[eqvinox]

The U.S. is running an outdated installation of democracy. The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Except the populace is already badly split into warring camps.

[dmix]

> The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point.

Do you mean the French Revolution? If you actually read the history on that (even basic stuff beyond the "Reign of Terror") I don't think any person would want to experience that for their country. It had tons of indiscriminate violence and took a decade of chaos before they sorted out into a real government, which then resulted in Napolean's coup

[ternus]

I read this as a reference to the Fourth and Fifth Republic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Fifth_Republic

(I've read that the French are talking about a Sixth, given that they've gone through several prime ministers in the past few weeks/months and seem unable to maintain a government long enough to pass anything.)

[eqvinox]

ACK on all. I should be a bit more clear maybe.

[kalavan]

It's more likely a reference to France currently being the Fifth Republic.[1] The transition from the Fourth to the Fifth happened in 1958 without much violence.

[1] https://thegoodlifefrance.com/short-history-of-the-five-repu...

[eqvinox]

Thanks, yes, it was a reference to Fourth to Fifth, and maybe soon Sixth Republic (depending on how things go…)

[CaptainOfCoit]

Interestingly, the Fifth has then been running for 67 years so far, which makes the Third Republic still the longest running republic of France! I guess in around three years they'll be having a grand party.

[eqvinox]

Those 3 years are on shaky grounds, the way they're burning through Prime Ministers ;)

[CaptainOfCoit]

Compared to some other places around the world, looks pretty stable :) Take Peru as an example, they've had 5 different presidents in the last 5 years, shortest one being president for 5 days, and since Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), not a single president has completed their full term.

[taink]

> The transition from the Fourth to the Fifth happened in 1958 without much violence.

Quoting from the article:

  Things came to a head in 1958 as France struggled to decolonize. There was strong opposition within France to Algerian independence and part of the army openly rebelled. Important generals threatened a coup unless de Gaulle was returned to power. They sent paratroopers to capture Corsica in case anyone missed their point.

The article even fails to mention Operation Resurrection. Hopefully we don't need coups every time we want a new constituent assembly.

[Maken]

You never want the French Revolution... except when your country is ruled by an absolute monarch and you are essentially his slave forever. The American Revolution had the advantage of having the king an entire ocean away and no other neighbor kings panicking and declaring war on you immediately.

[ratelimitsteve]

we actually had the help of the french king as well, in a sort of "enemy mine" scenario that has resulted in towns near me with french names pronounced in american accents. We've got North Vur-sales (Versailles) and Shar-luh-roy (Charleroi) and I can't help but think that Lafayette would've gone right back home if he know we were gonna do this to his language.

Prussians, too. A lot of Europe seemed to not really feel one way or another about the plucky little colony but had very strongly defined feelings about damaging Great Britain.

[AceyMan]

I suspect the OP meant their semi-presidential/dual-executive system w/ parliament (although at this point, storming the Bastille is starting to look pretty good...).

[jonathrg]

Yeah that's pretty much what happened last time I tried to reinstall my distro

[Pxtl]

The term "the French Revolution" is kinda misleading because by the normal definition of "revolution" they had a few of those not just one.

[ratelimitsteve]

it's misleading without context. luckily nothing humans ever do is without context and the french revolution has referred to the revolution of 1789 since...well, since 1789.

[Pxtl]

I don't mean it's misleading in that people are wondering "which revolution?". Everybody knows the French Revolution means the one involving The Terror and the death of Louis XVI.

I mean that it implies France didn't have several other revolutions.

[ratelimitsteve]

if the phrasing leads everyone to the correct understanding then it's not misleading. it's leading. it's reductive, but it's not misleading.

[forgotoldacc]

Tech corps and ex-PayPal guys would be putting billions into making a new constitution and it would be far, far worse than what we have now. And while the French love using violence and destruction to defend their countrymen and their rights, Americans would gladly be lemmings off a cliff so long as someone told them it pissed someone else off.

[kelnos]

For better or worse, the US constitution does not have provisions or a process for dissolving itself and developing a new constitution.

The closest thing we have is the amendment process. In theory we could use that to rewrite the entirety of the constitution[0], but good luck getting the required votes in place on any possible replacement. The bar is pretty high: amendments need to be proposed by either a vote of 2/3 of Congress, or by a constitutional convention convened by 2/3 of the state legislatures, and then ratified by 3/4 of all state legislatures.

