[george-in-sd]

Russia and China recently amended their constitution to ensure their respective leaders can stay in power permanently. Having some unchangeable bedrock in a country seems very valuable as we are all vulnerable to tyrants at some point in history.

[danjac]

Constitutions, at the end of the day, are just pieces of paper that can be ignored entirely. The 1977 Soviet Constitution was a landmark in human rights and freedom of expression, but nobody was kidding themselves that this was the reality of Brezhnev's USSR. On the other hand a country like the UK can wing it without a solid constitution at all - just a bedrock of tradition and past legal precedent - yet still remain (despite many glaring faults and recent backsliding) a relatively free country in global and historical terms.

What matters is that the society itself believes in the traditions of democracy, freedom and the rule of law. If that withers and dies, perhaps because people no longer consider these ideals to be as important as their pet ideologies, or because the citizens no longer share a common epistemological reality, or because oligarchs are given free reign to buy politicians, courts and media, then it doesn't really matter any more what your vaunted Constitution says.

[jimmytidey]

I think I'd take the opposite lesson from these examples: if an individual gets sufficiently powerful, they will change the constitution irrespective of how much you formally considered it an 'unchangeable bedrock'.

[prottog]

Some constitutions, like that of the US, are designed to prevent any individual from amassing such power. The Russian and Chinese constitutions aren't in that same school.

[hot_gril]

Yeah, but it's a lot harder.

[askvictor]

If you have a broken electoral system (like the US arguably has), and/or can ignore election results (as nearly happened in 2020), then you have no unchangeable bedrock. Don't kid yourself that you're not vulnerable to tyrants.

[woodruffw]

There's no such thing as an unchangeable government. Even if there was, the US is certainly not one: we have lots of constitutional amendments (including ones that prevent exactly what you just said).

[int_19h]

In Russia and China, the constitutional amendment process isn't really democratic, so it's not a fair comparison. In particular, all the various Russian referenda on constitutional amendments since 2000 are about as meaningful as the recent referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories. So it wouldn't matter even if it were as hard or harder to amend as the US constitution - not when the parliament and the regions consistently vote unanimously for anything that Putin puts in front of them.

[yieldcrv]

Many non-authoritarian countries don’t have term limits for their head of state.

US only got Presidential term limits several decades ago. Simply codifying a tradition after it was challenged. The term limits haven’t always been a net positive.

Something more modern to prevent tyrants could be helpful.

[fuoqi]

You are factually wrong about Russia. The new constitution removes the loophole used by Putin which restricted presidency of a single person by two consecutive terms. Thus in past he has used Medvedev as a seat warmer for one term, while holding most of the real power. Because it's a new constitution, his old terms got "reset" (it's quite debatable whether such reset is legitimate or not). In theory, after the new two terms he will not be able to get a third one and any future Russian president will be limited by two terms similarly to the US (well, unless of course the constitutions does not get changed again...).

Also, you call the US constitution unchangeable? It's quite laughable. Not only there is a bunch of amendments, but real power structures have changed as well. Starting from the increased size and power of the federal government as opposed to what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers, following by the two terms restriction on presidents, and ending with the creation of the central banking system, which arguably goes against the spirit of the Constitution.

[anikan_vader]

> and ending with the creation of the central banking system, which arguably goes against the spirit of the Constitution.

I see you're not a fan of Alexander Hamilton. The (first) US bank predates the other items in your list, though.

[fuoqi]

Are you unable to see the difference between the first and second national banks and the Fed behemoth which was created in 1900s and got only fatter (in the sense of power it holds over the national economy) ever since?

[pyuser583]

When Putin is ineligible for reelection, he’ll be 84 year old.

[fuoqi]

And? It does not change that the OP is factually wrong. Also, compare the Putin's age with Biden who wants to run for presidency at 82.