Scottish Independance, anyone?

pokermind wrote:Scotland voted to stay in the UK http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-29270441 BBC reports, "With the results in from all 32 council areas, the "No" side won with 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for "Yes"."

Poker

Already covered, mannie!

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6247

Mike.

Tenshinai wrote:

Zakharra wrote:You seem to want something that is easily done, yet at the same time can be changed at the whim of politicians and the trend of the day.

Funny how you keep throwing that around, when i have said nothing of the kind beyond the fact that such a document needs the ability to change. At all.

It does have methods in it to change it. It's just not easy to do on purpose. Why? Because the founders wanted to make sure a majority of the nation agreed on it, not a simple plurality, but a super majority.

Zakharra wrote:(I think you would like the Solarian League's Constitution where it's not what's written that is important, but what modern thought and use makes it

Ooh, nice attempt at slander and insults.

Extra funny because that´s essentially how your own vaunted document is being used.

And maybe you should ask RFC where the idea of the Solarian constitution comes from?

That doesn't mean the Constitution is bad, just that the politicians and President are ignoring it in places.

Zakharra wrote:(ie the view that the part on secession not being valid anymore even though it is written in as a part of the Constitution for example).

I guess you´re not aware that the argument of lapsed law has been successfully used in USA a fair number of times then?

Which is of course fortunate as otherwise, there´s a large number of old laws never properly unmade that would make probably a third or more of the US population continual lawbreakers.[/quote]

When it comes to rights, those are upheld and public opinion has stopped and nailed a fair number of politicians when they get caught with dirty hands.

Zakharra wrote:and you prefer one that is easily moldable and can change at a whim

Again with this unfounded claim. You really seem to think this is a truly damning thing.

Even though it´s just a strawman argument that you made up.

No it's not a made up argument. YOU called the US Constitution an outdated document that is too rigid and can't be changed. By holding that opinion, it's clear you favor a constitution that can be far more easily changed.

Zakharra wrote:those rules HAVE been enforced and people held accountable.

Really? That´s BIG news then, when were the trials held?

Politicians and big business people have been arrested and imprisoned (Berni Madoff and others). It's true that not all are convicted, but it's cost a fair number of politicians their jobs.

Zakharra wrote:Getting a good lawyer isn't a sign that the Constitution is corrupt or outdated and the wording isn't archaic either.

The document isn´t corrupt, the way it is used most certainly is.

And yes it most definitely is both outdated and uses archaic wording.

The problem about the wording is mainly that modern people like you, doesn´t even see that the wording IS oldstyle, written based on a culture you probably wouldn´t even recognise.

Oh it´s legalese as well, that just makes it worse.

And when you can find things in a document that has no relevancy any longer, well duh, of course it´s outdated.

How about 7th amendment specifying the sum of 20 dollars as a threshhold?

Or what about article 1s rule against anything forbidding slavetrade?
Yeah, what a wonderful thing to be proud of!

Now you're just throwing things out to confuse the issue. ALL of the Rights in it are relevant, all of the duties and restrictions sin the Constitution are relevant and I wish politicians were held more accountable to those restrictions. Corruption in the system doesn;t mean the Constitution is bad, just that its not being fully enforced.

Zakharra wrote:Spying on other countries isn't something the Constitution forbids or condones, neither does starting wars and torture is a very fluid definition (some people would say not giving prisoners all of the comforts of home and three square meals a day is torture, they'd say imprisonment is torture..).

Quick with excuses there. Making a joke as an excuse for torture, marvellous show of the superior morals your wonderful piece of paper instills in you.

And you miss the obvious, your own argument is that the constitution doesn´t forbid it, so then it´s ok. Talk about abusing the poor thing. Like i said, those who wrote it would cry if they saw how it was used nowadays.

Now you're being intentionally dense. NOWHERE in the Constitution does it mention any restriction on spying/gathering intelligence on neighboring countries (something all nations do since it's intelligence gathering.)Why is that bad? There should be some restrictions on it, but there should also be laws to allow it in certain instances. Basic intelligence gathering can hardly be called spying. Reading restricted foreign information? Less approved, reading US citizen information that's not available to everyone, that is supposed to be warded and protected against unless the government has a good suspicion and a search warrant. Again I reiterate, just because people and politicians ignore parts of the Constitution doesn't mean the Constitution is itself is bad or outdated. Unfortunately, we the people aren't holding the politicians and Department people to task for their grievances. Unless we force the politicians to uphold the Constitution, it will be ignored by many of those politicians who care just for power.

Arrr- this being mumble like pirate day the no voters should climb to the main to'gallant yard where they can look down on the separatists, Arrr--

Poker

pokermind wrote:Arrr- this being mumble like pirate day the no voters should climb to the main to'gallant yard where they can look down on the separatists, Arrr--

Poker

Not quite poker, "mannie" is Scots slang for "man", "mister" or "mate", amongst many others!

Hence the Aberdonian "Fit like mannie, foos yer doos?"

Mike.

