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Our slimmed-down Constitution

Arkady

President
Imagine what the Constitution would look like if you rewrote it today, only taking out any verbiage that has been rendered effectively meaningless in practice.

To take the most obvious example, take the bit about Congress having the power to declare war. There are few alive today who remember the last time that happened, and yet we've effectively been in a state of war for much of the time since then. For a long time, there were at least strained attempts to observe proprieties by pointing to other stuff that Congress did, as a way to attribute a use of military force indirectly to Congress even when, as a practical matter, they had no say in it. For example we'd cite a UN or NATO resolution, since those both came out of treaties Congress had signed off on, or we'd point to the 2001 post-9/11 resolution to justify anything that could be treated as an attack on international terrorists. But, these days, even that doesn't seem to apply, since Trump just bombed a facility of a sovereign nation without supporting UN or NATO resolutions, or any Congressional resolution he could plausibly point to as justification. And it appears he'll get away with it. If so, we'll effectively have a system where the president does whatever he'd like with the military.

Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities. He's using the presidency to raise the profile of one of those resorts by spending a third of his time there. He was able to double the membership fee after he became president, as corrupt foreign officials see it as the equivalent of one of those $10,000-per-plate dinners where you pay to access the president, only without any of the disclosure rules and regulations. Heck, China even "coincidentally" granted him a trademark which they'd spent ten years denying him, because it was clearly forbidden under Chinese law, and they did that just days after Trump reversed himself on the one-China issue. That trademark (which, again, was illegal under Chinese law) will be worth tens of millions of dollars to Trump in the Chinese market, and he got it right after reversing course on a diplomatic matter near to Beijing's heart. Yeah, "coincidence." Since Congress has decided not to impeach him despite these willful, blatant, and repeated violations of the emoluments rules, for practical purposes that clause has also been effectively informally repealed from the Constitution.

A more obscure example would be the rule that says the president and VP can't be residents of the same state. Bush and Cheney were both residents of Texas when Cheney was added to the ticket. In both the de jure and de facto senses, they were both Texans and were forbidden from being on the ticket together. But Cheney just filed some paperwork saying he was from Wyoming again, and everyone let it go. If that kind of practically meaningless paperwork is enough to void the Constitutional language, there's no point even having it in the Constitution, right? If there's no conceivable scenario in which a Constitutional clause will have any real-world impact, it's just wasting space.

We could also kill the whole first half of the Second Amendment. For many years, that language about well-regulated militias and the defense of the state had a real impact in how courts applied the right to bear arms. But an activist conservative court now essentially interprets the amendment the exact same way it would if you lopped the first half off, so we may as well do that, as well. They've effectively amended the Constitution to be more amenable to the NRA.

The fourth amendment is all but dead, too. Yes, authorities continue to go through the motions of requiring warrants when it comes to old fashioned searches (outside of certain contexts like airports). But when it comes to electronic surveillance, it's more a matter of convention than law, at this point. George W. Bush ordered the warrantless electronic surveillance of US persons, and nothing was done about it. With that precedent around, there's nothing stopping other presidents from following his lead. And no, we're not talking about incidental collection as part of monitoring foreigners. We're talking about him actually ordering US persons to be targeted and electronically surveilled in their international communications, in direct defiance of the fourth amendment and the FISA statute. He got away with it, so in effect that's the law now.

The fifth and eighth amendment are kind of dead, too. The US had people locked up for many years at Gitmo without grand juries, speedy and public trials by impartial juries, the ability to confront witnesses, and they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of solitary confinement and other forms of torture. Those responsible for such war crimes never even saw charges, thanks to Obama, who unethically leaned on the Justice Department not to examine crimes associated with the Bush administration.

We could rewrite the Constitution without half that language and it would make no practical difference in how the government functions. Imagine how slim the Constitution can be after just a few more years of heading this direction.
 
Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities.
Would that be likely to change if Democrats take back the House or Senate in 2018 (assuming Trump hasn't resigned before that time)?
 

RickWA

Snagglesooth
Imagine what the Constitution would look like if you rewrote it today, only taking out any verbiage that has been rendered effectively meaningless in practice.