We couldn't get that sort of agreement to pass something as theoretically uncontroversial as the Equal Rights Amendment. It's laughable to think we could pass a "new constitution" that way.

I expect the only way we could end up with a new constitution is through a bloody civil war, or some sort of coup. Hopefully no one wants something like that, though. I certainly don't.

[0] Technically the entirety of the constitution can't be amended; Article V, Section 5 prohibits an amendment from changing each state's equal representation in the Senate. Though I suppose a "rewrite amendment" might get around that by preserving the Senate as-is as a ceremonial body without any power. That would certainly violate the spirit of that wording in Article V, so I imagine it would be challenged in court.

[dimal]

We don’t need a full rewrite. Despite the divisions in this country, there are a couple things that most people agree on:

- Corporate money should be out of politics

- Gerrymandering should be stopped

If we had amendments for these two things, it could change A LOT. Congress might actually be able to function. Corporate corruption could be prosecuted. We might be possible to put meaningful limits on corporate power.

Of course, the devil’s in the details. How do you write amendments for these two things in a way that actually accomplishes the goals? But though it would be difficult, I don’t think it would be impossible.

[lsaferite]

Can we throw some form of ranked choice voting in there as well? As someone unhappy with either major party, I want the ability to vote what I actually want with a backup vote indicating what I absolutely don't want under any circumstances.

[drysart]

It's worth noting that Article V, Section 5 doesn't prohibit itself from being amended away. So you just need the constitutional convention to refer two new amendments: the first one stripping the restriction itself, and the second one to do what the restriction prohibited being done.

[Imustaskforhelp]

So theoretically if any one of the party in american system gets 2/3rd people of the same party and they all agree to one person and try to amend the constitution itself to add whatever they want, can't they theoretically create a purest form of dictatorship (one which lasts forever instead of just 5 years)

I mean given how much is already happening in America, I am just curious from a legal standpoint if there could be done something like that (forgetting the insane backlash but still), what could the president of america do to completely sieze the constitution ?

[ashanoko]

Put it under a the peoples direct majority vote to reset to a past working version control?

[netsharc]

Heh, a balkanized USA, or one with different warlords like Afghanistan, would be interesting to see...

"In this region, I'm the ruler, and here we believe in TERF!".

[Pxtl]

I wanna be a citizen of Mr Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

[sigwinch]

Trademark Curtis Yarvin

[unethical_ban]

Yep. We might have been the first PC, but we're running windows 3.11 while the rest of the world runs a new OS.

We need ranked or approval voting, elimination of gerrymandering. Strongly prefer elimination of Citizens United and the Senate.

[kelnos]

Unfortunately, eliminating the Senate (or more precisely, each state's equal representation in the Senate) is the one and only thing that the constitution forbids an amendment from doing (see Article V, Section 5):

> Provided that no Amendment [...] no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

(Awkward ellipsizing, but the elided text is another thing that's not allowed, which expired in 1808, and is otherwise thankfully no longer relevant.)

Better voting systems can be implemented, but since the states run federal elections, each state would have to pass legislation requiring a different voting system. Of course I expect all 50 would not agree on which alternative system is the best, which may or may not matter. And I doubt red states would want to change, as voting systems that better reflect the will of the electorate tend to disadvantage the GOP.

Eliminating gerrymandering is difficult, because it's hard to objectively define what is and isn't a gerrymandered map. There have been some attempts to do so, and I would say they've even been somewhat successful, but people can reasonably disagree with the methodology and thresholds used.

The Citizens United SCOTUS ruling and precedent absolutely needs to be reversed; agreed. Corporations are not people and should not get first amendment protections. Or any kind of protections outside any that are defined in regular law.

Another thing we need to do away with is the Electoral College. Presidents should be elected based on the national popular vote, not by per-state winner-take-all proxies, with vote apportionment that wildly advantages some states over others. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would effectively do away with the EC if states "owning" at least 270 electoral votes were to all sign it, but that's unlikely to ever happen. (Then again, it's more likely that the Compact would achieve that threshold than the passing of a constitutional amendment to abolish the EC.)

[Terr_]

> Article V, Section 5

We should amend it [0] so that any state may subdivide within its own borders without the consent of the Senate, provided that no subdivision is smaller (less-populous) than the smallest current state.

