[syshax]

>We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that.

Actually, I think this is the genius of the amendment system.

You are correct that it could happen. But unlike laws that can be passed or revoked by Congress by political whim, the barrier to creating or overturning Constitutional amendments is much higher and more difficult to pass.

[aaronharnly]

There's a famous story about the logician Kurt Gödel related to this.[1] In preparation for the US citizenship test, despite assurances from his friends Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern that the test was a mere formality, he studied assiduously all sorts of details about local and national government, including the US Constitution.

He quite excitedly told Einstein and Morgenstern that he had found a weakness in the Constitution that would allow the US to become a dictatorship. They were horrified and tried to tell him not to bring up such ideas at the hearing, but the judge happened to note that it was a good thing that in the US, unlike Gödel's native Austria, we were not a dictatorship -- which prompted Gödel to begin explaining his discovery...[2]

Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to write down what Gödel's idea was! But it has been speculated[3] that it is this: that the Article V provision for constitutional amendments does not exclude that provision itself from amendment -- so it is possible to first pass an amendment making it easier to pass amendments, after which it could be a short trip to dictatorship under the right conditions.

Fanciful, but a fascinating story. Picturing Gödel, Einstein, and Morgenstern hanging out and being playful with each other is a treat.

[1] http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com

[2] https://d78508e2-a-97b1dc77-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/jeffr...

[3] http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=42406910501309506...

[roywiggins]

The Constitution is pretty much only as strong as the institutions that interpret and enforce it. It's all sort of a collective hallucination that the Constitution has any power in and of itself. "Godelian" defects seem a lot less dangerous to me than plain-old human factors.

The UK manages to be a Parliamentary democracy without having a single coherent constitution at all, let alone one free of logical defects- so having a perfectly consistent and "loophole-free" constitution doesn't seem particularly important in practice.

The easiest way to wholly undermine the US Constitution is to just expand the Supreme Court bench and then pack it with your cronies, who will then let you do whatever you want and call it constitutional. No amendment needed!

[Ntrails]

Sometimes I think there's just as much, if not more, leeway in interpreting the "God Document" that is the constitution, than in not having one and relying on what is essentially "prior art".

[studentrob]

Plus the point of our system is to allow both good and bad ideas to be discussed openly so everyone can decide their merits. We haven't seen the likes of Trump since Nixon, and he won't be the last, but we are stronger for giving him room to speak. The bad ideas will hang themselves, even if he becomes president. The US president is not all powerful. There are many limits in place.

[EdHominem]

I feel like we're more immunized against religious flavors of crazy. Like, Cruz is probably further from mentally balanced than Trump even, but if he became president he probably wouldn't cause the same level of trouble.

Trump's ideas are "new" in that he does say them first. They appeal to many because we all know the old ideas aren't great, from painful experience. Trump's brand of crazy hasn't hurt us in a long time so we don't see it.

As an example: Bush senior said he didn't even think atheists could be considered citizens. But there's 0% chance that he'd try to enact that, or that it'd pass. Trump's ideas have the veneer of "business decisions" and seem more likely to get enacted.

[studentrob]

> Trump's ideas have the veneer of "business decisions" and seem more likely to get enacted.

All the more reason to start being active in discussions about his ideas.

The most compelling for me is he is okay with arming Japan with nuclear weapons.

Trump claims China is tipping the balance of power by building tiny islands in the South China Sea. These are relatively close to China and far from the US. He claims this could kick off WW 3 if not properly off set by adding something to the other side of the scale. He says he'd be okay with arming multiple new nation states, including South Korea and Japan, to balance things again.

But arming new nation states with nuclear weapons would severely throw things out of balance. It'd take years for these countries to ramp up the skills necessary to handle nuclear weapons. And during this time, China could build a decent PR campaign in their country encouraging citizens to come together to fight Japan. Japan has still not apologized for all the atrocities they committed in China during WW II, and some Chinese people do not like that. Pour some gasoline on that small fire and it could spread.

Knowing China's feelings towards Japan after WW II, China's population would certainly not accept Japan having nukes. They might come together to fight a war. Even though China is not a democracy, they still need their people to unify around a common cause in order to choose war over revolution.

I doubt many of Trump's supporters would agree that giving Japan nukes is a good idea. They're the one country we used nukes against. So, it's a good point to bring up with potential Trump voters. I'd like to see that idea of his get more attention so people can see just how impractical he is. Giving SK and Japan nukes isn't just a matter of the US President signing a piece of paper. There are international treaties, diverse governments and populations in place, and as far as I know, Trump has not been to any of those places.