To take the most obvious example, take the bit about Congress having the power to declare war. There are few alive today who remember the last time that happened, and yet we've effectively been in a state of war for much of the time since then. For a long time, there were at least strained attempts to observe proprieties by pointing to other stuff that Congress did, as a way to attribute a use of military force indirectly to Congress even when, as a practical matter, they had no say in it. For example we'd cite a UN or NATO resolution, since those both came out of treaties Congress had signed off on, or we'd point to the 2001 post-9/11 resolution to justify anything that could be treated as an attack on international terrorists. But, these days, even that doesn't seem to apply, since Trump just bombed a facility of a sovereign nation without supporting UN or NATO resolutions, or any Congressional resolution he could plausibly point to as justification. And it appears he'll get away with it. If so, we'll effectively have a system where the president does whatever he'd like with the military.

Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities. He's using the presidency to raise the profile of one of those resorts by spending a third of his time there. He was able to double the membership fee after he became president, as corrupt foreign officials see it as the equivalent of one of those $10,000-per-plate dinners where you pay to access the president, only without any of the disclosure rules and regulations. Heck, China even "coincidentally" granted him a trademark which they'd spent ten years denying him, because it was clearly forbidden under Chinese law, and they did that just days after Trump reversed himself on the one-China issue. That trademark (which, again, was illegal under Chinese law) will be worth tens of millions of dollars to Trump in the Chinese market, and he got it right after reversing course on a diplomatic matter near to Beijing's heart. Yeah, "coincidence." Since Congress has decided not to impeach him despite these willful, blatant, and repeated violations of the emoluments rules, for practical purposes that clause has also been effectively informally repealed from the Constitution.

A more obscure example would be the rule that says the president and VP can't be residents of the same state. Bush and Cheney were both residents of Texas when Cheney was added to the ticket. In both the de jure and de facto senses, they were both Texans and were forbidden from being on the ticket together. But Cheney just filed some paperwork saying he was from Wyoming again, and everyone let it go. If that kind of practically meaningless paperwork is enough to void the Constitutional language, there's no point even having it in the Constitution, right? If there's no conceivable scenario in which a Constitutional clause will have any real-world impact, it's just wasting space.

We could also kill the whole first half of the Second Amendment. For many years, that language about well-regulated militias and the defense of the state had a real impact in how courts applied the right to bear arms. But an activist conservative court now essentially interprets the amendment the exact same way it would if you lopped the first half off, so we may as well do that, as well. They've effectively amended the Constitution to be more amenable to the NRA.

The fourth amendment is all but dead, too. Yes, authorities continue to go through the motions of requiring warrants when it comes to old fashioned searches (outside of certain contexts like airports). But when it comes to electronic surveillance, it's more a matter of convention than law, at this point. George W. Bush ordered the warrantless electronic surveillance of US persons, and nothing was done about it. With that precedent around, there's nothing stopping other presidents from following his lead. And no, we're not talking about incidental collection as part of monitoring foreigners. We're talking about him actually ordering US persons to be targeted and electronically surveilled in their international communications, in direct defiance of the fourth amendment and the FISA statute. He got away with it, so in effect that's the law now.

The fifth and eighth amendment are kind of dead, too. The US had people locked up for many years at Gitmo without grand juries, speedy and public trials by impartial juries, the ability to confront witnesses, and they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of solitary confinement and other forms of torture. Those responsible for such war crimes never even saw charges, thanks to Obama, who unethically leaned on the Justice Department not to examine crimes associated with the Bush administration.

We could rewrite the Constitution without half that language and it would make no practical difference in how the government functions. Imagine how slim the Constitution can be after just a few more years of heading this direction.
Boilerplate, templated, robotic, selective, hypocritical, hyper-partisan affront noted.

The imperial presidency sucks. I'll add that this holds no matter which party wins.
 

Arkady

President
Would that be likely to change if Democrats take back the House or Senate in 2018 (assuming Trump hasn't resigned before that time)?
I doubt they have the balls to impeach. Obama is pretty typical of the Democratic mindset-- more eager to come across as moderate and conciliatory than to get anything done. Just as Obama had his administration turn a blind eye to huge amounts of Bush administration lawbreaking, the Democrats will likely turn a blind eye to Trump's emoluments abuses. But, at least it might discourage fresh outrages from Trump, for fear there might be some bridge that goes a bit too far with the Dems, where none can ever go too far for the hacks who stand as Republicans.
 