In other words, small states don't have to give up their disproportionate representation in the Senate... but they cannot use that power to monopolize being small either. Any state above a certain size (>2x the smallest) may decide that its constituents are best-served by fission.

This adheres to Article V, Section 5, since no state is being deprived of "equal suffrage": Each state has 2 senators, just like always.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union

[kaelwd]

California would have to split into 68 separate states to have the same representation as Wyoming.

[Terr_]

Correct, although I can't them every actually going N=67. There are diminishing returns, budgetary costs, difficulty drawing lines, and plenty of residents might simply be against it.

However, that still ought to be California's decision to make, as opposed to minority Wyoming-gang's to veto. Even if a big state doesn't actually do it, having the latent option is itself a subtle influence on interstate politics.

[mlrtime]

This is all regurgitated speech from a voter in a urban area. 99% chance you live in one of the major metro regions and vote mostly like your neighbors.

For the other half the country, we really don't want to Federal laws to be decided by people in other states that don't share the same values. This is why state rights exist and will not be removed (at least in our lifetime).

[unethical_ban]

This is all speech from a voter in a rural area, happy they get to tell the rest of the country how to behave despite being a minority of the vote.

Allow me to be "aggressive" as well:

For the other 60% of the country, we don't want Federal laws held up by people in arbitrarily drawn political districts and don't share our values regarding human rights and dignity. This is why, while states do retain broad rights to administer their internal affairs, spending and education, federal laws should be altered with a majority, excepting certain fundamental laws like the Constitution.

[teiferer]

> For the other half the country, we really don't want to Federal laws to be decided by people in other states that don't share the same values.

Do you reject majority votes in general or do you merely propose explicit minority protections for non-urban communities?

[belorn]

Looking from a EU perspective, majority votes based on population is quite bad and would result in the european union to not be a union since the low population countries would leave. Germany and France would gain even more power than they have now, so giving smaller countries a small boost in relative power is part of what encourage them to be there.

[lenkite]

> Do you reject majority votes in general or do you merely propose explicit minority protections for non-urban communities?

Does your system of voting include anyone who just comes in or is restricted to only citizens with verified ID ? If the latter, then majority voting is completely fine.

[teiferer]

What does a verified ID have to do with values?

The context was: "decided by people in other states that don't share the same values."

[mlrtime]

That is way to general of a question, I'm speaking of the system of government in America, a republic democracy, United States.

If whatever city/state you live in wants to have majority-vote for all issues, please go do it.

[teiferer]

Sure. I was asking about you personally, in your particular situation. Whether you don't agree with majority votes overall, or whether your are fine with them but want a minority protection for this specific case.

[unethical_ban]

Well, your defense of the status quo states that rural voters inherently deserve more voting power than urban voters for all decisions.

[cool_man_bob]

> For the other half the country, we really don't want to Federal laws to be decided by people in other states that don't share the same values.

Funny people can look at Arabs or Indians and identify “these people have a diametrically opposed culture and cannot peacefully coexist with me”, but can’t extended that to people that look like them and are also diametrically opposed.

It’s delusional to try and maintain a country that’s developed such opposed cultures. You can try to force peace for a while, but it always bubbles back up.

[hollerith]

>It’s delusional to try and maintain a country that’s developed such opposed cultures.

Have the subcultures of the US diverged over time or does it just seem that way because it is easier to publish non-moderate opinions because of the internet?

[unethical_ban]

The Internet and cable probably helped spur this movement of bubbles, where economically and socially insecure people can be told their problems aren't caused by the wealthy or the corrupt, but by non-Christians and immigrants.

I think a lot of people, particularly on the right, cannot define what they actually want this country to look like in 20-30 years or how it needs to get there.

[Imustaskforhelp]

I want to share this comment that some nice gentleman had written on one of my comments in some different thread.

Helped me understand a lot about modern america, but tldr, no it feels like its always been this way

source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45376949

[tguvot]

clarifying/limiting presidential power and ending lifetime appointments for federal/supreme court judges could be useful

[ashanoko]

The first Version had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism as a way to eject populists, treasonous agitators and destabilizing personal.

[rayiner]

The U.S. is VMS. France is BeOS. The former actually does work regardless of how kludgy it is.

[cool_man_bob]

They’re both obsolete?