What advice would you give to the framers of our Constitution if you could

travel back in time?

What changes or amendments to the Constitution do you think would have helped us avoid the current and past excesses of government?

I would say that, all in all, the US constitution has stood the test of time. It has been the defining law for a country that went in 200 years from a small agrarian ethnically homogeneous group of states to a multicultural, industrial hyperpower.

We could add a bunch of stuff, or take stuff out. But that's not important - what is important is they didn't use the constitution as a long list of what future generations should or should not do..........

with the question of slavery if they had realized that less than eighty years later the US would errupt in a devestating bloody civil war. A war that one hundred and forty years after the end of it, this country still feels vibrations from the issue?

The US Constitution is truly remarkable in its ability to stand the test of time. But it was/is not perfect.

Like ancient Athens, much of the wealth of the American colonies relied on slaves. An like Athens, this wealth allowed non-slaves the free time and resources to create a democracy.

Would the southern colonies have ever agreed to outlawing slavery? What changes could have been placed in the text of the constitution? A 50 year expiry date on slavery?

except to write in the Constitution that no one from Texas is allowed to be President. They may not understand that at the time but I'd beg them to trust me.

(marriage of the corporate and the government, infringement of personal and Constitutional rights, etc.) and let them decide how to deal with it?

a state from which they could be elected.

revolutionaries? Why couldn't you give them advice? They weren't Gods. They were humans who barely lived by their own ideals.

seeing as how elections get stolen there. and also include connecticut, because that's where shrubbie is really from.

dg

and make that the centerpiece of the document.

Of course, if one could change one thing, it would certainly be to end slavery, rather than be its mistress.

I agree: keep the Constitution intact. It is an amazing document and has helped build and sustain this great nation of ours.

However, I can't help but think that a little clarity would have been nice. The Constitution is about as abused as the Bible in regards to what people think some of the writers had in mind when they mentioned things like "freedom of assembly" and so forth. It would have been nice to see something like, "There is a reason we want to keep church and state separate..." or "Yes, we were serious about people being guaranteed the right to privacy."

Still, the biggest piece of advice I would have given the framers is put in something about requiring all future presidents to be able to understand what the damn thing meant.

deliberately vague in order to allow for later interpertation.

the bill of rights, what they say is what they mean, no reading in to it.

separation of church and state means no government required religion

guns, the words people mean the people, arms meaning arms, not what they .gov thinks we should have

privacy means unless you break the law it is a no lookie, or they REALLY think you might be

ban the interstate commerce clause, it is the most twisted thing known to man or woman

freedom of the press, to allow confidential informants, better access to info

simply put reign in the fed government, the frames did not want the fed in to everything under the sun, the states are supposed to decide. the frames if this had been done it would end a lot of B#%^&%$$T, lets the states decide on abortion, elections, etc

though I seem to be the only one here so far who perceives that the document was deeply flawed for the inequalities codified within it.

in just milliseconds before you. :D

... which would have avoided a lot of future problems. Right now, it's damned difficult to convict a crooked Congressman or Senator because of the "speech and debate clause." That could use some reworking.

Article I, Sec. 8, could use some clarification, too, about the use and funding of the standing army. That one has cost us a helluva lot of money and heartache over time.

The war clause could use a little work, as well. Making it specific that Congress could not defer to the Executive on war matters might have avoided some recent trouble, and forced Congress to be a bit more responsible.

A short line defining the rights delineated in the Constitution as applying to natural persons only would have been helpful, and that would have spared us a great deal of problems with corporations, and with campaign financing, to boot. Might have solved that little problem with slavery, too.

Would have been interesting if they'd put a progressive income tax in from the beginning--there might never have been depressions due to maldistribution of income and would have made for a strong middle class throughout the country's history (Jefferson was in favor of this).

But, at least they left open the possibility of changing the document by amendment. Without that, we'd be a sorry place, indeed, by now.

require a paper ballot for each vote cast

establish federal governance of elections

mandate federal funding for all federal elections and ban all other campaign spending

outlaw lobbyists other than individuals who are registered to vote in a particular congressperson's district.

ban all religion

outlaw conservative political parties

I would explain how corporations have become transnational power centers with the resources to corrupt seemingly at will. I would argue that only a person could have the rights afforded by the Constitution, and, that corruption or bribery be defined as treason.

Oh, yeah, and a National paper ballot standard for elections.

-Hoot

To stop anyone from holding the OWNERS responsible beyond their investment.

THAT is what I don't like about them. They allow people to act by proxy, but deny responsibility. When a company files for bankruptcy, for example, it should FIRST have to fully fund its pensions, before any creditor gets a dime. Why? Because that is an obligation that was supposed to have been funded already, to the benefit of workers.

I don't care for terms like "corporatists," mainly because they sound silly to anyone who owns a corporation, which is everyone in business at any level in America. But, the concept to which it speaks I am troubled by. We need to bust up these megacorps, and return to the days when defense contractors couldn't own media outlets.

The missing piece of The Enlightenment

:bounce:

electoral system was unworkable.

I'd tell them it was interesting and was fine on paper.

Each state legislature names learned people to be their state's electors.

Those electors look around the country and choose two who they think would make good presidents.

The House of Representatives chooses one of the top five vote finishers as the new President.

It's a good system, but I'd try to convince them that it wouldn't work because political parties were inevitable, and therefore people would not be chosen for their knowledge or their works, but rather by their political affiliation.

I'df warn them that they themselves would be forced to scrap their own Constitutional system, and why not just go with a straight popular vote rather than the inevitable mess that the electoral college would present since it wouldn't work the way they planned it anyway.

I'd also ask them to clarify the second amendment.

I'd warn them about slavery, but I don't think I'd like the answer they'd give me. I don't think a Constitution banning slavery would have been enacted. More likely they would have inserted a clause making it more difficult to ban it, or they would have split into two separate countries with close ties to each other.

In the 18th century the fear was for the people to make ill-informed choices in their elected representatives. Hence the separation of the voters from the President, through the middle-agent of the House of Representatives. Not to mention, until the 17th Amendment state legislatures appointed federal senators.