Arkady

President
Boilerplate, templated, robotic, selective, hypocritical, hyper-partisan affront noted.
Your single all-purpose, substance-free take on every conceivable matter ever posted here has been delivered. Now troll along little one, and leave the field to those who have actual thoughts on the subject.
 

Dawg

President
Supporting Member
Your single all-purpose, substance-free take on every conceivable matter ever posted here has been delivered. Now troll along little one, and leave the field to those who have actual thoughts on the subject.
If you really are a 'lawyer' (?) you took an Oath on the only Constitution we have or will have......as the Clinton's and Obama's you can be did-barred "little one"

(apparently as often as you use "little one" when you get your ass kicked, it's clear you evidently weigh 400+lbs and that's why you use the term so much)
 

Days

Commentator
I doubt they have the balls to impeach. Obama is pretty typical of the Democratic mindset-- more eager to come across as moderate and conciliatory than to get anything done. Just as Obama had his administration turn a blind eye to huge amounts of Bush administration lawbreaking, the Democrats will likely turn a blind eye to Trump's emoluments abuses. But, at least it might discourage fresh outrages from Trump, for fear there might be some bridge that goes a bit too far with the Dems, where none can ever go too far for the hacks who stand as Republicans.
I seem to remember the Dems talking impeach Trump before he even stepped into office.

completely ridiculous.

BTW, Trump put his entire business into Trust when he entered office...

Donald Trump drops 220 spots on Forbes list of billionaires as Midtown Manhattan real estate values slide
Donald Trump is $1 billion poorer since becoming president, according to Forbes latest list of the world’s billionaires.

The magazine’s newest ranking, released Monday, estimated that Trump’s net worth has fallen from $4.5 billion last year to $3.5 billion today, dropping him 220 spots on the magazine’s list of billionaires, from No. 336 last year to No. 544.

Although Trump resigned from his businesses when he entered office, his slide isn’t due to his having sold any of his businesses because he still owns them.

Rather, Trump’s net worth is down because about 40 per cent of his wealth comes from real estate he owns in midtown Manhattan, including Trump Tower and eight other buildings within about a mile.

“Midtown Manhattan real estate is down; therefore, so is Donald Trump’s fortune,” the magazine said in a statement.
 

Arkady

President
If you really are a 'lawyer' (?) you took an Oath on the only Constitution we have or will have......as the Clinton's and Obama's you can be did-barred "little one"

(apparently as often as you use "little one" when you get your ass kicked, it's clear you evidently weigh 400+lbs and that's why you use the term so much)
I have no clue what you were trying to say.
 

Arkady

President
I seem to remember the Dems talking impeach Trump before he even stepped into office.
Trump made it clear that he would make no effort to insulate himself from emouluments problems, by moving his assets into a blind trust, so he was set up to commit an impeachable offense immediately upon being sworn in. But very few Democrats spoke of holding him accountable for violating our Constitution that way. Most are too committed to cultivating a personal image of conciliatory mediocrity to have any serious regard for defending our Constitution from blatant corruption.

Anyway, you seem to be confused about what resigning from his businesses means. That's not a blind trust. It means he still knows exactly what he owns and so does everyone else, meaning it's as easy as ever for foreigners to reward him for desired policies, and for Trump to reward them for funneling money to his businesses. It matters not one iota, from an emouluments perspective, whether he mans those positions or his kids do, or whether they're manned by third parties working on his behalf. What matters is whether he's still in a position where he knows what he owns and whether those looking to influence US policy know it.
 
Imagine what the Constitution would look like if you rewrote it today, only taking out any verbiage that has been rendered effectively meaningless in practice.

To take the most obvious example, take the bit about Congress having the power to declare war. There are few alive today who remember the last time that happened, and yet we've effectively been in a state of war for much of the time since then. For a long time, there were at least strained attempts to observe proprieties by pointing to other stuff that Congress did, as a way to attribute a use of military force indirectly to Congress even when, as a practical matter, they had no say in it. For example we'd cite a UN or NATO resolution, since those both came out of treaties Congress had signed off on, or we'd point to the 2001 post-9/11 resolution to justify anything that could be treated as an attack on international terrorists. But, these days, even that doesn't seem to apply, since Trump just bombed a facility of a sovereign nation without supporting UN or NATO resolutions, or any Congressional resolution he could plausibly point to as justification. And it appears he'll get away with it. If so, we'll effectively have a system where the president does whatever he'd like with the military.

Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities. He's using the presidency to raise the profile of one of those resorts by spending a third of his time there. He was able to double the membership fee after he became president, as corrupt foreign officials see it as the equivalent of one of those $10,000-per-plate dinners where you pay to access the president, only without any of the disclosure rules and regulations. Heck, China even "coincidentally" granted him a trademark which they'd spent ten years denying him, because it was clearly forbidden under Chinese law, and they did that just days after Trump reversed himself on the one-China issue. That trademark (which, again, was illegal under Chinese law) will be worth tens of millions of dollars to Trump in the Chinese market, and he got it right after reversing course on a diplomatic matter near to Beijing's heart. Yeah, "coincidence." Since Congress has decided not to impeach him despite these willful, blatant, and repeated violations of the emoluments rules, for practical purposes that clause has also been effectively informally repealed from the Constitution.

A more obscure example would be the rule that says the president and VP can't be residents of the same state. Bush and Cheney were both residents of Texas when Cheney was added to the ticket. In both the de jure and de facto senses, they were both Texans and were forbidden from being on the ticket together. But Cheney just filed some paperwork saying he was from Wyoming again, and everyone let it go. If that kind of practically meaningless paperwork is enough to void the Constitutional language, there's no point even having it in the Constitution, right? If there's no conceivable scenario in which a Constitutional clause will have any real-world impact, it's just wasting space.

We could also kill the whole first half of the Second Amendment. For many years, that language about well-regulated militias and the defense of the state had a real impact in how courts applied the right to bear arms. But an activist conservative court now essentially interprets the amendment the exact same way it would if you lopped the first half off, so we may as well do that, as well. They've effectively amended the Constitution to be more amenable to the NRA.

The fourth amendment is all but dead, too. Yes, authorities continue to go through the motions of requiring warrants when it comes to old fashioned searches (outside of certain contexts like airports). But when it comes to electronic surveillance, it's more a matter of convention than law, at this point. George W. Bush ordered the warrantless electronic surveillance of US persons, and nothing was done about it. With that precedent around, there's nothing stopping other presidents from following his lead. And no, we're not talking about incidental collection as part of monitoring foreigners. We're talking about him actually ordering US persons to be targeted and electronically surveilled in their international communications, in direct defiance of the fourth amendment and the FISA statute. He got away with it, so in effect that's the law now.

The fifth and eighth amendment are kind of dead, too. The US had people locked up for many years at Gitmo without grand juries, speedy and public trials by impartial juries, the ability to confront witnesses, and they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of solitary confinement and other forms of torture. Those responsible for such war crimes never even saw charges, thanks to Obama, who unethically leaned on the Justice Department not to examine crimes associated with the Bush administration.

We could rewrite the Constitution without half that language and it would make no practical difference in how the government functions. Imagine how slim the Constitution can be after just a few more years of heading this direction.
I'd rather the government change the way it functions than accept your proposal of modifying the constitution to accommodate federal overreach.

You should have posted this when Obama was summarily executing American citizens without due process, but oh well...
 

RickWA

Snagglesooth
Your single all-purpose, substance-free take on every conceivable matter ever posted here has been delivered. Now troll along little one, and leave the field to those who have actual thoughts on the subject.
Sorry - I'm sure it is frustrating having your bended-knee DNC hackathon interrupted now and then. Take underachieving solace in the fact that I can rarely stomach the sort of idiotic, craven, subsidized retardation you have to offer and I, therefore, limit my exposure to such.

While this forum would benefit from an infusion of lefties who are actually smart people of good character - it would also be cool to see a unicorn while backpacking in the rugged mountains of the PNW. Alas, we all know such creatures do not exist.

Now then...back to your crash helmet and tongue-chewing...
 
Sorry - I'm sure it is frustrating having your bended-knee DNC hackathon interrupted now and then. Take underachieving solace in the fact that I can rarely stomach the sort of idiotic, craven, subsidized retardation you have to offer and I, therefore, limit my exposure to such.

