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0 pointslayer81y ago0 comments

A sufficient majority can change the constitution though. It’s impossible to have a mechanism that prevents that. So this is merely a debate of 51% vs. 67% (or whatever).

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4 comments · 1 top-level

Gormo1y ago· 3 in thread

The amendment process is slow and complex by design. It's not just a one-off supermajority, but rather a supermajority in both houses of Congress (or a special amending convention) followed by a supermajority of states each individually ratifying a proposed amendment. The most recent constitutional amendment took over 200 years to be ratified.

The nature of the process makes it very difficult to misuse constitutional amendments a mechanism for implementing policy to deal with ephemeral controversies or emotion-laden causes. The only time that really happened was with the 18th amendment, and that was a disaster, which ultimately was repealed.

inglor_cz1y ago

IDK if this is a good argument.

The amendment process has indeed become impractical in the US, and given that "nature abhors vacuum", a different and easier route to bending the constitutional law was found - nominate your people to SCOTUS and let the interpret the Constitution favorably to you.

I would argue that this is a very suboptimal solution to the problem.

layer8OP1y ago

My comment was about democracies and their constitutions in general. I’m neither Canadian nor American. Yes, there are significant degrees in how easy or hard it is, but in the end if you have a sufficiently large majority that wants to deprive a minority of their rights, the mere fact of having a democracy by itself doesn’t prevent it.

Gormo1y ago

In fact, democracy in itself might enable that, which is why it's important to have strong boundaries around all political decision-making, whether democratic or otherwise.

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