@lurkerhasarisen You don't know that electoral constitutions are better than anything else because you haven't studied anything else. I'll be really straight with you and you'll have to forgive me if I seem curt because I have the impression at least for now that you are sincere about this conversation unlike Typo who is a believer in the church of the American civic religion.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth with many of your points and you haven't thought very thoroughly about different kinds of constitutions. At once you say that the constitution hasn't changed much. But if it hasn't then it's a bad constitution because look and what happened since the second world war has ended. We went from the fifties to the blue pilled world we have today. At least you should have claimed that the constitution today isn't the constitution of the late 18th century and that there had been some big changes since then which would explain why the invention of the founding fathers worked so badly. And this would have been an easy way to excuse all the stupid and awful things happening today.

But you can't even have that excuse because the constitution was changed through its own mechanisms to become what it is today. Today's constitution is still blame able on the constitutions two hundred years ago. It changed itself.

Sorry man but the founders are not as smart as your kindergarten teacher told you when you were a kid. That's just the reality of it all. Or maybe they were as individuals. But when they had to compromise all their ideas together they came up with some kind of hybrid freak that NONE of them were happy with. If you have respect for those men you should also recognize they very much disagreed with each other and the constitution almost did not happen because of how big their disagreements were.

You don't know the history of monarchies and you think that a monarchy doesn't have checks and balances of its own. That is just wrong. You are one of those Americans who are ignorant about world history and think that what's important happened only three hundred years ago and don't bother to look into any amount of detail anywhere else.

No one person is in charge... everyone gets a say (as I stated: I think we've gone too far with that)... and power is distributed.

I agree with this which is why I like monarchies.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Absolutely not. If power corrupts absolutely then why isn't God the most corrupt person in the universe?

Kings are born into their positions and assume their thrones regardless of their qualifications to do so.

Oh? Kind of like being a voting citizen? There's no qualification for voting except to be born in this country and become old enough. You need to think more deeply about your ideas and see where they start contradicting itself.

Most kings were not tyrants and most kings were just okay kings. They didn't leave a huge mark on history and they mostly weren't tyrants. You only hear about the tyrants because it's like learning about Hitler. Liberals love extreme and obvious instances of evil because they can justify their own degeneracy as long as they aren't literally like Hitler.

@slutmagazine

I think you're being pedantic. We're not on our fifth or sixth republic: what happened is that we've been sliding incrementally away from the original ideas. If I change the headlight bulbs in my car it's not a different car. If I change the tires the next day it's still the same car. I'm not sure how many parts I have to replace before it's a "different car," but we haven't changed our form of government five times. Sometimes the slide has been faster than at other times (things moved quickly from 1861-1865), but every word of the original constitution is still on the books and is adhered to... at least to some extent.

As for the first part: a "moral and religious people" are capable of self-governance in accordance with the original constitution, but the founders also knew what Lord Acton said a century later:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When people get into positions of power they need to be constrained (checks and balances, federalism, and in the final extreme: the Second Amendment), so there's no contradiction in creating a form of government that relies on a "moral and religious people" that also seeks to prevent the power thus delegated from being abused by those who hold it. "Moral and religious" doesn't mean, "beyond temptation." It also absolutely precludes a monarchy. Kings are born into their positions and assume their thrones regardless of their qualifications to do so. Shoot... the way popes are chosen is even better than the way kings are chosen, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a rogue's gallery worse than the 17 centuries of lunatics, heretics, thieves, murderers, and sodomites in that crew.

As for why I'm in favor of an electoral constitution? Simple: it's better than anything else. It combines the right to self-governance (within limits), and the rule by leading citizens who have (presumably) demonstrated to the voters that they have the knowledge and willingness to make good decisions. No one person is in charge... everyone gets a say (as I stated: I think we've gone too far with that)... and power is distributed. Point out its flaws all you want, but it's the "least bad" system anyone has ever devised.

As for my suggestion: what I'm advocating for in not a "new republic," but rather a return to our roots, with a few tweaks to take advantage of new technology in order to make it work even better.

@lurkerhasarisen

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The founders were brilliant men, and they devised a system that recognized human nature (stupid, selfish, and depraved), and used those very traits to create stability.

Don't you think these ideas contradict each other. On one hand the constitution is for a moral and religious people, on the other hand the constitution is for stupid, selfish, and depraved people?

Saying that the system didn't work because it's coming unglued nearly two and a half centuries later

What is the deadliest American war in history? Oh right, it's the Civil War, and it also destroyed the south into perpetuity.

The American republic has changed a number of times. We're basically on our fifth republic, depending on how you count it. We're not stable. Not at all.

To possess the right to vote is to possess the right to tell other people what to do, and those edicts are ultimately backed up by men with guns. It's a mystery to me why anyone thinks that everyone is equally-capable of exercising such power. We don't follow that principle anywhere else. I understand that we're all equal (in the philosophical sense), and we all have to live under whatever system is created no matter how it functions, but we should have taken a page from how corporations and families run. People with no shares don't get to vote for board members. Children don't tell their parents how to budget.

Yeah, so why would you be in favor of any kind of electoral constitution? I completely agree with what you said here. If you want to take a page from how families run, you should be a monarchist, not a supporter of democracy or republicanism. The king is the father of the country.

With all the computerization we have, it would be a simple thing to tie voting power to one's contribution. I suggest that every 180 days of uniformed military service gets you a vote, and every $10,000 you pay in taxes (subtracting whatever you receive in direct benefits) gets you a vote. After more than 20 years in uniform and a few hundred thousand dollars in lifetime taxes paid, I fail to see why some 18-year-old baby mamma living in public housing should be able to cancel my vote. The simple fact is that I know whats in her long-term interest better than she does.

Okay, so we're going to create another republic. I'm not against this idea, I just want to point out that you are basically creating a whole new constitution. Like the fifth or sixth time in American history.