Constitution 2.0

Whenever a new product appears on the market, it's seldom a good idea to rush out and buy it. That's because the first of it kind is almost never the best of its kind. On the contrary: these firsts often display a host of inefficiencies, faults and defects.

_{source: YouTube}

For most peoples around the world, the constitution is just something that operates on the background. They're taught in school that it safeguards some basic rights, limits the government's power so that it can never touch those rights, and it regulates how and by whom laws are made as well as how the country is governed. The world's very first codified constitution (a constitution that's encompassed in a single comprehensive document) is the one from America and has existed since 1789. Now remember what I said in the introduction of this post about firsts...

If you've read my latest articles you know that the U.S. Constitution has been a hot topic lately with the discussions around gun laws, abortion and mass shootings. But that's not an exception; I've never seen a country where the constitution is so often discussed and used as an emblem of pride. Americans love their constitution, but most deeply on the right side of the political spectrum. The reason why it's mostly the Republicans who hold deer that ancient document is that it fits right into their love for traditionalism and traditional hierarchies. The Bible is another old document they hold in high regard, for the same reason.

A constitution is "an aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed" (Wikipedia). In the U.S. constitution is enshrined the structures by which the country is governed; the Electoral Colleges, the Senate and the Supreme Court. This ensemble makes for highly undemocratic system and has made possible that the Republicans have won many elections, blocked many proposals when they were in the minority. America seems at first sight a highly partisan country, divided by red and blue states and people, but that's just on the surface painted by an antiquated and failing democracy. When polled, most Americans actually agree on most big topics; most agree that the minimum wage needs to be raised, most agree that the healthcare system needs to be overhauled, most agree on the need for more gun control, most agree that something must be done about climate change and most agree that abortion should be a basic right until the fetus can live outside the womb.

But the minority are able to block any meaningful progress on all these topics, backed by an antiquated, undemocratic constitution that was written by wealthy white men who wanted to keep power in their own hands. It seems irrational to me to revere that document and worship the authors when it and they didn't have the best interests of common folks in mind. It's a document that didn't give any rights to women or people of color and gave equal power to states with almost no population. That's why so many Republican presidents have won the election while not winning the majority vote, and why this minority blocks all meaningful progress (sometimes even overturns what little progress has been made, as we've seen this past week). Almost all other constitutions in the world have been replaced several times since their inception, but Americans, Democrats too, somehow want to hold on to a document that simply isn't fit to deal with modern problems. Even the Founding Fathers agreed that their constitution wasn't made to last forever;

Since 1789, along with the Constitution of the United States of America (U.S. Constitution), which is the oldest and shortest written constitution still in force, close to 800 constitutions have been adopted and subsequently amended around the world by independent states.

In the late 18th century, Thomas Jefferson predicted that a period of 20 years would be the optimal time for any constitution to be still in force, since "the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead." Indeed, according to recent studies, the average life of any new written constitution is around 19 years. However, a great number of constitutions do not last more than 10 years, and around 10% do not last more than one year, as was the case of the French Constitution of 1791. By contrast, some constitutions, notably that of the United States, have remained in force for several centuries, often without major revision for long periods of time.
_{source: Wikipedia}

There you have it: Jefferson was right, on this subject at least, and the average live-span of a constitution is 19 years. And, going back to the introduction, this is to be expected: version 1.0 of any software is bugged, incomplete and has a crummy user-interface. The U.S. Constitution is the software much of American culture and politics is based on, and it's high time for an upgrade. "But what about the Amendments" I hear you ask. Well, there are 27 in total, 10 of which came out in the same year as the constitution itself; these 10 don't count, they're part of the original document as it were. So 17 amendments have been implemented since its conception with the last meaningful one being the one from 1989, granting the right to vote to all Americans 18 years or older. This should be seen in relation to the number of proposals made to amend the constitution, which number in the thousands. Watch the below linked video for more information about this specific and important topic.

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