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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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[–] 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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