Best Constitutional Amendment

[Cutlass]

The 1st is critical, because there is essentially nothing worse than sectarian government.

 

[Lohrenswald]

They're all terrible. The Constitution is terrible.

my man

 

[Bootstoots]

The Declaration of Independence doesn't have any particular standing in US law, as far as I know. It was also of course written with the understood assumption that it was referring to propertied white men over the age of 21, so the 13th-15th and 19th amendments had to be included over the basic framework of the US political system even though they are just extensions of DoI principles applied more broadly than the Founders intended.

 

[Lord of Elves]

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

I'm engaging with the thread's topic. I just think the way it's phrased is ridiculous and a reflection of the very real limitations of CFC's culture. We could have a very "on point" and relevant discussion vis a vis "what is the most basic and fundamental human right that makes others possible" but instead here we are, paying the usual lip service to the American Constitution as not just a guarantor of human rights but basically the ultimate list of and final say on human rights, to the extent that instead of talking about "what's the most important amendment" we have actually phrased the question as "what's the best amendment."

Are some amendments more equal than others? What does this even mean?

I guess we're meant to respond in this fashion where I fix the portrait of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg next to my monitor and then launch into "According to my calculations, the most logical amendment!..."

 

[Zkribbler]

I went with the 14th because equal protection and due process are critical. Admittedly, it's hard to step over the 1st, the 16th, the 19th and others.

 

[Bootstoots]

Who is claiming that this is the ultimate list of and final say on human rights? Also, in context, it seems pretty clear that "best" is supposed to mean "most important".

 

[Lord of Elves]

@Bootstoots I don't mean to really suggest that people are somehow too dim or too ideologically constrained to understand what you have pointed out (that pretty clearly given context "best" is taken to mean "most important") but I think the framing and phrasing here is telling and reflects the type of conversation that is being had and will be had about the amendments. If it helps, I consider constitutional-legal analysis to be an obfuscation of how law serves to defend property and class, among other things.

 

[jackelgull]

Some of the most basic human rights aren't even on the constitution, like clean air and drinkable water. In lieu of those, I suppose I'd say the 14th, that the equal protection of all people under the law is the most fundamental right the constitution guarantees. Well, ok, the constitution guarantees nothing, and constitutional rights have been violated in the past, but the rights in the constitution are only rights as long as America believes the document that lists them to be sacrosanct. Without a belief that the constitution guarantees those rights, it's likely to fail to protect those rights more often.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Some of the most basic human rights aren't even on the constitution, like clean air and drinkable water. In lieu of those, I suppose I'd say the 14th, that the equal protection of all people under the law is the most fundamental right the constitution guarantees.

^^^this is what I'm talking about

 

[sophie]

@Bootstoots I don't mean to really suggest that people are somehow too dim or too ideologically constrained to understand what you have pointed out (that pretty clearly given context "best" is taken to mean "most important") but I think the framing and phrasing here is telling and reflects the type of conversation that is being had and will be had about the amendments. If it helps, I consider constitutional-legal analysis to be an obfuscation of how law serves to defend property and class, among other things.

Because that's not the fudging topic. Go make your own thread if you want to engage in a circlejerk about how woke you are or whatever. jfc I didn't realize cfc had morphed into the no fun zone. This used to be a place where people could speculate on hypotheticals about being crushed to death by 100 pairs of shoes one after another or one giant shoe box filled with clown shoes, you know. Not everything has to be an ultra serious discussion about the evils of capitalism.

 

[Camikaze]

I'll try to be careful not to cut myself on the edge, but one quite valid and pertinent point which Lord of Elves does make is that there's an American tendency to assimilate rights with constitutional rights. The best example is probably with free speech. It's pretty common when someone complains on, say, an internet forum about their free speech being limited, for people to respond by saying, "free speech just means the government can't restrict what you say, it's fine if a private person does so, or if you face social ramifications for your speech". And sure, that's what the 1st amendment is about. But free speech isn't a concept which is universally defined by a particular provision of the US Constitution. The broad liberal concept of free speech very much does extend to social censure, and the idea that we shouldn't immediately shut down or alienate ideas we don't like. But that gets lost when the right is codified.

The perverse application of this sort of assimilation can be seen with the 2nd amendment, where the American discussion tends to be about parsing the constitutional language, and not about the normative questions surrounding gun policy. Whereas a gun control debate outside the US can proceed by discussing whether limiting access to firearms is good policy or not, an American discussion gets caught up on the definition of 'bear arms'.

Of particular relevance for this thread is the fact that the removal of a constitutional amendment does not mean the removal of a right, or even a legal right. If you removed the 1st amendment, you would conceivably have the exact same operative legal right to free speech - it would simply be subject to change in accordance with democratic decision-making. It's a peculiar form of American constitutionalism, which ignores empirical evidence from elsewhere in the western world, to assume that you can't have a legal right without a constitutional guarantee. Yet that's largely the assumption that appears to lie behind the question and a lot of the answers here. Is the 'best' amendment so good that you don't even need it? Or is something more contentious, which requires protection from democracy?

