In addition to having my RSS reader packed full of news and poliBlogs, I frequent a lot of design-related blogs as well. Yesterday, Signals vs. Noise one of my latest RSS additions and blog of 37signals, creators of interesting products such as Basecamp and Backpack an interesting question I would like to hear Coming Anarchy readers comment on:
Who would write the new constitution?
Assuming the US needed a new constitution, who are the top few living people you’d like to see help draft it? I’ll throw out a few for starters… John McCain, Jerry Brown, Peggy Noonan, Ralph Nader, Judith Sheindlin, Christopher Hitchens, Dean Kamen, Harold E. Ford, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bill Clinton, Alan Simpson, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Chris Matthews, Alan Keyes, Brian Greene, Joel Osteen, Meg Whitman, plus 5 randomly chosen citizens.
Comments to this entry
Dan
August 11, 2005
11:29 pm
Curzon
August 12, 2005
2:01 am
And jeez... five random citizens?! Who are these people kidding -- talk about idealist. We'd have all sorts of absurd provisions about people who didn't know crap about rights, law, the responsibilities of the federal government, etc. Sorry Dan, but your comment proves my point!! Unless you're a lawyer you just shouldn't be involved in the process. (Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Morris, Jay, Hamilton... these people were all practicing attorneys.)
One reason our Constitution is so good is because it was written by a number of people who, at the end of the day, were willing to settle for a lot less than what they wanted because they knew what was at stake -- a divided, unstable, war-prone shamble of republics if they didn't hold together, and threatening European powers waiting to gobble them up. No such external threat exists today (terror doesn't even come close to the same level of danger), and a redrafting would be dangerously focused on internal politics.
Our constitution is great because it is a living document that has allowed slow social liberalization to take place without much social upheaval. To go Churchillian, our current Constitution is the worst except for any other that we could possibly have.
Simon
August 12, 2005
2:06 am
Dan
August 12, 2005
2:07 am
LOL
How dare you question the wisdom of a Blog-centric consitution?!?
Life, liberty, property, appeal to bankruptcy, the banishment of the poll tax -- all but whims compared to the Right to Blog!
Mutantfrog
August 12, 2005
3:40 am
Isn't Christopher Hitchens a foreigner?
Isn't Alan Keyes an idiot?
Isn't Steve Jobs an megalomaniacal businessman with no particular sign of having either interest in or respect for either law or other people?
Meg Whitman- the president of eBay? How is that relevant?
Chirol
August 12, 2005
3:49 am
Curzon
August 12, 2005
4:41 am
And to add my own: You fools! Don't you realize this post was written by a * shudder * CANADIAN!
Younghusband
August 12, 2005
5:10 am
I think the replies to this post shows how much of a bunch of crotchety old bastards we all are. The question didn't ask if it should be re-written, it _assumed_ for the sake of argument it needed to be re-written. Counterfactuals anyone?
Mutantfrog
August 12, 2005
6:14 pm
Totally. It may have been well-intentioned, but 500 pages isn't a constitution-it's a whole damn legal code!