While this forum would benefit from an infusion of lefties who are actually smart people of good character - it would also be cool to see a unicorn while backpacking in the rugged mountains of the PNW. Alas, we all know such creatures do not exist.

Now then...back to your crash helmet and tongue-chewing...
Nah, he's done. It's after business hours in Massachusetts.
 

RickWA

Snagglesooth
I'd rather the government change the way it functions than accept your proposal of modifying the constitution to accommodate federal overreach.

You should have posted this when Obama was summarily executing American citizens without due process, but oh well...
Nah. While that was [rhetorically] mildly objectionable to Arkady, a (D) washes all mankind pure as snow.
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
Imagine what the Constitution would look like if you rewrote it today, only taking out any verbiage that has been rendered effectively meaningless in practice.

To take the most obvious example, take the bit about Congress having the power to declare war. There are few alive today who remember the last time that happened, and yet we've effectively been in a state of war for much of the time since then. For a long time, there were at least strained attempts to observe proprieties by pointing to other stuff that Congress did, as a way to attribute a use of military force indirectly to Congress even when, as a practical matter, they had no say in it. For example we'd cite a UN or NATO resolution, since those both came out of treaties Congress had signed off on, or we'd point to the 2001 post-9/11 resolution to justify anything that could be treated as an attack on international terrorists. But, these days, even that doesn't seem to apply, since Trump just bombed a facility of a sovereign nation without supporting UN or NATO resolutions, or any Congressional resolution he could plausibly point to as justification. And it appears he'll get away with it. If so, we'll effectively have a system where the president does whatever he'd like with the military.

Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities. He's using the presidency to raise the profile of one of those resorts by spending a third of his time there. He was able to double the membership fee after he became president, as corrupt foreign officials see it as the equivalent of one of those $10,000-per-plate dinners where you pay to access the president, only without any of the disclosure rules and regulations. Heck, China even "coincidentally" granted him a trademark which they'd spent ten years denying him, because it was clearly forbidden under Chinese law, and they did that just days after Trump reversed himself on the one-China issue. That trademark (which, again, was illegal under Chinese law) will be worth tens of millions of dollars to Trump in the Chinese market, and he got it right after reversing course on a diplomatic matter near to Beijing's heart. Yeah, "coincidence." Since Congress has decided not to impeach him despite these willful, blatant, and repeated violations of the emoluments rules, for practical purposes that clause has also been effectively informally repealed from the Constitution.

A more obscure example would be the rule that says the president and VP can't be residents of the same state. Bush and Cheney were both residents of Texas when Cheney was added to the ticket. In both the de jure and de facto senses, they were both Texans and were forbidden from being on the ticket together. But Cheney just filed some paperwork saying he was from Wyoming again, and everyone let it go. If that kind of practically meaningless paperwork is enough to void the Constitutional language, there's no point even having it in the Constitution, right? If there's no conceivable scenario in which a Constitutional clause will have any real-world impact, it's just wasting space.

We could also kill the whole first half of the Second Amendment. For many years, that language about well-regulated militias and the defense of the state had a real impact in how courts applied the right to bear arms. But an activist conservative court now essentially interprets the amendment the exact same way it would if you lopped the first half off, so we may as well do that, as well. They've effectively amended the Constitution to be more amenable to the NRA.

The fourth amendment is all but dead, too. Yes, authorities continue to go through the motions of requiring warrants when it comes to old fashioned searches (outside of certain contexts like airports). But when it comes to electronic surveillance, it's more a matter of convention than law, at this point. George W. Bush ordered the warrantless electronic surveillance of US persons, and nothing was done about it. With that precedent around, there's nothing stopping other presidents from following his lead. And no, we're not talking about incidental collection as part of monitoring foreigners. We're talking about him actually ordering US persons to be targeted and electronically surveilled in their international communications, in direct defiance of the fourth amendment and the FISA statute. He got away with it, so in effect that's the law now.

The fifth and eighth amendment are kind of dead, too. The US had people locked up for many years at Gitmo without grand juries, speedy and public trials by impartial juries, the ability to confront witnesses, and they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of solitary confinement and other forms of torture. Those responsible for such war crimes never even saw charges, thanks to Obama, who unethically leaned on the Justice Department not to examine crimes associated with the Bush administration.

