For example my own (US) has a political system basically frozen in amber from a time before many of the political and policy challenges of our day were not even thought of yet. And they did their best to create a change mechanism, but I think anyone being truly fair of any political persuasion has to admit that while it has prevented nearly every harmful extremist constitutional amendment (I'd say Prohibition is the main one that sneaked in), it has proven to, within the lifetimes of most living Americans, be so hard to attain as to set the status quo in stone.
The framers didn't realize that most changes would be blocked by at least one party, out of fear that it would advantage the other guys. Same reason we stopped admitting states before letting Puerto Rico in, an absolutely absurd situation.
Check out some of the founders' essays. This is no accident, or oversight. It's absolutely intentional and for good reason.
The Constitution grants power to all three branches of government, which is the same as granting power to none of them. The more they disagree, the less power they have. In this way power can only be wielded through cooperation (selflessness).
It's a honey pot for the power hungry.
Even if the citizens of PR wanted statehood, you have to get both parties to agree. This means probably 2 states at the same time (one red, one blue). Since there isn't another potentially red state (Alberta but that's probably never going to happen) to join, that's hard to do. Look at US history, statehood has always worked this way. It has nothing to do with whatever you are implying.
PS The 27th amendment was 1992, probably during your lifetime. You would expect the rate of new amendments to slow overtime so the average of a new amendment about every 15-20 years seems about right.
And your first paragraph sounds like it's quoted from an anti-statehood propaganda flyer. PR has high taxes today -- an 11.5% sales tax, and a high local income tax, because PR has to pay for everything itself, and because Congress screws them over, such as refusing bailouts when natural disasters devastate the island. Many states receive significant money from the Federal government that PR doesn't get. If it were a state, some people would have to pay some federal income tax, but it would not be automatically a worse tax burden.
Same for language, there's nothing in the constitution that mandates that. PR already has two official languages. And nothing lawmakers decide will stop people from choosing to speak Spanish all day long if they want. If you don't agree with me, walk around any city in California, Arizona, or Texas.
26th amendment lowered the voting age to 18 for state and local elections and had no effect on national elections (statute already set the national voting age as 18, but courts prevented it from applying to state and local elections).
25th clarified presidential succession to work exactly how everyone had already assumed it to work for over a century, so for practical purposes did nothing.
24th in 1964, which outlawed poll taxes as a criteria for voting, was the last amendment with any effect on national governance.
Many of us have a popular set of ideals that we think are superior and have attempted to overlay those on every aspect of modern life, but they have little to no data behind them and are ultimately just beliefs that make us feel good. As such, there is no reason to expect they are optimal for governing either.
Please, please, please go read the Federalist papers. The Founders thought of a lot more than you realise.
The design of a constitution is the design of the distribution of power. The nature of power hasn't changed.
1. Any voting system other than the disastrous FPTP which forces a two-party system and punishes any attempt to break this duopoly.
2. What if Congress is composed entirely of weasels and just, though formal law-passing or by sheer inaction, cedes nearly all their power to the executive branch?
3. What if the Supreme Court has at least 5 partisans who will say just about anything to keep in power the party (or even the individual) who put them there? What if they say stupid things like "A President has absolute criminal immunity for any act that falls within his 'conclusive and preclusive' constitutional authority, and presumptive immunity for all other official acts."
4. Even if SCOTUS is basically working as intended, what if the President just...ignores them?
5. What if a President is mentally incompetent due to age, and his whole party refuses to acknowledge it? (This one is Biden, arguably - I'm disgusted with both parties)
I do get checks and balances, I know that a big part of the whole "they can't pass anything" is a feature and not a bug. But come on, it's got out of hand when every single term we have multiple debt limit hostage negotiations -- and now BOTH parties are doing it!
More generally, STV was the default choice for assemblies throughout the British Empire (and became known as 'the British system' as a result) from the late 19th century onwards.
It was even agreed on for use in Westminster in 1919 - though only the university seats ever actually used it - making it "more traditional" than the current single-member FPTP system which dates only from 1949. The failure to actually implement it was part of a more general reactionary movement in the aftermath of the war, when Lloyd George's promise of a "land fit for heroes" was thoroughly betrayed.
The Irish system seems to work well, and can be used as a comparator for considering what the UK might look like if that betrayal hadn't happened.
That’s really interesting that the British promoted STV within their sphere of influence and had intended to use it for elections to Westminster. Thanks for the informative comment and useful historical context.
