It's blazingly clear by now that our system doesn't work as well as the parliamentary system. Britain, Canada and Australia can get rid of an incompetent leader or party AT ANY TIME by a vote of no confidence. We can't. Even if Congress could break out of its terminal paralysis to impeach a president, it wouldn't matter. The vice-president of the same party would take over. Impeachment is utterly irrelevant.
Consider Canada and US as a controlled experiment. Both started with more or less the same geographical conditions and the same people. Canada stayed with parliament while we went through the trouble of a revolution. Is there a difference? Not enough to matter. Canada has more freedom in some ways, we have more freedom in other ways. Canada has more socialism in some ways, we have more socialism in other ways. Overall it's a wash.
In the last 20 years Canada has moved ahead of us because its gov't didn't fall under the total control of speculators and bankers. The Canadian people and provinces retain more power than our people and states.
The South African constitution is much more social democratic than that of the United States. As examples, the South African constitution declares residents' rights to housing and health care. Within these contexts, it asserts the responsibility of the state "to achieve the progressive realisation of this right."[sic]
In this regard, South Africa's document is more similar to Cuba's and different from that of the United States.
@Joel5: That appears to be the point of the article:
"The rights guaranteed by the American Constitution are parsimonious by international standards, and they are frozen in amber. As Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” (Yugoslavia used to hold that title, but Yugoslavia did not work out.)
Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years. By odd coincidence, Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.” These days, the overlap between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and those most popular around the world is spotty. "
America is no good because we are stuck with the same old Constitution, instead of progressives getting to write a new one every 20 years.
Ms. Bader Ginsburg has been consistently intellectually dishonest in her opinions.
About the only thing you can count on with her is that she will put her thumb on the scales of justice.
This is a person who, ironically enough given her self-professed devotion to civil liberties, simply does not understand the guiding principles of the constitution -- setting one branch against the other so as to limit their power and their reach into the lives of the citizenry.
Not understanding it at the most basic level, is it a surprise that she has acted against it (notwithstanding her oath) and that she now comes out openy against it?
It has never been U.S. policy to recommend our constitution as a model for other nations. Has Mr. Miller not noticed this?
Look at the constitutions of countries we've defeated and rebuilt. General MacArthur wrote Japan's constitution, is it based on ours? How about Germany's? Iraq's? Afghanistan's?
Countries with no history of democracy have a better chance with a Westminster-style parliamentary system than with a strong presidential system. Our constitution works for us. But put a strong presidential system in a country with no history of democracy and you end up with Putins.
That's just it -- we don't have a "strong presidential system". The president of the U.S. has much less direct power over the country's policies than, say, the prime minister of Great Britain has.
But a prime minister must maintain the support of a majority of parliament every single day - if he loses that once, he's out of a job and new elections are called. This makes prime ministers less likely than presidents to become dictators (in countries with little democratic history). Prime ministers must maintain the support of those who elected them every day to keep their job. Presidents have a fixed term and can abandon the principles (and people) that elected them.
I agree that the British prime minister has more power over Britain than the U.S. president has over the U.S. Our constitution is great - for America! It just doesn't work very well in countries without a culture of democracy, law and civil society, because the president can too separate remove himself from democratic process.
Jason, your last sentence is gibberish. I will credit you for doing better most of the time, and chalk it up to careless editing, as opposed to your normal tendency toward careless logical processes.
Nonetheless, assuming that I correctly understand what you were failing to make clear, if a president can "too easily separate or remove himself from the democratic process" (better, isn't it? Did I capture the thought? If not, at least it makes sense), there is no better example of this than Obama and his army of czars, blizzard of resolutions, and numerous chest-thumping declarations that he intends to ignore congress (coupled with lamentations that he can't ignore it enough, thanks to our diabolic constitution).
(Parenthetically, I disagree with your assessment that this problem is amplified in a presidential system. That is only true if you have an autocratically minded president and a weak willed judiciary, but even then, he can only stay in power by violating the constitution. If he was willing to violate a presidential system, he would be no less inclined to violate a parliamentary system, so where is the amplification?)
You have made it clear that you admire the respect for law that is found in our society. Would that you could learn to despise a president who wears his disrespect for our law as a badge of honor..
Who follows the Russian constitution? Not Moscow. After 80 years of governing that alternates between authoritarian and totalitarian, no country can easily liberalize if the fundamental top-down power structures remain intact. Russia's troubles are societal, not schematic.
The Constitution didn't establish a strong president. We evolved politically into allowing a very active executive.
