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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024

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the Constitution

...is a piece of paper written by dead men. Adjectives to taste.

...is the legal framework for the world's oldest democracy, possibly most stable democracy by virtue of the first point, strongest global power, strongest global economy, and one that is modifiable by living people at any time? You can make some decent coincidence arguments, but the simple fact remains: the Constitution is actually a big deal.

Fun fact, the only parts of the Constitution that cannot be modified by amendment are Senate representation (can still happen if they give up the representation themselves), maybe core changes like "dissolve the whole Executive branch" or "no more democracy, we are a dictatorship" (this is debated since it is merely implicit), and that's it! That's actually it. Well, okay, way back when there were limits about what you could do for certain slave and tax things, but those expired in 1808. OK, fine, the Supreme Court maybe probably can say no to an Amendment, but they'd have to have a darn good reason, and even then it might not stick (constitution crisis again anyone?). But most people gauge this to be mostly hot air or more of a hypothetical. I feel pretty safe in saying that practically, we can modify anything. You just need a lot of people to agree. As is proper!

Another fun fact is if the federal government is being stubborn, if enough of the state legislatures want to, they can call a convention, suggest some amendments, and then send them directly back to the states to bypass Congress entirely! I always thought that little method was neat, and a nice super-emergency check against Congress.

That was an observation, not a statement of opinion. Politically irrelevant weirdos are not a constituency.