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"No nation is older than 250" (i.postimg.cc)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by to c/facepalm@lemmy.world
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TranscriptA threads post saying "There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America's 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that's already been said." It has a reply saying "My local pub is older than your country".

Edit: swapped image link, RIP lemm.ee

Original link: https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/b4d2f599-1922-4978-9db3-fc7832681c10.png

A threads post saying "There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America's 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that's already been said." It has a reply saying "My local pub is older than your country".
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[–] 223 points 1 year ago (19 children)

the u.s. is 'young', relative to the world stage, this is true; but its constitution is among the oldest in the world.. and it is starting to show its age.

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  • [–] 185 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Yeah, this is a misunderstanding among conservatives. Our legal system and government structure is woefully outdated, but our country is really young.

    It's like a teen athlete being really proud that he has the oldest sneakers of all the competitors.

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Your analogy has nothing to do with the topic. The topic is about the age of the countries, and their constitutions.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Constitutionalism is a new idea. Pioneered by America. Of course America will have the oldest until it collapses.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    England? If we talk about nations that became part of other nations, venice, lots of former city states in germany are even older

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    England still doesn't have a constitution. It's just a pile of old laws.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Just because it doesnt have a single document called "the constitution" doesnt mean they dont have one. A constitution is also just a bunch of laws.

    Germany has the Grundgesetz (eng.: basic law) but not a Verfassung (eng.: constitution) but the Grundgesetz basicly is the constitution. A constitution is just the collection of fundamental laws of a state

    Edit: and ye some laws are old, doesnt mean they are bad. "Seperation of chruch and state", "freedom of religion", "press freedom" "freedom of speech", "right to gather" aso are old laws from the bill of rights from 1689 and yet they are still good.

    Its not just about age, its about how a law is writen, phrased and its place in the modern day and society, that makes a law good or bad.

    Germany has a criminal law which forbids the dancing on good friday, and the till 1993 the Schaumweinsteuer for the emperors fleet (a tax on all bubbly alcoholic drinks)* long after it no longer had an emperor nore an empire nore an empirial fleet

    *side tangent: Man english is missing out so many great words. Atleast dutch has it as "Mousserende wijn"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Constitutionalism is based around the idea of having a legal system of two layers - ordinary day to day law, and a deeper more profound law that somehow matters more and should be harder to change.

    The US pioneered the idea of having a constitution from which the branches of government derives their power and that sets the rules of the game.

    In the UK, all laws are technically of equal value, and the system instead relies heavily on tradition and obscure institutions like the monarchy and house of lords. They don't have a constitution, though of course they have laws that constitutes the law of the land. It's not necessarily a bad thing - if laws existed for hundreds of years, it might be because they do some good or at least limited harm.

    German constitutionalism is largely built around the ideas of Kelsen, and is very much a system of constitutionalism. That they opted for the word Grundgesetz instead of Verfassung for the legal text is of course interesting, but who interprets this text other than the BundesVERFASSUNGSgericht? It's a constitution, they just named it the basic law. Reflecting precisely this two-level system of laws that constitutionalism is designed around, and that the UK lacks.

    What should and should not go into constitutions is an ongoing debate of course, but I haven't heard anyone argue for provisions about sparkling wine. Sadly.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    It was "showing its age" a not long after it was made. Two years later the French based their first written constution on the US one. Then other nations followed suit over the years and wanted their own, and they already thought the French one was the better option as a starting point.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    In fairness, given that the French are currently on their fifth attempt at a republic, the other nations were arguably wrong.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I'd say if you measure success by being able to change and try again instead of trying to keep a dead thing alive then maybe they were right

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Thomas Jefferson believed the constitution should be a living document.

    "let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates"

    Nature itself dictates so through the length of a generation: If the constitution outlives human, we end up being ruled by the dead rather than by the living, as a democracy presupposes.

    One could assume this would mean that they should last a lifetime, but in a letter to James Madison, Jefferson expresses the belief that each generation have the right to their own:

    Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right

    This was the ideas of a central founding father of American democracy. Yet today, authoritarian tools in the supreme court are using their perceived legislative intent of the founding fatgers to justify all kinds of fucked up shit. The intent of the founding fathers was that the nation should move the fuck on and not be stuck in the past.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Yet today, authoritarian tools in the supreme court

    This isn't a problem with SCOTUS. In no way were they supposed to "re-interpret" the Constitution in order to keep it alive. The idea that a very small group of unelected Jackasses should have that power is clearly the complete opposite of what the Founders intended.

    The normal way it stays "living", which is what Jefferson is talking about in those quotes, is via the Amendment process. The abnormal way it gets refreshed, which Jefferson also sometimes wrote about, was via revolution.

    What SHOULD be happening is that when something needs changed Congress passes a law to do it. If that law turns out to be in conflict with the Constitution then Congress starts the Amendment process. Then it and the States vote to Ratify that Amendment to the Constitution and then the thing is done.

    The process is difficult but doable, or at least it used to be. In today's world our Congress is a lazy pile of decrepit assholes desperately trying to do as little as possible.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's fair. I believe if one should have an almost religious approach to the constitution, it is important to be able to interpret it in light of the current day. But you are right that the best solution is not necessarily to allow dynamic interpretation, but to leave religion outside of politics and focus on creating good laws.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Conversely, if you were to measure success by how long it takes for the whole thing to collapse into a dictatorship, then the US constitution still isn't looking too bad, in comparison.

    But then, who am I to judge? The closest thing we have to a constitution in the UK is a textbook written by Dicey in the late 1800s.

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