 

[Arakhor]

... but instead here we are, paying the usual lip service to the American Constitution as not just a guarantor of human rights but basically the ultimate list of and final say on human rights, ...

Well, we can have a thread about which is the best provision of Magna Carta or which is the most important Geneva Convention, if you really feel that way. It's a slightly silly thread anyway.

 

[Farm Boy]

The perverse application of this sort of assimilation can be seen with the 2nd amendment, where the American discussion tends to be about parsing the constitutional language, and not about the normative questions surrounding gun policy. Whereas a gun control debate outside the US can proceed by discussing whether limiting access to firearms is good policy or not, an American discussion gets caught up on the definition of 'bear arms'.

Rights don't require something to be "good policy." It's a right, not an efficiency or convenience or a mercy or a competitive advantage. It may be those things, or it may not be. They're besides the point. Right up until you can pass the constitutional hurdles for removing it. Presumably through amendment, but more likely through rich old people reinterpreting old news. Since that's significantly easier.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'll try to be careful not to cut myself on the edge, but one quite valid and pertinent point which Lord of Elves does make is that there's an American tendency to assimilate rights with constitutional rights. The best example is probably with free speech. It's pretty common when someone complains on, say, an internet forum about their free speech being limited, for people to respond by saying, "free speech just means the government can't restrict what you say, it's fine if a private person does so, or if you face social ramifications for your speech". And sure, that's what the 1st amendment is about. But free speech isn't a concept which is universally defined by a particular provision of the US Constitution. The broad liberal concept of free speech very much does extend to social censure, and the idea that we shouldn't immediately shut down or alienate ideas we don't like. But that gets lost when the right is codified.

The perverse application of this sort of assimilation can be seen with the 2nd amendment, where the American discussion tends to be about parsing the constitutional language, and not about the normative questions surrounding gun policy. Whereas a gun control debate outside the US can proceed by discussing whether limiting access to firearms is good policy or not, an American discussion gets caught up on the definition of 'bear arms'.

Of particular relevance for this thread is the fact that the removal of a constitutional amendment does not mean the removal of a right, or even a legal right. If you removed the 1st amendment, you would conceivably have the exact same operative legal right to free speech - it would simply be subject to change in accordance with democratic decision-making. It's a peculiar form of American constitutionalism, which ignores empirical evidence from elsewhere in the western world, to assume that you can't have a legal right without a constitutional guarantee. Yet that's largely the assumption that appears to lie behind the question and a lot of the answers here. Is the 'best' amendment so good that you don't even need it? Or is something more contentious, which requires protection from democracy?

That's why we have the 9th Amendment, but you're right (a lot of people don't know about the 9th Amendment). Some people are surprised to learn that, for example, the right to privacy and the right to marry are not Constitutional rights, they're "merely" legal rights. iirc, the German constitution includes a human right to dignity (in life, not just in death) but ours does not, and so the right to die as one chooses is a big point of contention.

 

[Gori the Grey]

1) I'm engaging with the thread's topic.

2) I just think the way it's phrased is ridiculous and a reflection of the very real limitations of CFC's culture.

3) We could have a very "on point" and relevant discussion vis a vis "what is the most basic and fundamental human right that makes others possible"

4) but instead here we are, paying the usual lip service to the American Constitution as not just a guarantor of human rights but basically the ultimate list of and final say on human rights

5) to the extent that instead of talking about "what's the most important amendment" we have actually phrased the question as "what's the best amendment."

6) Are some amendments more equal than others? What does this even mean?

I guess we're meant to respond in this fashion where I fix the portrait of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg next to my monitor and then launch into "According to my calculations, the most logical amendment!..."

1) I think maybe you're engaging with the thread's title (but not even that fully), but not with the OP. Below I quote some of the OP. Note first that the topic was offered in the spirit of fun. Notice, too, the tone of voice in "as ya do," for example.

2) If you try not to take a single thread, offered in a spirit of fun, as indicative of the "very real limitations of CFC's culture," you'll likely have more fun here. There are people ready to engage your SERIOUS ISSUES too. I, for one, am still waiting for an answer from you in a different thread to a serious question I put to one of your serious rants against capitalism.

3) We could, but to do that, someone would need to post a thread titled "What is the most basic and fundamental human right that makes others possible?"

4) Nobody here has argued that the American Constitution is the ultimate list and final say on human rights. Nobody would have to take that view, or even so much as entertain that as a proposition, in order to have the fun that the question allows for.

5) In the second bolded section, note that the OP invites participants to define "best."

6) For me, a big part of the serious intellectual challenge that this fun exercise provides was trying to figure out which of the amendments was most indispensable. They hang together; they're mutually reinforcing. Many of them are essential. It was agonizingly difficult for me to settle on my one, when I entered into the thought-experiment that the OP proposes. (For all that #1 = #1).

