General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I drew a conclusion years ago [View all]slightlv
(7,241 posts)Constitution, itself. In essence, I think we need to "dumb down" the language so that's it plain for anyone and everyone to understand. I think what we have today is elegant in its speech and styling, but it leaves too much open for interpretation because people argue over what specific words mean. Perhaps, in addition to the detailing of an amendment we should provide an example of it so that there can be no question.
Thing is, we don't want to do this while the country is in a red-hot dictator mindset. That mindset is always black and white; shades of grey don't exist, and the Constitution is what protects those shades of grey. Other than that, make sure when the word "shall" is mentioned it is defined to the nth degree, for example. No weaseling out on single words, and blowing off the purpose at the heart of the amendment.
To accomplish anything... rebuilding or reconstructing... the people of this country are going to have to come together with a shared vision for the future. To do this, en masse, can force our representatives to get out of their own way and pass what the people want. And that is basically where everything good breaks down. I don't see how in the world we reconcile the two parties of people. They are SO different as to be complete opposites of each other in polity, economics, and social responsibility. Currently putting out the word that they're thinking of stripping citizens of their citizenship (literally testing out the theory before trying it) trump is trying to shortcut this issue by basically genociding Democratic and democratic leaning people. The church will get in on this and demand obedience to their "one true god" with consequences if you don't. That will complete the authoritarian takeover.
Unless we get down and dirty I don't see how we fight this. Other countries have successfully fought it... see Afghanistan and Iraq... but they ended up going with their own cultural morass which was every bit as evil and right-leaning. There is no difference between trump and any other dictator you want to name. And each and every one of them, including trump, is an existential threat to freedom of movement, of thought, of speech, of worship, of any kind of freedom whatsoever.