Hey kids.
When kicked in the teeth, the thing to do is to laugh and fight back.
The Supreme Court has rather screwed us with some seriously reactionary judicial activism.
Seems to me that we have two or three large issues to address, and the game is: how to write a Constitutional amendment that addresses them.
The contest is to be judged on several scores, and there could easily be several winners. Everybody is a winner!!!
The issues that need correcting seem to me to be: the “personhood” of corporations, the conflict between the First Amendment and campaign finance rules, and the bullshit of each state getting two senators.
Points will be awarded for:
Describing other critical issues amenable to redress with a constitutional amendemnt.
Getting more of the issues cured with less amendments.
Doing a good impersonation of Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, etc.
Alternately, sounding just as modern as is possible.
Points will be deducted for anything smacking of:
“If only all the good people could get together and do the right thing!”.
Seriously, we are up against some very real Constitutional questions, thanks to all the assholes who said that there was no difference between Bush and Gore. What a squadron of pinheads.
It is time for some serious populism, me thinks. The ugly truth of that is that we are going to need to find a way to manipulate the teabaggers to do our bidding…..
Waddaya think?
To me there seem to be two issues:
1) Only human beings are entitled to constitutional provisions for civil rights
2) Money is not speech, money is commerce
It seems ridiculous to have to amend the first amendment to define speech as the expression of an idea via words, images, sounds, or other action that can be proscribed by some definition. If giving money is speech, why isn’t any action considered speech? Why isn’t murder, for example, speech? We need a definition.
As for the senate, there’s no mention of the filibuster in the Constitution. The Senate needs to change that rule. The composition is already undemocratic — but you won’t find any senator who feels that way. They feel the senate preserves and important aspect of fairness by providing each state w 2 representatives. So changing the composition of the senate is a non starter.
How/why does one write an amendment negating a court ruling when the ruling was not constitutional? There is nothing in the constitution giving a fictitious entity personhood.
That said,K7, Let me think about this one. 🙂 It does seem something needs to be done. If a statute is passed in a given session, it can be repealed in the next session and with the current SC, corporate personhood will be upheld.
And I do agree that the Tea Party movement needs to see this light, but right now they are corporate backed (which they deny)
To me there seem to be two issues:
1) Only human beings are entitled to constitutional provisions for civil rights
2) Money is not speech, money is commerce
It seems ridiculous to have to amend the first amendment to define speech as the expression of an idea via words, images, sounds, or other action that can be proscribed by some definition. If giving money is speech, why isn’t any action considered speech? Why isn’t murder, for example, speech? We need a definition.