This blog contains my proposals for Constitutional amendments that will make our government better.
The United States Constitution of 1787 was the best compromise our country's founders could make at the time. It describes a basic framework of a federal government, leaving almost all details and policies to be created by those who would serve in the government.
Today the United States is a thriving nation, much to the credit of the Constitution. But throughout our history, the insufficiencies of the Constitution have left America's people at risk. The United States has fought a Civil War, its leaders have even beaten and shot one another; the President's responsibilities are incredibly vast, and at times he seems to have all the power he cares to take, and the Department of Justice will hesitate to investigate the President since the Attorney General is always his appointee and political ally; the military usually has a novice as commander-in-chief; the vagueness of the Constitution allows a handful of judges to tell all of us what our laws must be; Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed with little or no judicial experience, and could hold their position forever if advancing technology keeps them alive, while just as easily, experienced Justices could be appointed for a set term and replaced at regular intervals, and not have one side terrified with thoughts of the other side appointing too many Justices; incumbent Congressmen, who would be fired by a retain-or-fire referendum of all voters, keep winning primaries of loyal party voters and thereby remain in office; the parties have coalesced into two monstrosities as a result of over-fifty-percent-of-electoral-college elections and majority-makes-all-the-rules in Congress, the parties cause countrymen to sacrifice the well being of their country for the sake of helping their cronies win the next election, in 2016 the parties have given us two of the most hated people in our country as the candidates for President, the voters are divided and manipulated by the parties as the voters dare not waste their vote on any candidate outside the big two; and the people are afraid to fulfill the founders' expectation that people should control their own destiny, and protect their own basic rights, by amending the Constitution as needed.
The purpose of this blog is not to scrap our obsolete, and vague, yet extremely important 1787 frame of government, but to propose necessary changes to it, to solidify our many rights that are too important to remain merely implied, and to repair its insufficiencies to provide for the continued success of our marvelous United States of America.
After these updates, many years in the future, Americans may see fit to build a new frame, perhaps resembling the Constitutions of Germany and Japan, which were designed by Americans in the 1940's, or that of South Africa, which was created in the 1990's. But for the United States of 2016, our best hope is to first repair the old one.
Anthony Maloley
Omaha, Nebraska