I haven't looked at the Law-Versteeg paper (or tried to find the full Ginsburg interview) for all their comments, but one key reason most other countries would not seek out our constitutional arrangements is size. Most other countries are much smaller, and have no need of the federal system that was so vital to organizing our far-flung (then fully) sovereign states.
Good point about countries with no history of democracy (or liberty). It would be great if newly free peoples (Arab springers, temporarily) would consent to new constitutions that slowly unfolded more popularly-controlled institutions, maybe over a few decades, so they could get the hang of functioning politically in a civil society. But nobody who's been oppressed wants to wait for that, so they set up systems for the masses that are ripe for demagogues and neo-fascists to manipulate.
Ginsburg was not merely refraining from telling others to do what we did, as others have done in similar situations. She was specifically telling them that they should deliberately avoid doing what our Founding Fathers did, which is a step beyond merely keeping mum.
In fact, it actually goes much further in that she says she thinks our constitution should not be a model for the year 2012. The plain implication is that the constitution is not merely inappropriate for any other specific nation, but that it is inappropriate for our times.
Sounds as if she has concluded that the United States itself could do much better. I would like her to clarify her thoughts on that.
Jason, I can think of a country that had no history of democracy, yet they adopted a constitution with a strong presidential system. It has worked so well, that it is now the oldest functioning constitutional democracy in the world.
In fact, the nation I am thinking of was founded because the lack of any democratic voice in their governance had become a rallying cry for their revolution.
After winning independence, they tried a system with a weak executive for a while, but it proved so unworkable that in less than a decade they bagged it in favor of a republican system, with a strong executive branch, bound by a constitution that has held together for centuries.
Can you still not think of a people that can do what you said cannot be done?
(The grinding sound the rest of you are now hearing is Jason shifting paradigms without a clutch.)
The United States was a democracy before the U.S. constitution was adopted. And even before the revolution there was a history of local democracy and English common law.
Some of our justices stopped looking to the US Constitution long ago.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wouldn't use it either.
It's blazingly clear by now that our system doesn't work as well as the parliamentary system. Britain, Canada and Australia can get rid of an incompetent leader or party AT ANY TIME by a vote of no confidence. We can't. Even if Congress could break out of its terminal paralysis to impeach a president, it wouldn't matter. The vice-president of the same party would take over. Impeachment is utterly irrelevant.
Consider Canada and US as a controlled experiment. Both started with more or less the same geographical conditions and the same people. Canada stayed with parliament while we went through the trouble of a revolution. Is there a difference? Not enough to matter. Canada has more freedom in some ways, we have more freedom in other ways. Canada has more socialism in some ways, we have more socialism in other ways. Overall it's a wash.
In the last 20 years Canada has moved ahead of us because its gov't didn't fall under the total control of speculators and bankers. The Canadian people and provinces retain more power than our people and states.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow many EE countries selected a presidential system with bicameral legislature? She's right, the US is not the best model.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wouldn't look to the US Constitution either. I would look to the Articles of Confederation as a starting point.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe South African constitution is much more social democratic than that of the United States. As examples, the South African constitution declares residents' rights to housing and health care. Within these contexts, it asserts the responsibility of the state "to achieve the progressive realisation of this right."[sic]
In this regard, South Africa's document is more similar to Cuba's and different from that of the United States.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Joel5: That appears to be the point of the article:
"The rights guaranteed by the American Constitution are parsimonious by international standards, and they are frozen in amber. As Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” (Yugoslavia used to hold that title, but Yugoslavia did not work out.)
Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years. By odd coincidence, Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.” These days, the overlap between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and those most popular around the world is spotty. "
America is no good because we are stuck with the same old Constitution, instead of progressives getting to write a new one every 20 years.
Today's captcha: "tears us apart"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSupreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:
"The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSadly, in reading the comments to the article linked to, their readership apparently prefers almost any constitution over ours...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe the new consitutiion will be known as the Rube Ginsburgh contraption.
Like things have worked out so well for Canadian liberty since the change. Well, if backlash counts as a planned benefit of a constitution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sorry, I may be missing something here, but don't Supreme Court justices (of all people) also swear oaths to "uphold the Constitution"?
How is this old bat's statement consistent with "upholding the constitution"?
Aren't there grounds for a legal question or two here?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNor would you have in 1993. Ms. Bader Ginsburg!
Honestly, to whom is this news?
Ms. Bader Ginsburg has been consistently intellectually dishonest in her opinions.
About the only thing you can count on with her is that she will put her thumb on the scales of justice.
This is a person who, ironically enough given her self-professed devotion to civil liberties, simply does not understand the guiding principles of the constitution -- setting one branch against the other so as to limit their power and their reach into the lives of the citizenry.
