Outdated Piece Of Junk: The Reality Of The American Constitution
It is September 17th, 1787. It is the birth of a new nation, set on the international stage. The constitution of a new superpower is ratified. Inside holds the ingredients of what each colony created a sweet layer of that American cake.
It’s all a deception. You don’t know it, but we violate our constitution daily. It isn’t breaking the law; you’re just living a 21st century life. We idolize the 300-year-old documents that are just in terms, a hand me down of American politics. It becomes less valid to us by the generation.
A thunderstorm has covered American politics. Division has annexed our nation’s capital. Our direction forward has been steered to a “Left vs. Right” society. Thanks to clichés and stereotypes, we have put our decisions that we make we do on a regular basis on a political scale. What we eat, what music we listen to, where we live, and our religion are getting labels slapped on them.
We put elected officials into our leadership positions which as each swore by oath to protect, preserve, and exercise democracy and hold others accountable, and build on what makes America a beacon with and as our pledge states “liberty and justice for all”. The fight over a socialist or conservative agenda strides us further apart, like a negative magnet pushed against another: when forced together, we refuse to connect.
And all of that, our Founding Fathers never saw coming. Everything was different during the colonial ages. However, some people just can’t get that through their mind. They can’t see that society has changed since the 1700’s. It’s the understanding of these amendments and rights that had a different meaning two hundred years ago that we can’t apply to our society today. As mentioned previously, but we violate and break our constitution daily. We love to idolize the constitution as “perfect” but maybe it wasn’t such a strive to create a more perfect union.
There are faults, and flaws in the founding documents. The resolution brought up by many, but sought insane, makes the idea appear to make sense. A fresh constitution will cater to the 21st century and its needs while also exist in contemporary to our society.
We have literally jinxed ourselves from the start. The authors were old white rich guys who owned slaves. The exact same thing that has controlled Washington D. C. for almost if I have lived. I have myself going into this subject have questioned this and others ever since the last drop of ink touched the three-hundred-year-old founding documents.
We must completely overhaul our old American ways which has took its toll on common American people for too long. The interpretation we try to create out of 17th century definitions, like the argument of the 2nd amendment as it states “the right to bear arms” could be shown as a collective right heavily controlled by the state, or a free right to weapons for all. This very touchy subject likes to stir up citizens in everyday talk and argument. The gun crisis is an epidemic that should be treated like a disease, and should not be a protest of your freedom to hold weapons of war on our streets, of those associated with, your alt-right amalgam neo-Nazis’, white supremacists, “citizen” militias, and hyper-conservative prayer groups. Other than false interpretation, the term “We The People” is an overstatement of the true problem of an unjust, and unfair system, which creates an elevator for the top and a ladder if your lucky for those at the bottom. We must create this system to be the amplifier of our voices, but fail currently, we can only succeed with big change.
The word “overhaul” might scare you. A good collection of people is scared to take this leap of political faith. The only way to fix our broken republic by a big structural change. See voting as a fundamental right, completely fix our senate system (including the filibuster), abolish the electoral college, take money out of politics, end partisan gerrymandering, have a term limit on Supreme Court justices, and completely establish independence of the Department of Justice in investigations. This seems like were biting off more than we can chew, but it's what we have all been now craving for.
The problem with this is that big structural change scares the American people numerous because of our old agendas created to delay and slow down ourselves. Resolutions that span decades after it’s too late, but all of these would bridge the gap of our nation’s inequality and genuinely fix our broken system. The hurdles will be on the forefront of this campaign, and we must attack them straight forward by not brushing it off for later.
However, the biggest obstacle yet? It’s that we have on of the longest running, and hardest to amend, constitution in the world. It is so dug into our national society; I like to call it the garden weed for America. It is part of who we are. References found in shows, movies, video games, you name it. It has become part of mass media, Americans themselves, and worldwide as it stands as a collection of inspiration from British democracy, Ancient European writing, and a span of scholars from around the globe.
To amend our constitution requires a overwhelming majority of Americans, then go through all the jumbled mess that is conventions, and the mind of politicians. The Washington Post listed 4 ways to do this. Both houses propose an amendment with a two-thirds vote, and three-fourths of the state legislatures approve. Twenty-six of the 27 amendments were approved in this manner. Both houses propose an amendment with a two-thirds vote, and three-fourths of the states approve the amendment via ratifying conventions. Only the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, was passed in this manner. Two-thirds of the state legislatures call on Congress to hold a constitutional convention, and three-fourths of the state legislatures approve the amendment. Two-thirds of the state legislatures call on Congress to hold a constitutional convention, and three-fourths of the states approve the amendment via ratifying conventions. It could just be me, but achieving that off the state of our union, don't get me wrong, would be very challenging indeed.
Our past generation has hands-down a nation in ruin. We face crisis ahead of us like student loan debt and especially our warming climate. This would require a very timely, complicated, hard process to make these reforms and changes possible. Our country is already under a state of unhealed division sought unheard of. We can’t please every American, and we won’t for a guarantee get everybody on board for such a revolutionary idea, but our very first president once said, “Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains to bring it to light. ” George Washington could’ve made the presidency whatever he had wished, but his passion for a free man, liberty and justice for all created the root principals of our nation. Those root principals we now must achieve for a more perfect union.
