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| Yes | 32% | 50 votes | Total: 158 votes | |
| No | 68% | 108 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe Founding Fathers' ideals in the creation of the United States are clearly out of step with the 21st century. They debated, wrote and finally signed the United States Constitution in terms of the 18th century. Witness the articles in the Constitution where slavery is revealed as a fact of life. Where a slave is "three-fifths of a free person". Where "every man is created equal" unless you're black.
The U.S. Constitution was supposedly written to free Americans from the British tyrants, but I think the Founding Fathers fell short of this lofty goal; on purpose. The Constitution favors the wishes of the States over those of individual Americans. In a democracy, the reverse should be true. In addition, the Constitution appears to have copied the British form of government.
For example, the U.S. President is elected by the States through the Electoral College and not by individual Americans. The unelected President nominates his cabinet, federal judges and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The nominees are then confirmed by an unelected, until 1912, Senate. The President is close to the King or Queen of Britain. Both are unelected and both can veto laws. Have you ever noticed how the the spectacle and glamor of the Presidential Inauguration rivals that of a coronation of a British monarch? The Constitution does not give individual Americans a vote in the Executive Branch.
The Constitution provides that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are nominated by an unelected President and confirmed by an unelected Senate. Individual Americans, at the time the Constitution was ratified, had no vote in the Judicial Branch.
The original Constitution sets up a Legislative Branch that was not friendly to individual Americans. The Senate, until 1912, had their members appointed by the States. The Senate would seem to be patterned after the unelected House of Lords in Britain. Even to this day, Senators carry an air of superiority with them.
The House of Representatives is the only body in all three Branches where individual Americans do have a vote in the original Constitution. Its model is the House of Commons in Britain, where representation by population is the same in both Houses. But the similarity ends there. The House of Commons is the real power in Britain. The House of Representatives is not as it can have its legislation fall victim to a presidential veto, be struck down by the Supreme Court or not passed by the Senate. And here's the real kicker. The Senators were appointed to six-year terms, while the Representatives were elected to two-year terms. Was this a way the Founding Fathers could prevent members of the only elected body in the Constitution from becoming too powerful?
The United States Constitution should be replaced with a new Constitution that will be relative in the 21st century and beyond. That will give more power to the people. That will be written by average Americans and not the wealthy slave owners that were our Founding Fathers.
Learn more about this author, Gary Betts.
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No
Fisher Ames wrote, "Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits... It is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers." (Framer of the First Amendment). Fisher Ames was saying that we must be careful of being influenced in ideas towards our education and laws, because if we are misguided it will bring forth unlawful habits into our court systems bleeding out onto our country. And that our constitution is not to be governed by personal opinion in trying to make the document to please everyone at whatever cost to the nation. Abusing the constitution in the illusion it was written to give everyone his own personal agenda led by his own personal opinion, which is what has led the way for our country to fall into division and regression instead of unity and progression.
Individuals and groups striving for their "rights", not actual rights under the constitution but rather more a selfish attitude in what they believe this country owes to them, these are the very ones marching into our courts using the First Amendment based on their desires in accomplishing their rights based on their opinions. And the judges who are granting these individuals their wishes in trying to please everyone are judging over opinion rather than under the origin of meaning of the constitution.
For example the word "establishment" in the constitution actually means, in the manner of how a country, society, education etc., was set up, and not to mean a literal building in expelling God from every place in our nation. The phrase "freedom of speech" was directed towards spoken and written words and has nothing to do with pornography.
In America's educational system the government sets forth mandatory testing in order to evaluate schools. In the Social Studies section of the test the constitution is referred to as the only document that evolves. Making our own government to teach the concept of evolution towards our constitution. And leading future generations to believe that the constitution can bare any interpretation they want it to, which is false and misleading.
The constitution is a sacred document drawn up by our forefathers in establishing the foundations for this nation to become great. Our forefathers spent a great deal of time and effort making the constitution impeccable to all others for a free nation under God, so that people would not be oppressed by its government.
But thankfully while establishing this country, our forefathers turned a deaf ear to those who opposed the constitution. John Dickinson protested and refused to sign the Declaration of Independence, arguing against freedom from Britain. He lost his argument and scornfully resigned from Congress and joined the army as a soldier, feeling that the signers were his very own countrymen having fury against him.
America doesn't need a new constitution, it needs to put back into proper perspective the use of the original constitution. The very constitution that has been misused and abused to the point that oppression in this country has taken on the illusion of freedom.
Learn more about this author, Suzanna Billingsley Frost.
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