Zakharra wrote:Now you're being intentionally dense. NOWHERE in the Constitution does it mention any restriction on spying/gathering intelligence on neighboring countries (something all nations do since it's intelligence gathering.)Why is that bad? There should be some restrictions on it, but there should also be laws to allow it in certain instances. Basic intelligence gathering can hardly be called spying. Reading restricted foreign information?

So you ignore the fact that USAs intelligence services are for example effectively trying to spy on pretty much everything every individual in the world. Private individuals.

Not foreign governments, not dangerous people, not hostile people, but everyone.
Very inline with freedom of speech and all that, yeah sure.

And then the industrial espionage, just wow, USA expends a ridiculous amount of effort on it.
And using the NSA to tell US companies how to win bids against companies form elsewhere? That´s just low.

You know Airbus almost managed to drag Boeing to court for that. But then it´s all "national security" excuses and crap.

"basic intelligence gathering" doesn´t even make up 10% of USAs spying efforts.
And it spends more effort spying on "allies" and "friends" than on supposed enemies.

Zakharra wrote:Less approved, reading US citizen information that's not available to everyone, that is supposed to be warded and protected against unless the government has a good suspicion and a search warrant.

Yeah, and you really believe that your government does not have access to your "mail"?
They just put those operations under the nominal "ownership" of a suitable ally, like UK, and place it in their country.

Like i said, once you write things down, there´s always ways to ignore the intent of the words and only follow the legal limits of the text.

Kinda hard for something written a few hundred years ago to predict the internet don´t you think?

Zakharra wrote:Again I reiterate, just because people and politicians ignore parts of the Constitution doesn't mean the Constitution is itself is bad or outdated. Unfortunately, we the people aren't holding the politicians and Department people to task for their grievances. Unless we force the politicians to uphold the Constitution, it will be ignored by many of those politicians who care just for power.

It WAS not bad, but it IS outdated and at least partially bad NOW, because there´s too many loopholes found in it that when it was written noone had any possibility of knowing about.

Zakharra wrote:Politicians and big business people have been arrested and imprisoned (Berni Madoff and others). It's true that not all are convicted, but it's cost a fair number of politicians their jobs.

Oh marvellous. I´ll start believing that when Bush jr and his cronies are convicted for lying to the whole fricking world to start a war for their own greedy selves.

Maybe.

Zakharra wrote:No it's not a made up argument. YOU called the US Constitution an outdated document that is too rigid and can't be changed. By holding that opinion, it's clear you favor a constitution that can be far more easily changed.

It´s only clear if you insist on acting like a complete moron incapable of seeing anything beyond black and white.

I´m reasonably ok with the system here, which is that a change has to be voted through parliament twice, with an election in between.
Last time a change was made here was 2011, after the election 2010.

Zakharra wrote:When it comes to rights, those are upheld

For now perhaps. That you know of.

And you should be well aware that the constitution is interpreted by the supreme court, and of the way your two parties struggle to put the "right" people on that court...

And just how messed up that is.

Zakharra wrote:and public opinion has stopped and nailed a fair number of politicians when they get caught with dirty hands.

While the majority gets away.

Zakharra wrote:It does have methods in it to change it. It's just not easy to do on purpose. Why? Because the founders wanted to make sure a majority of the nation agreed on it, not a simple plurality, but a super majority.

It has methods mainly to amend it yes. But sometimes there is need to replace, or even start over completely in an area.
And you can´t do that.

Your own supreme court has also ruled that once something is regulated in the constitution, legislation over that area can never be removed, only altered(and just barely that).

The intent is quite fine, avoiding anyone having an on/off button for legality, but it also means lots of trouble for anything where you can NOT achieve the majority needed to enact changes, AND then also manage to get a change ratified.

People generally are made up of the same types, however different cultures do influence life time attitudes and values.

My personal view is that Americans tend more than many other cultures to have reverence for matters like their flag, their constitution and their religion.
Many other cultures would say that these are man made and thus inherently imperfect, so we should challenge their make up.

I wasn't surprised by the Scottish referendum result, as their culture tends to the dramatic but pragmatic. Thus when surveyed they would dramatically declare for yes, but at the actual vote when it mattered they voted pragmatically no.

I'm glad they voted no. A bare yes would have been a terrible result and it was looking that way for a while.

Isnt that why they needed a 55% yes to separate? to prevent a 49.9/50.1 split? Because thats what was in the papers here.

Annachie wrote:I'm glad they voted no. A bare yes would have been a terrible result and it was looking that way for a while.

Spacekiwi wrote:Isnt that why they needed a 55% yes to separate? to prevent a 49.9/50.1 split? Because thats what was in the papers here.

Annachie wrote:I'm glad they voted no. A bare yes would have been a terrible result and it was looking that way for a while.

No. A simple 50% +1 was rerquired.

Huh. BEcause in the papers here they talked about it needing a 55% for the majority to count for the yes crowd.

JimHacker wrote:
No. A simple 50% +1 was rerquired.