Not understanding it at the most basic level, is it a surprise that she has acted against it (notwithstanding her oath) and that she now comes out openy against it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt has never been U.S. policy to recommend our constitution as a model for other nations. Has Mr. Miller not noticed this?
Look at the constitutions of countries we've defeated and rebuilt. General MacArthur wrote Japan's constitution, is it based on ours? How about Germany's? Iraq's? Afghanistan's?
Countries with no history of democracy have a better chance with a Westminster-style parliamentary system than with a strong presidential system. Our constitution works for us. But put a strong presidential system in a country with no history of democracy and you end up with Putins.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's just it -- we don't have a "strong presidential system". The president of the U.S. has much less direct power over the country's policies than, say, the prime minister of Great Britain has.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut a prime minister must maintain the support of a majority of parliament every single day - if he loses that once, he's out of a job and new elections are called. This makes prime ministers less likely than presidents to become dictators (in countries with little democratic history). Prime ministers must maintain the support of those who elected them every day to keep their job. Presidents have a fixed term and can abandon the principles (and people) that elected them.
I agree that the British prime minister has more power over Britain than the U.S. president has over the U.S. Our constitution is great - for America! It just doesn't work very well in countries without a culture of democracy, law and civil society, because the president can too separate remove himself from democratic process.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJason, your last sentence is gibberish. I will credit you for doing better most of the time, and chalk it up to careless editing, as opposed to your normal tendency toward careless logical processes.
Nonetheless, assuming that I correctly understand what you were failing to make clear, if a president can "too easily separate or remove himself from the democratic process" (better, isn't it? Did I capture the thought? If not, at least it makes sense), there is no better example of this than Obama and his army of czars, blizzard of resolutions, and numerous chest-thumping declarations that he intends to ignore congress (coupled with lamentations that he can't ignore it enough, thanks to our diabolic constitution).
(Parenthetically, I disagree with your assessment that this problem is amplified in a presidential system. That is only true if you have an autocratically minded president and a weak willed judiciary, but even then, he can only stay in power by violating the constitution. If he was willing to violate a presidential system, he would be no less inclined to violate a parliamentary system, so where is the amplification?)
You have made it clear that you admire the respect for law that is found in our society. Would that you could learn to despise a president who wears his disrespect for our law as a badge of honor..
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWho follows the Russian constitution? Not Moscow. After 80 years of governing that alternates between authoritarian and totalitarian, no country can easily liberalize if the fundamental top-down power structures remain intact. Russia's troubles are societal, not schematic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Constitution didn't establish a strong president. We evolved politically into allowing a very active executive.
I haven't looked at the Law-Versteeg paper (or tried to find the full Ginsburg interview) for all their comments, but one key reason most other countries would not seek out our constitutional arrangements is size. Most other countries are much smaller, and have no need of the federal system that was so vital to organizing our far-flung (then fully) sovereign states.
Good point about countries with no history of democracy (or liberty). It would be great if newly free peoples (Arab springers, temporarily) would consent to new constitutions that slowly unfolded more popularly-controlled institutions, maybe over a few decades, so they could get the hang of functioning politically in a civil society. But nobody who's been oppressed wants to wait for that, so they set up systems for the masses that are ripe for demagogues and neo-fascists to manipulate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGinsburg was not merely refraining from telling others to do what we did, as others have done in similar situations. She was specifically telling them that they should deliberately avoid doing what our Founding Fathers did, which is a step beyond merely keeping mum.
In fact, it actually goes much further in that she says she thinks our constitution should not be a model for the year 2012. The plain implication is that the constitution is not merely inappropriate for any other specific nation, but that it is inappropriate for our times.
Sounds as if she has concluded that the United States itself could do much better. I would like her to clarify her thoughts on that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJason, I can think of a country that had no history of democracy, yet they adopted a constitution with a strong presidential system. It has worked so well, that it is now the oldest functioning constitutional democracy in the world.
In fact, the nation I am thinking of was founded because the lack of any democratic voice in their governance had become a rallying cry for their revolution.
After winning independence, they tried a system with a weak executive for a while, but it proved so unworkable that in less than a decade they bagged it in favor of a republican system, with a strong executive branch, bound by a constitution that has held together for centuries.
Can you still not think of a people that can do what you said cannot be done?
(The grinding sound the rest of you are now hearing is Jason shifting paradigms without a clutch.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe United States was a democracy before the U.S. constitution was adopted. And even before the revolution there was a history of local democracy and English common law.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse