Correspondent Ryan Cooper of The Week has written an article in which he recommends the United States scrap the constitution, “an outdated, malfunctioning piece of junk — and it’s only getting worse.”
His suggestion is that we reinvent the United States as a Parliamentary democracy, which he claims is the most road tested form of government in the world. I guess he means like England or France where freedom has gone to die. In Great Britain the Tories jjust defeated a bill allowing free speech. Yeah, that’s a real improvement. Who needs a Bill of Rights?
Cooper claims that the Constitution makes it practically impossible to change anything. Well, hell yeah. That’s why it was set up that way to prevent a party in temporary power to do away with any freedom that protects the citizen’s freedom of thought or expression. In France, they are considering a law that would fine a man $400 if he asks a woman for her phone number. In the People’s Republic of California, they want bartenders and waiters and waitresses to be fined if they give a customer a straw they didn’t ask for.
Cooper wrote:
“One of the biggest problems with the Constitution as written is it makes changing anything nearly impossible. Other countries regularly ditch or overhaul their constitutions to deal with new problems — and even America has done so in the distant past. When the first stab at a U.S. Constitution proved totally unworkable, Americans of the day didn’t fuss around with stipulations that “the Union shall be perpetual.” Instead they threw the whole thing out and started from scratch.”
“Make no mistake, a constitutional collapse would be a tremendously destabilizing and dangerous event, and raise a significant chance of insurrection, civil war, or a military dictatorship. But if and when it comes, it won’t be by choice — it will be because the ancient, janky mechanisms of the American Constitution simply failed.”
What rights would be eliminated?
Here are some of the Constitution’s “janky mechanisms” that Cooper wants to throw in the trash:
- First Amendment: Freedom of press, speech and assembly.
- Second Amendment: The right to keep and bear arms.
- Third Amendment: The Right to refuse quartering soldiers on private property.
- Fourth Amendment: Freedom from illegal search and seizures.
- Fifth Amendment: Rights for people accused of crimes.
- Sixth Amendment: The right to a speedy trial by jury in a district where a crime occurred.
- Seventh Amendment: The right to a jury trial for civil cases.
- Eighth Amendment: Protection from cruel and unusual punishments and excessive bail.
- Ninth Amendment: The idea that “certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
- Tenth Amendment: Limiting the power of the federal government.
I’m sure the progressives would love the plan laid out by Cooper. It would make controlling the masses much easier.