd and the 18th are surely in the final of the "worst unintended consequences" tournament.

 

[Arakhor]

The 10th might as well be omitted for all the respect it gets.

That'd certainly be easier to stop some states from trying to disrespect other parts of the Constitution, wouldn't you say?

 

[Tahuti]

XXV, I hope for you guys it won't ever be necessary, though it pretty much ensures you have constitutional protection against a succession crisis when you need it last.

 

[EgonSpengler]

XXV, I hope for you guys it won't ever be necessary, though it pretty much ensures you have constitutional protection against a succession crisis when you need it last.

Well, we're on course to have one of our oldest Presidents ever. Ronald Reagan holds the trophy, aged 69, a few days shy of 70, when he assumed office. Hilary Clinton just turned 69 and Donald Trump is 70.

 

[Omega124]

Sixth. Simply because I unforunately have to deal with false accusations from anonymous sources in university. Not rumors but actual, I can get in serious trouble accusations. Goddamn, fighting them off was nerve wracking when I didn't even know who was making them.

It really made me appreciate that we have such a rule for criminal procedures. It ultimately meant that no one was willing to get the police involved in the end.

 

[schlaufuchs]

The older I get the more I cherish the trifecta of IV, V, and VI. The actual implementation of our legal system is kind of [fornicated], but the framework is so elegant. I couldn't imagine a life without warrants, protections against double jeopardy, self-incrimination, right to be notified of crimes you've committed and to face your accuser, and a right to a public defender. I just wish they didn't end up being so crappy in practice.

@Commodore: when you look at the Amendments in isolation, XXI becomes in effect a legalization of alcohol, which definitely makes it one of the better amendments.

 

[tetley]

I'm glad I didn't look at what everybody else voted first. 13th amendment. Also the most expensive amendment. You can't have a free country that has slaves.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I have a special fondness for 21, also. And not just because I like to have a beer now and again. But because it stands as a reminder that, if we come to realize we've messed up on something, we can go back and fix it. Half of that is implicit in the Constitution just being amendable in the first place (so some kudos go to Article V.). But knowing that we've once unamended, and could therefore do it again as needed, strikes me as very healthy for our republic.

But I'm gonna say 1, because there's an implicit message in it regarding the kind of polity we want to be: one that talks things out. All of the other amendments strike me as ultimately resulting from that baseline commitment to ongoing unfettered conversation.

 

[Farm Boy]

Except the ones that explicitly let you end or refuse to engage in conversation with us?

 

[Lord of Elves]

They're all terrible. The Constitution is terrible. What's wrong with the lot of you? Seriously. Do you love legalese, codes and statutes so much? The Constitution does not equal a summary and final speech on human rights or just governance. Good god it's so far from that it's absurd.

The fetishism surrounding the Constitution is worse than nationalism. The irony is so painful.

"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water ... the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." - Thomas Jefferson

 

[Gori the Grey]

Except the ones that explicitly let you end or refuse to engage in conversation with us?

Huh? II? Can't figure what you're driving at. Or I, looked at in another way? Throw me a bone here.

"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water ... the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." - Thomas Jefferson

If you're citing Jefferson admiringly here, don't you see that he's expressing precisely the value of an amendable constitution?

 

[Farm Boy]

All of four and a fairly serious part of both five and six. You know, the parts that inconvenience our long arms when we, as us, would very much like to have particular conversations with people or repercussions for refusing to participate.

Where the rubber hits the road of enforcement, you find the boring cynical workhorse amendments actually limit specific conversations in specific ways in order to preserve them in aggregate. You get to have the reality of the first because of the belief in the fourth, fifth, and sixth.

 

[Arakhor]

What's wrong with the lot of you? Seriously.

We're engaging with the thread's topic. What are you doing?

 

[Gori the Grey]

All of four and a fairly serious part of both five and six. You know, the parts that inconvenience our long arms when we, as us, would very much like to have particular conversations with people or repercussions for refusing to participate.

Where the rubber hits the road of enforcement, you find the boring cynical workhorse amendments actually limit specific conversations in specific ways in order to preserve them in aggregate. You get to have the reality of the first because of the belief in the fourth, fifth, and sixth.

Oh, ok, now I got it. Yeah, I thought about that when giving my answer. If the gubbmint can effectively inhibit my speech, not by censoring me but just by charging into my house and finding evidence of my manifold offenses, then that'd be as much as though I don't have the First.

But the question is "Best," and I'm such a sentimentalist that "best," for me, includes "hopefulest about the good in human nature." Mind you, I'm glad the founders were properly skeptical about human goodness to include all sorts of checks on our predictable perfidy. I'm glad we didn't just have one amendment to start with and the hope that all others would ramify outward from its exercise. I'm glad we had some amendments that were hopeful about our polity and some that were properly cynical about human nature.

For all, that, I think I'm sticking with 1. #1 is #1!

 

[duckstab]

If you're citing Jefferson admiringly here, don't you see that he's expressing precisely the value of an amendable constitution?

I think it also highlights the inherent fallacy of Constitutional originalism. The statement, "the Constitution means what its original authors intended it to mean" can only be made by a contemporary person. Thus, the Constitution means what contemporary jurisprudence says it means.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, I can't argue with you picking out what you value Gori. It's the kernel grown and it's delicious. I guess it depends if you want to focus on the savoring or the tending of rights. Remember, while I rail against it frequently enough, it's not the gubbmint. It's us, it's my spouse, it's a goodly portion of my friends, babysitters, etc. They are very much people trying to do their best to make other people's lives longer, freer, safer. But delicious delicious feasting requires us to believe in the tending strongly enough, loudly enough, that not only do we still believe in its value while the villainous seek refuge, but that my(and your!) spouses, friends, and babysitters in enforcement trend towards doing so too.