[quote]molnes wrote:
Many times people from the US will argue that one should not do this and that because it’s unconstitutional. I get that you have to follow the law and everything, that’s not my issue.
My issue is really that it seems like many people are putting this document on a pedestal. It’s almost treated like a holy document. Lots of things have changed since that document was created, and I don’t really see “because it’s in the constitution” as a good argument by default. [/quote]
The first thing you need to understand is that the founding fathers who wrote the constitution had a perspective that the vast majority of Americans living today do not have because people living today have grown up knowing freedom. So the experience based wisdom of the founding fathers is highly valued.
The next point is you have reiterated a dogma that is patently false. Nothing has changed since in the time since the constitution was written. Humans are just as capable of doing bad things as we ever were. Thinking that the human race has somehow become vastly superior because we have modern technology is the most dangerous of all delusions. This is why Europe is sliding into autoritarianism with the EU.
If you find that hard to believe then answer this question. How have things changed since the constitution was written?
[quote]
Do you see it as a “holy” document, and why? Do you see it as something that can and should be changed for the better of the people, or do you see it as something that in theory could be changed for the better of the people, but it’s not neccessary because you already agree with it? [/quote]
If something isn’t broken you don’t fix it. The American constitution was very well thought out by some brilliant people who didn’t have the distractions and competing interests that we have today to drag them constitution off into unnecessary tangents like the EU constitution does.
The strength of the American constitution is it written in simple language that the people can understand. Compare that to the EU constitution which was deliberately written in complicated legalese that no one can understand.
Also there is the order of the amendments. With the first and second amendments the essentials of the people maintaining their freedom are covered. You don’t have to go digging around through thousands of pages of text trying to figure out what is what, like the EU constitution.
[quote]
Pardon me if this was formulated in a clumsy way, but as a Norwegian it would be interesting to see your thoughts on this. [/quote]
I think it is a good thing that people here want to treat the constitution as sacred and don’t let people just go rewriting it. I think that overall the founding fathers really got it right because the document has withstood the test of time. More importantly I certainly would not trust ANY of our modern day politicians to re-write it claiming they will come up with something better.
Most importantly, any changes that need to be made can be made through the amendment process which we have had very few of.