‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World

[Jamie B]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=2&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

“Among the world’s democracies,” Professors Law and Versteeg concluded, “constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s.”

“The turn of the twenty-first century, however, saw the beginning of a steep plunge that continues through the most recent years for which we have data, to the point that the constitutions of the world’s democracies are, on average, less similar to the U.S. Constitution now than they were at the end of World War II.”

The article is quite interesting, citing the waning influence of SCOTUS in current times.

There also seems to be a worldwide view that the US Constitution is out of step with current world societal issues, and no longer is used as a model as it once was.

[MillCreek]

That was a really interesting article, and I had no idea of the Canadian influence coming to the forefront of drafting constitutional documents.

[longeyes]

Yes, We the People has become You the Government.

But our view of things was always a blessed aberration we should glory in.

[RoadKingLarry]

Socialist/communist tripe.

But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.

No one has yet been able to give me a satisfactory explanation of how one person or group of people can be "entitled" to the labor, skills or production of another person.

These days, the overlap between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and those most popular around the world is spotty.

I don't think it should be a popularity contest to be changed at the whims of pop culture. Bring it to a simple vote of the majority and some places may well have "The Right" to honor killings, genocide, religious persecution... oh wait we already have that in a number of places around the world, don't we.

[TommyGunn]

A soundclip of Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the rounds through conservative talk radio on Monday in which she stated that she didn't believe "some country" (I forget the country she was refering to here) should not use the American Constitution as a template for theirs, but one of the more recent european countries' constitutions.
 
There has also, apparantly, been a movement among some libs or progressives to get SCOTUS to use european court decisions as a basis for some of the Supreme Court's.
All of this I find very bothersome; I happen to be pretty fond of many of my Constitutionally protected rights and it troubles me to be seeing this happening.

Now these new "euro" documents that are being touted as "better" than ours ... does anyone think that anywhere in them is the equivelent to our second amendment?
Plus, some of the ideas that do pass for "rights"  in these foreign documents shouldn't be allowed to escape from an insane asylum.

[Jamie B]

Socialist/communist tripe.

No one has yet been able to give me a satisfactory explanation of how one person or group of people can be "entitled" to the labor, skills or production of another person.

I don't think it should be a popularity contest to be changed at the whims of pop culture. Bring it to a simple vote of the majority and some places may well have "The Right" to honor killings, genocide, religious persecution... oh wait we already have that in a number of places around the world, don't we.

The evolution of our government/legal system does reflect the changing viewpoint of the populace.

[MicroBalrog]

So what we learn from this is that welfare states are very popular outside America, and foreigners do not like the Constitution because it is not very compatible with a welfare state?


Okay, I can buy that.

[RoadKingLarry]

The evolution of our government/legal system does reflect the changing viewpoint of the populace.

Yes, but not on a "fad of the month" basis.

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.”

I consider that a very good thing.

[De Selby]

It's not so much to do with the welfare state, which most of the planet seems to agree is the proper role of a Government. (The rest of the world isn't sold on the concept of a state taking all their tax money and delivering "security" in return; they'd rather have services they want, like retirement security and medicine for the money).

The biggest hold up is the US's system of giving power over individual rights to someone other than the elected officials.  Most Governments want to talk about protecting rights, but are deathly afraid of someone other than themselves deciding what those rights actually are.  Parliaments hate being told that they are in fact doing something other than what they purport to do - and that's what happens what a Court strikes down a law on grounds of individual rights.

[longeyes]

We live on a planet where authoritarianism is the coin of the realm and always has been.

To the statists we look like a "fend for yourself" affair.  And then there's that barbarous crap about being able to have guns, you know...

[HankB]

Read the linked story . . . according to the author, only Guatemala and Mexico have something like our 2nd Amendment.

(Mexico? Mexico? MEXICO? Where a single spent .22 shell can land you in jail? Is this something like the old Soviet Union where they had actual charges of "unwarranted exercise of constitutional rights?")

[Perd Hapley]

It's not so much to do with the welfare state, which most of the planet seems to agree is the proper role of a Government. (The rest of the world isn't sold on the concept of a state taking all their tax money and delivering "security" in return; they'd rather have services they want, like retirement security and medicine for the money).

You're saying that people outside the U.S. don't want "security," just retirement security? They're not interested in, say, national security (defense from foreign threats)?

[De Selby]

You're saying that people outside the U.S. don't want "security," just retirement security? They're not interested in, say, national security (defense from foreign threats)?

Yes - they are by and large (in the industrialised world anyway) not concerned with the "threats" that have been drummed up in recent times in the US.  You'll find extremely few people in Australia or the UK, for example, who think they should defund national health to pay for more weapons to defend against X,Y, or Z group, including terrorists.

