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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Because the constitution is the document that lays out the foundation for all of our legal rights and the limitations placed on the government that are intended to keep it accountable to the people. It's not perfect, but it does cover a hell of a lot, even more gets expanded on through legislation and the courts, and when necessary it can be (and has been) amended.
But it's also just ink and parchment. It can't do anything if the government decides to ignore it. It's the people who give power to the constitution. The more it is valued by the people across the country, throughout the political spectrum, both inside and outside the halls of power, the more likely it will be that those protections are respected. And when those protections are violated, people are far more likely to push back. And many within the government are also more likely to push back. That's literally the only reason we didn't have an overturned election, because numerous people at all levels of government said no, many despite being aligned with the assholes that were trying to stay in power.
So yes, I would very much prefer it if everyone would treat the constitution with some reverence if that's what it takes. The alternative is not pretty.
Maybe.
But we don't have people storming the capital in an attempt to overthrow elections here (UK) and we don't have a formal constitution.
The two things might be unrelated.
And we did have some guys trying to storm the Reichstag in Berlin, we do have a constitution, but we don't call it constitution and it's also more of a permanent draft.
IMO the constitution is that important to Americans, because they don't really have tradition or culture to draw from. The USA is a very young country. Yes I know that technically modern day Germany, Italy and others are younger. However, those countries have many centuries of tradition and culture to draw from.
Pretty much every country has some form of 'the highest law', which is intentionally kept rather abstract. Afterall it is the framework for more specific laws to fill in and regulate daily life. But an identity and feeling of self for the USA pretty much started with the civil war. Which lead to the writing of the constitution, their 'highest law'. The constitution is part of the creation mythos for the USA. A marking point of when people start to think of themselves as Americans, a sovereign entity. Since the USA, compared to other countries, doesn't have much more culture to draw from, the relative importance of that one piece is inevitably higher.
Given the state of the country thanks to the Tories, maybe you should.
Honestly, it's been in continual decline my entire life. Thatcher put an end to any sense of social responsibility, New Labour ushered in the era of post-truth politics, Boris and his bunch didn't even have to pretend that they were acting in the interest of the country.
Anything short of full political reform will only end up being the next phase in this hell spiral.
That is not the issue at all though, you can change the constitution and still hold it in reverence, in fact it would probably be easier to have reverence for it if that was possible.
The problem is that all political constructs does become antiquated over time. It needs to be updated and modernised through amendments or even a rewrite, but the way the US political system is dictated to be makes it virtually impossible to do now. Even mundane legislation cannot be passed any longer, let alone amendments. It is a problem which should have been taken care of long ago, but now it is basically too late for even the slightest attempts at tweaking it.
We do change the Constitution. 26 times so far. There is a process for it, laid out in the Constitution itself. But the process is designed to avoid being used for flavor of the week, and requires a broad consensus.
Zoomers: head explodes
We REALLY need to fund our schools