And over at CNN, we have commentator Fareed Zakaria musing about revising the US Constitution. you’d expect an article like that to generate a lot of comments, and you’d be right. The comment thread has over 1000 comments. They range from ones rebutting Zakaria’s suggestions about changing the Senate and Electoral College like this:

Rick House

While the electoral college suggestions are not without merit, your suggestion about the Senate shows your total lack of understanding of how (and why) the Senate exists. Please do some research before you display your ignorance.
The House of Representatives is the portion of Congress which represents (to a degree) the “one-man-one-vote” idea. The number of Representatives are based on population numbers. A small state, like Rhode Island, doesn’t have as much representation (and thus, as much power) as a more populous state. There is no way a smaller state could block any legislation of larger states. The Senate is designed specifically to prevent such “mob rule”. Each state, no matter the size, must come to accords on equal footing. Therefore, a minority of populous states cannot push legislation which is detrimental to smaller states. So you need to do some more research. I (personally) think you should retract your comments and publish your new understanding of the Constitution.

People’s own proposals such as:

Oldmanriver

I think Zakaria was just asking us to think about it rather than as a serious proposal. What if we would re write our constitution how would it be different from the one we have. think about this

1 Keep the bill of rights and/or change them so that everyone has equal protection under the law
2 Get rid of representitive government altogether
3 Using current technology every voter would be given the chance to vote on new laws.
4 Laws and ammendments could be recommended but in order to et them to a vote there would have to be some sort of process which a certain percentage of voters would have to agree that its good enough to vote on. The supreme court or some other body would have to review the law in question before it came to a vote. The bill would have to be in language that everyone could understand, not lawyereze. Have experts come in to answer questions about how proposed bill would expect to change things. Then let the public decide.
5. This would reduce corruption because there would be so many people voting you couldnt bribe all of them. It would eliminate earmarks and pet projects because the bill would have to stand up to national oversite. You would have fewer tax breaks and special concerns for select buisnesses as well. There would be less horse trading to get bills signed into law.
6. You could keep the executive branches and judicial branches the same to keep the checks and balances.

Problems with this:
Would enough people vote to make it worthwhile?
Would enough people be willing to educate themselves on a subject before voting?
How would you make it so that it does not just become a tyranny of the majority?
What would rules for advertising for or against a bill be set up?
Can you set up a voting system secure enough that a smart hacker could not change the number of yes or no votes?

This is just an idea…I think Mr Zakaria was wanting our opinion on how we would change things if we could.
June 20, 2011 at 3:21 pm |

Through posts of people pushing things like “nationalpopularvote.com” to outright DERP!s like this last Alex Jones-inspired missive:

Eric

Zakaria is a globalist, he wants a world government, this is why he wants to “change” the constitution. Don’t fall for the world of this traitor.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/zakaria-america-is-doomed-because-it-fails-to-embrace-globalism.html
June 20, 2011 at 1:03 pm | Reply