We could rewrite the Constitution without half that language and it would make no practical difference in how the government functions. Imagine how slim the Constitution can be after just a few more years of heading this direction.
Oh woe is me! How did we ever get ourselves into this predicament where whole chunks of the Constitution are ignored wholesale?

Progressives like you, Arkady. Or has your convenient memory failed you? It was Progs from the beginning who have wanted the Constitution to be a "living document." Remember that one? Yes! YOU are the author of your own demise.

Is this you donning the mantle of a Tea Partier? Longing for the good ol' days when the Constitution actually meant something? Color me skeptical. Tea Partier, no. Teabagger, yes.

And I don't think it would serve America well to be running around in three cornered hats but feel free if you want to.

Nor would it do anyone any good to be running around with slaves today like the Constitution allowed. Remember, it was written by rich white slave owners.

I never pictured you as a supporter of slavery. Wait. Sure I did!
 

BobbyT

Governor
Sorry - I'm sure it is frustrating having your bended-knee DNC hackathon interrupted now and then. Take underachieving solace in the fact that I can rarely stomach the sort of idiotic, craven, subsidized retardation you have to offer and I, therefore, limit my exposure to such.

While this forum would benefit from an infusion of lefties who are actually smart people of good character - it would also be cool to see a unicorn while backpacking in the rugged mountains of the PNW. Alas, we all know such creatures do not exist.

Now then...back to your crash helmet and tongue-chewing...
It wouldn't matter what any "lefty" would say here as far as you're concerned. Your one-trick pony response to any "lefty" here is that they are partisan hacks. Yes, we get that you think anyone who is to the left of you is a "partisan hack." This is a politics board. There are people here on the right and those on the left (and some very far right and some very far left). Yes. We discuss politics and the right supports fervently the policies on the right and the left supports fervently the policies on the left. But you carp on the left supporting their policies and politicians as though there were none on the right who likewise did so. We have people on the left here who are smart people of, I assume, good character. I don't know how smart you think I am but I do know that I work hard, take care of my family, take my work seriously and am proud of it, and give to charity. Maybe that doesn't represent "good character" to you, but I am a good person. It is truly tiresome to read your consistent non-response responses that say nothing more than "lefty partisan hack" as though there were no partisans on the right. Good grief, can you give that overdone blathering a rest?
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
Imagine what the Constitution would look like if you rewrote it today, only taking out any verbiage that has been rendered effectively meaningless in practice.

To take the most obvious example, take the bit about Congress having the power to declare war. There are few alive today who remember the last time that happened, and yet we've effectively been in a state of war for much of the time since then. For a long time, there were at least strained attempts to observe proprieties by pointing to other stuff that Congress did, as a way to attribute a use of military force indirectly to Congress even when, as a practical matter, they had no say in it. For example we'd cite a UN or NATO resolution, since those both came out of treaties Congress had signed off on, or we'd point to the 2001 post-9/11 resolution to justify anything that could be treated as an attack on international terrorists. But, these days, even that doesn't seem to apply, since Trump just bombed a facility of a sovereign nation without supporting UN or NATO resolutions, or any Congressional resolution he could plausibly point to as justification. And it appears he'll get away with it. If so, we'll effectively have a system where the president does whatever he'd like with the military.

Or how about the emolument's clause? That is now effectively gone, at least with regard to presidents. For a long time, it was observed fairly strictly. Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Obama donated his Nobel money to charity. Etc. But now it no longer appears to matter. Trump retains control of his businesses and is profiting handsomely from the presidency, as nations curry favor by booking at his for-profit facilities. He's using the presidency to raise the profile of one of those resorts by spending a third of his time there. He was able to double the membership fee after he became president, as corrupt foreign officials see it as the equivalent of one of those $10,000-per-plate dinners where you pay to access the president, only without any of the disclosure rules and regulations. Heck, China even "coincidentally" granted him a trademark which they'd spent ten years denying him, because it was clearly forbidden under Chinese law, and they did that just days after Trump reversed himself on the one-China issue. That trademark (which, again, was illegal under Chinese law) will be worth tens of millions of dollars to Trump in the Chinese market, and he got it right after reversing course on a diplomatic matter near to Beijing's heart. Yeah, "coincidence." Since Congress has decided not to impeach him despite these willful, blatant, and repeated violations of the emoluments rules, for practical purposes that clause has also been effectively informally repealed from the Constitution.