So a few weeks back I was browsing deadspin, as ya do, and they published a fun little power ranking of the Constitutional Amendments. This is part of a long-running series deadspin has done, and usually their rankings aren't supposed to be taken at all seriously - other notable entries in this series include: "Wu-Tang Clan Album Skits, Ranked", "Scooby Doo Theme Songs, Ranked", and "Pokemon I Want to Eat, Ranked" - and arguably this ranking was just an excuse to put the 2nd Amendment at the bottom of the list. As such I probably would have forgotten about it immediately thereafter, but the comment section for this article gave me pause. People were bickering over which Amendment they would rank as most important, whether the 1st, 14th, 15th, 19th, etc. and to whit there are a great many of them that are important, not just now, but have been vital in making our country slightly less of an ethical ****hole than when we started. Picking just one therefore becomes rather difficult. And asking friends and family to pick just one became a rather interesting experiment. You really get to see where a person's values are, especially when you remind them of what amendments they aren't picking. "I think I'd take the 1st," "oh really? Over women's suffrage, abolition of slavery, equal protection under the law, unreasonable searches and seizures, or right to a fair trial/attorney?"

So I kick it out to you, fair cfc-ites: Which amendment of the US Constitution is best? You can define best however you like: most important now, most critical to the history of the country/nation, most representative of the (idealist) values it embodies (or tries to, at any rate), most indispensible, or perhaps: If you had to revoke all the amendments except one, which would it be?

 

[EgonSpengler]

6) For me, a big part of the serious intellectual challenge that this fun exercise provides was trying to figure out which of the amendments was most indispensable. They hang together; they're mutually reinforcing. Many of them are essential. It was agonizingly difficult for me to settle on my one, when I entered into the thought-experiment that the OP proposes.

Conversely, I gave my choice very little thought.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Because that's not the ****ing topic. Go make your own thread if you want to engage in a circlejerk about how woke you are or whatever. jfc I didn't realize cfc had morphed into the no fun zone. This used to be a place where people could speculate on hypotheticals about being crushed to death by 100 pairs of shoes one after another or one giant shoe box filled with clown shoes, you know. Not everything has to be an ultra serious discussion about the evils of capitalism.

I mean, I'm not really here to impugn anyone for being in it "for fun" but I'm also not trying to hugbox away the debate. If you wanted to engage only other centrists, maybe you should "go make your own thread" if you want to engage in a circlejerk about how realist and white collar you are.

Like Camikaze points out, there's a legitimate critique here. I think means are being confused with ends, and have been confused with ends, to such an extent that I'm not sure many Americans really have any concept of the relationship between "the state" and the rights guaranteed by it (or supposedly guaranteed by it) that's grounded in any kind of reality. The existing American state apparatus flies completely in the face of the Constitution and the state apparatus and governmental process it was meant to create and protect. Any reactionary or "strict constitutionalist" type will agree with me on this. But I go a step further by asserting that the Constitution and its amendments, and the Bill of Rights, do nothing to actually guarantee or protect the human rights of American citizens, and never have. Instead, they provide a legal and rhetorical framework that allows an otherwise predatory and proprietary system to posture itself as benevolent and concerned with the livelihood of ordinary people.

What's the significance of that? The Constitution and Bill of Rights are a kind of rhetorical, legal reserve that can be trotted out at any given time when there is a schism between members of the ruling classes, or when legal contests between plebs reach the Supreme Court, but they are not the "law of the land." I don't know - I mean, I guess I understand on some level that it is a cognitive dissonance phenomenon - how anyone can argue that the Constitution and Bill of Rights have had any significant, lasting or consistent effect on how the state interacts with individuals. Certainly they have had some effect, and definitely an indelible impact on the civic culture of the United States, but not the effect that people imagine that they've had.

Which is why I think it would be more useful to have a conversation about human rights in general, rather than those enumerated by the Constitution specifically. But the Constitution is basically the Holy Bible of centrist Internet commentators, so I'm not surprised by the angry and dismissive response to these points. Any time anyone criticizes these sacred texts they must just be putting on airs, after all. No one seriously believes humankind could ever do better than the American Constitution, the best framework for government ever invented.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Conversely, I gave my choice very little thought.

That's fine, too, but if you want a second level of fun with the puzzle, go back to it and really put to yourself the question "What would it mean if this one wasn't in?" "What would it mean if that one wasn't in?" I propose that with 1 secured, the citizenry will talk their way to the others. Farm Boy points out without Four, Five and Six, those talking citizens can have their speech abridged through other mechanisms. Fair enough. I hope the citizens of my airy commonwealth talk really fast to one another really quickly, and settle on the importance of Four, Five and Six. (As in fact happened, in a way; we got ten at a clap).

I mean, I'm not really here to impugn anyone for being in it "for fun" but I'm also not trying to hugbox away the debate. If you wanted to engage only other centrists, maybe you should "go make your own thread" if you want to engage in a circlejerk about how realist and white collar you are.

Dude! He's the guy who made this thread! He has gone and made a thread for the circlejerk of realist and white collar posters. It's the very thread that you're here s***ing on!

 

[Lord of Elves]

Dude! He's the guy who made this thread! He has gone and made a thread for the circlejerk of realist and white collar posters. It's the very thread that you're here s***ing on!

So I guess you've conceded that I am raising valid points but you have no interest in seriously considering them because we are all here to pat ourselves on the back for paying attention in high school civics

RIP CFCOT

 

[Hygro]

Nature would be better if you cut down all the trees to replace them with the best tree.