They view their tax money as primarily payment for services, like health care.  If you tried to sell them on taxes that primarily funded the military and not other public services, you'd have a hard time getting enough votes for a single seat in any of their parliaments.

[De Selby]

We live on a planet where authoritarianism is the coin of the realm and always has been.

To the statists we look like a "fend for yourself" affair.  And then there's that barbarous crap about being able to have guns, you know...

No, America doesn't look like that - it looks more like a racket, where you have to pay in to the system, and the money gets paid out on things that aren't useful to the vast majority of people, like the TSA.

[Monkeyleg]

They view their tax money as primarily payment for services, like health care.  If you tried to sell them on taxes that primarily funded the military and not other public services, you'd have a hard time getting enough votes for a single seat in any of their parliaments.

Interesting. I see national security--although the TSA doesn't meet the definition--as being one of the few legitimate constitutional purposes of the federal government.

As for our constitution being difficult to amend, it was designed that way. Our system of government was designed to be slow, with congress, the senate and the executive branch purposely at odds. Stalemate is as American as baseball.

Fast changes make for bad policy. Obama--and other presidents to a lesser extent--has tried to bypass congress to govern by appointed czars, accountable to no one except the president, but the end results of this will be disastrous.

[MicroBalrog]

It's not so much to do with the welfare state, which most of the planet seems to agree is the proper role of a Government. (The rest of the world isn't sold on the concept of a state taking all their tax money and delivering "security" in return; they'd rather have services they want, like retirement security and medicine for the money).

The biggest hold up is the US's system of giving power over individual rights to someone other than the elected officials.  Most Governments want to talk about protecting rights, but are deathly afraid of someone other than themselves deciding what those rights actually are.  Parliaments hate being told that they are in fact doing something other than what they purport to do - and that's what happens what a Court strikes down a law on grounds of individual rights.

So most people outside the U.S. don't really like freedom much.

Not news.

[RevDisk]

No, America doesn't look like that - it looks more like a racket, where you have to pay in to the system, and the money gets paid out on things that aren't useful to the vast majority of people, like the TSA.

This is about right.

[roo_ster]

Yes - they are by and large (in the industrialised world anyway) not concerned with the "threats" that have been drummed up in recent times in the US.  You'll find extremely few people in Australia or the UK, for example, who think they should defund national health to pay for more weapons to defend against X,Y, or Z group, including terrorists.

They view their tax money as primarily payment for services, like health care.  If you tried to sell them on taxes that primarily funded the military and not other public services, you'd have a hard time getting enough votes for a single seat in any of their parliaments.

It is very easy to discount the value of national security when someone else comes by periodically to save their bacon from the Japs (Australia) and the Nazis (UK & the rest of W Europe).

So most people outside the U.S. don't really like freedom much.

Not news.

Ayup. 

[Perd Hapley]

It's not as if the Brits are spending money on security cameras or anything.

[MillCreek]

It is very easy to discount the value of national security when someone else comes by periodically to save their bacon from the Japs (Australia) and the Nazis (UK & the rest of W Europe).

Or you can currently rely on the US security umbrella for a portion of your national defense.

[Perd Hapley]

No, look guys, the rest of the world's governments are busy serving their citizens, not fending off imaginary threats [cough]banning headscarves[cough]Australian gun ban[cough]. And Europeans would never buy into a racket government [cough]European Parliament[cough].

Sorry, let me go find a lozenge.

[TommyGunn]

Fistful, stop being oblique and tell us what you REALLY THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[longeyes]

No, America doesn't look like that - it looks more like a racket, where you have to pay in to the system, and the money gets paid out on things that aren't useful to the vast majority of people, like the TSA.

Depends on who's doing the looking.  There must be a reason so many Americans--half?--are still believers.  There must be a reason so many people still want to emigrate here, by any means possible.

The kind of liberty we've enshrined in our core documents has never been the burning need of most human beings, regardless of latter-day Neo-Con propaganda.  Most people want safety, security, and bodily comfort, fitting into a social matrix, not opportunities for entrepreneurship and advancing the scope of human knowledge.

You the Government is the global rallying cry.

[Blakenzy]

I think the loss of appeal of the US Constitution is directly proportional to the widening negative public perception of the US as a Nation over the last decade, mainly because of the policies and actions of the "Global War on Terror". We aren't viewed as that beacon of Liberty and Justice anymore, so other Nations no longer aspire to be like us. We've become ugly.

[Ron]

When were the halcyon days of the USA not gallivanting outside its borders flexing its military might?