A more obscure example would be the rule that says the president and VP can't be residents of the same state. Bush and Cheney were both residents of Texas when Cheney was added to the ticket. In both the de jure and de facto senses, they were both Texans and were forbidden from being on the ticket together. But Cheney just filed some paperwork saying he was from Wyoming again, and everyone let it go. If that kind of practically meaningless paperwork is enough to void the Constitutional language, there's no point even having it in the Constitution, right? If there's no conceivable scenario in which a Constitutional clause will have any real-world impact, it's just wasting space.

We could also kill the whole first half of the Second Amendment. For many years, that language about well-regulated militias and the defense of the state had a real impact in how courts applied the right to bear arms. But an activist conservative court now essentially interprets the amendment the exact same way it would if you lopped the first half off, so we may as well do that, as well. They've effectively amended the Constitution to be more amenable to the NRA.

The fourth amendment is all but dead, too. Yes, authorities continue to go through the motions of requiring warrants when it comes to old fashioned searches (outside of certain contexts like airports). But when it comes to electronic surveillance, it's more a matter of convention than law, at this point. George W. Bush ordered the warrantless electronic surveillance of US persons, and nothing was done about it. With that precedent around, there's nothing stopping other presidents from following his lead. And no, we're not talking about incidental collection as part of monitoring foreigners. We're talking about him actually ordering US persons to be targeted and electronically surveilled in their international communications, in direct defiance of the fourth amendment and the FISA statute. He got away with it, so in effect that's the law now.

The fifth and eighth amendment are kind of dead, too. The US had people locked up for many years at Gitmo without grand juries, speedy and public trials by impartial juries, the ability to confront witnesses, and they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of solitary confinement and other forms of torture. Those responsible for such war crimes never even saw charges, thanks to Obama, who unethically leaned on the Justice Department not to examine crimes associated with the Bush administration.

We could rewrite the Constitution without half that language and it would make no practical difference in how the government functions. Imagine how slim the Constitution can be after just a few more years of heading this direction.

Imagine like we all had chocolate bears and Easter bunnies and Democrats got to keep only the things they wanted in the constitution? Lets do a top 3 list of things Democrats want but can't have because of the constitution.



3. The 24th amendment

The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax.

This way Democrats could have only White folks vote.

Southern states of the former Confederate States of America adopted poll taxes in laws of the late 19th century and new constitutions from 1890 to 1908, after the Democratic Party had generally regained control of state legislatures decades after the end of Reconstruction, as a measure to prevent African Americans and often poor whites from voting. Use of the poll taxes by states was held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1937 decision Breedlove v. Suttles.

2. 14th Ammendment...This you want taken out because you would lose most of your House and Senate members:

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

If any one presses this issue...because lefty in Washington D.C. is an insurrection.

1. Slavery...You still want it back, you lost it in the 13th amendment...but hey you can't blame yourselves because you did vote against it.
In the final vote, all 86 Republicans had voted in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment, along with 15 Democrats, 14 Unconditional Unionists, and 4 Union men; opposition came from 50 Democrats and 6 Union men.

This whole concept of "slimming down" the constitution so that Democrats and only white Democrats have the power looks very bad for Democrats.
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
It wouldn't matter what any "lefty" would say here as far as you're concerned.
It Might if...Top 10 list of what lefty says would matter but:

10: Lefty lied about Benghazi.

09: Obama failed in Syria

08. The scientific response to opposing global warming is ridicule

07. Lefty wants to give our jobs to illegals.

06. The Cambridge police acted stupidly

05. “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”
04. Hillary Clinton

03. Bill Clinton the rapist

02. The island might tip over?

01. Trump was wiretapped.
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
Would that be likely to change if Democrats take back the House or Senate in 2018 (assuming Trump hasn't resigned before that time)?
Given the current voting pattern unlikely that it will happens... people are not voting for left...err social...err Hitl...err Democrats.
 
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