Constitutional Crisis

[InkL0sed]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we ... ml?_r=1&hp

[BigBallinStalin]

tl;dr?

Less countries since the 1990s are using the US Constitution as a model constitution to copy-paste.

[InkL0sed]

That's the summary, yes, but the interesting part is the reasons why. I would quote it, but I want people to actually read the article, so I won't.

[thegreekdog]

I'm not sure I understand the reasons why. It appears that many (but not all) of the items cited in other countries' constitutions are well established laws here.

[saxitoxin]

The unstated inference of the article is "not as many people are emulating us, so we need to change." This may be a good principle to live by if you are an 11th grade girl.

Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years.

Examples include Thailand, which has had 17 constitutions since 1932 and 12 military coups in the same time period.

This is not a very well written article; it throws out non-sequiturs like the above without examining them at more than nail's depth. It's a shame the otherwise exceptional Adam Liptak has his byline attached to it, though I understand he's on a quota to produce one of these columns each week.

[saxitoxin]

Hey Saxi, you just made two really good points in your last post! You should dash off a letter to the Times.

Great idea, Saxi, I think I shall.

[BigBallinStalin]

Here's what I gathered (and for the record I agree with saxi):

As Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” (Yugoslavia used to hold that title, but Yugoslavia did not work out.)

Dictators love flexible Constitutions. It's what made Egypt's Constitution so great!

But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.

We have our idiosyncrasies. Only 2 percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as our Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms. (Our brothers in arms are Guatemala and Mexico.)

From the politician's perspective, these are excellent clauses to have. "I take away the people's legal right to have a gun, thus maximizing my hold in government and minimizing the consequences of political decision-making. Good. Then, the people become culturally conditioned into relying on the government for food, healthcare, and education. Excellent. Subsidies for votes, rewrite history/spice it with some pro-state propaganda, plus a never-ending cycle of dependency is what we've been looking for!



Less tongue-and-cheek, I was looking for more substance. So, many countries were not copy-pasting the US Constitution, but what effects did that have? Was it more beneficial and why? Some standards of comparison would've been useful: economic well-being/political stability, polity IV index, something. But this isn't an academic article; it's just a news article which usually always have very little substance.

When the Michael Kirby (Supreme Court Auzzie) held India's law as exemplary, I guffawed. I really wish the article posted more of an explanation from him.

[Night Strike]

Is anyone really surprised that our Constitution is less admired when our own Supreme Court Justices, who are sworn to make decisions based in that Constitution, go to other countries and tell them not to base their constitutions on ours? How can someone make rulings on it when they don't even believe it's worth following??

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/06/ginsburg-to-egyptians-wouldnt-use-us-constitution-as-model/


Of course, when you believe that the US should look to other countries when ruling on our own laws (instead of our Constitution) that person shouldn't be on the Supreme Court anyway.

"The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification," Ginsburg told an audience at the American Society of International Law in April 2005.

[Symmetry]

That's the summary, yes, but the interesting part is the reasons why. I would quote it, but I want people to actually read the article, so I won't.

20 article limit per month for non-subscribers on the NYT website. There are ways to get around it, but why bother in this case?