Best Constitutional Amendment

[sophie]

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?

If you want to make your pick taking all the SCOTUS interpretations and rulings that have come on the back of it, that's fine, but you have to take the amendment in isolation. So who ya got?

ETA: inb4 BvBPL comes in and ****s all over my summaries of the amendments

 

[Bootstoots]

Fourteenth, without a doubt. The whole concept of "equal protection under the law" is powerful and easy to extend to new arguments as they arise. It's basically how civil rights are established and extended. Also, establishing that the rights given to citizens under the Constitution apply to states as well as the federal government is really critical.

 

[sophie]

But over Abolition of Slavery? 15th and 19th are super up there for me too - without a right to vote, disenfranchised groups are just stuck relying on the good will of the majority. You take out any incentive whatsoever for lawmakers to even play lip service to those groups.

I think another interesting thing to take into consideration is that the 16th - the income tax - basically codifies for congress a tool to control income inequality. That in of itself is pretty big considering the kind of havoc large income gaps can wreak on economic stability.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I don't understand 9

 

[sophie]

I don't understand 9

http://kids.laws.com/ninth-amendment

 

[EgonSpengler]

The 1st Amendment for me. I don't even know how a republic would even work without freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rights to peaceful assembly and to petition the government. It's always seemed weird to me that these weren't in the body of the Constitution and had to be added as part of the Bill of Rights.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Waht's the definition of citizen in America?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

OMG why are there so many?
The charm of American greatness is its simplicity. And its loudness. Its loud simplicity.
Your "amendments" fit neither.
Are you sure there is no amendment for bras spotting the American flag? Maybe we can adapt XIX accordingly.
At least you got the guns right.

Also, I approve your message. And I do not even get a pension out of it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

OMG why are there so many?
The charm of American greatness is its simplicity. And its loudness. Its loud simplicity.
Your "amendments" fit neither.
Are you sure there is no amendment for bras spotting the American flag? Maybe we can adapt XIX accordingly.
At least you got the guns right.

Also, I approve your message. And I do not even get a pension out of it.

Okay, "loudness" I get, but "simplicity"? When has the United States ever been simple?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I don't understand 9

There was some concern that by naming some rights, the implication would be that anything not so named wasn't meant to be considered a right. The right to privacy and the right to marry are two big ones.

 

[Arakhor]

I went with VI (right to a fair trial and legal representation), because that should be one of the most important bases of a stable country, though of course XIV is pretty damn important too.

Incidentally, XXI apparently repealed XIII, which I'm sure wasn't intended.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@EgonSpengler
It is all in your head

 

[JollyRoger]

I picked the 14th, but there were several others vying for my vote.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Thanks Jolly, now I have the choice between learning Roman numerals and counting Roman symbols. Both involving learning Roman numerals.
And I am here to learn greatness. I guess a lawyer never stops to use words to make life hard for the rest of us!

 

[Bootstoots]

But over Abolition of Slavery? 15th and 19th are super up there for me too - without a right to vote, disenfranchised groups are just stuck relying on the good will of the majority. You take out any incentive whatsoever for lawmakers to even play lip service to those groups.

I think another interesting thing to take into consideration is that the 16th - the income tax - basically codifies for congress a tool to control income inequality. That in of itself is pretty big considering the kind of havoc large income gaps can wreak on economic stability.

Well, I'm only allowed to pick one, aren't I? I bet the SC would eventually find that slavery is a violation of equal protection too, although that might have taken a while.

 

[Farm Boy]

The rest of them erode when the 4th erodes.

 

[cav scout]

I went with VI (right to a fair trial and legal representation), because that should be one of the most important bases of a stable country, though of course XIV is pretty damn important too.

Incidentally, XXI apparently repealed XIII, which I'm sure wasn't intended.

That's a typo, it repealed XVIII

 

[Camikaze]

Some rights would be possible to imply without a specific amendment. For instance, if you just ignored the 1st amendment, you might nonetheless be able to interpret the same rights of freedom of speech from Article 1, which requires Congress to be elected, a requirement which implicitly assumes electors are given the capacity to politically communicate. This is how Australians have freedom of political communication, despite the Constitution not actually mentioning anything of the sort. The Constitution simply says that parliamentarians must be 'chosen by the people', and from that it's implied that in order to exercise a choice, there must be freedom of political communication.

So similarly, is the 15th amendment really all that important, when you've got the 14th amendment anyway? What does the 15th amendment really provide that wouldn't arise as a necessary implication from the 14th amendment on any reasonable interpretation?

 

[onejayhawk]

1st, 4th, 14th. It's hard to choose. The 10th might as well be omitted for all the respect it gets.

J

 

[Commodore]

21st Amendment is best amendment.