Add a constitutional right to defect in prisoner’s dilemmas, and a powerful well-funded defection lobby, and yes; it is hard to see how to get out of this.
The rationalist answer (viewed from a non-US perspective) is “well just change the frigging constitution then”. It’s not holy writ, handed down on tablets of stone, and it is—after all—designed to be changed. There are a few other things you could usefully change while you’re at it.
That said, other less effective(but more politically palatable) options being a better way to spend your time seems a plausible case to make, at minimum. Can you imagine what it would take to get 38 states on-board to repeal the Second Amendment? Euro-style gun control in the US is about as likely as American-style gun worship in Europe. The cultures are just too different.
Actually that is a very good point—is the effort really worth it in terms of lives saved? Possibly not… though the only alternative suggestion at the moment from the gun lobby is stationing armed guards in all primary schools, which to a non-US citizen sounds utterly desperate. Is the 2nd amendment really worth that much to you??
The issue of effort needed to force through an amendment does highlight a bigger constitutional problem: making changes is getting too hard. One consequence is that daft supreme court decisions then get set in stone. If you were going to spend effort on one single constitutional change, an amendment to make other amendments easier could be in order. A lot of European countries use referendums for amending their constitutions, which provides for stability against trivial changes, but still allows for amendments every decade or so.
Historically, the US has had 27 amendments in 225 years, which is basically “one every decade or so”. Even if you aggregate the whole Bill of Rights into one, 18 in 225 is every 12.5 years. They’re in a bit of a lull now(though only 20 years), but they’ve done a dozen in the last century. The cutoff seems to be set at precisely the level that stops idiocy like anti-flag-burning and anti-gay-marriage amendments from passing, which is to my mind a good level.
Add a constitutional right to defect in prisoner’s dilemmas, and a powerful well-funded defection lobby, and yes; it is hard to see how to get out of this.
The rationalist answer (viewed from a non-US perspective) is “well just change the frigging constitution then”. It’s not holy writ, handed down on tablets of stone, and it is—after all—designed to be changed. There are a few other things you could usefully change while you’re at it.
That said, other less effective(but more politically palatable) options being a better way to spend your time seems a plausible case to make, at minimum. Can you imagine what it would take to get 38 states on-board to repeal the Second Amendment? Euro-style gun control in the US is about as likely as American-style gun worship in Europe. The cultures are just too different.
Actually that is a very good point—is the effort really worth it in terms of lives saved? Possibly not… though the only alternative suggestion at the moment from the gun lobby is stationing armed guards in all primary schools, which to a non-US citizen sounds utterly desperate. Is the 2nd amendment really worth that much to you??
The issue of effort needed to force through an amendment does highlight a bigger constitutional problem: making changes is getting too hard. One consequence is that daft supreme court decisions then get set in stone. If you were going to spend effort on one single constitutional change, an amendment to make other amendments easier could be in order. A lot of European countries use referendums for amending their constitutions, which provides for stability against trivial changes, but still allows for amendments every decade or so.
Historically, the US has had 27 amendments in 225 years, which is basically “one every decade or so”. Even if you aggregate the whole Bill of Rights into one, 18 in 225 is every 12.5 years. They’re in a bit of a lull now(though only 20 years), but they’ve done a dozen in the last century. The cutoff seems to be set at precisely the level that stops idiocy like anti-flag-burning and anti-gay-marriage amendments from passing, which is to my mind a good level.