The beauty in the Constitution was that it laid out plans for a very well functioning system of government. It ensured changes had to be made with broad support across the nation, and provided for a very strong judiciary. It at once created a strong Federal system that at the same time was highly resistant to tyranny (again, relatively speaking.)

There have been many constitutions written across the world since, but many of them fall along the same lines as the perceptions and wishes espoused by those who misinterpret ours: They are thick documents that attempt to codify the nation's values and morals, as well as establish rules to live by.

The issue with that is that people and nations change, not to mention it is disadvantageous to the weak or minorities. It's why most of the third world has gone through numerous constitutions...

The U.S. Constitution did none of these things. It lays out a system of governance and conflict resolution. It specified powers. There is only one crime, treason, specif iced in the whole document. And most importantly, it laid out a system to make changes that would ensure the broadest support. That's it.

I groan every time some pundit makes the charge that we don't follow the constitution because of some moral outage or perceived cultural mistake being made that the Constitution is perceived to have provided for. It's the modern day bible, held up to be followed but never read.

>all suggest that there are things wrong with the American constitution.

Depending on your interpretation of "Wrong", I'd either agree or disagree. But the general point I was trying to make was that I don't find too many flaws with the examples you provided, and with regards to the third amendment, I was trying to provide an example in which even older parts of the document still have a lot of relevance, despite seeming stale at face value.

I didn't mean to insult your intelligence by providing the history lesson though; when I write a reply I do so imagining everyone in the discussion is reading, so while it is probably not new information to you, it might be to someone else. That's the real value in our talk here.

Sorry about that,

Cheers. =)

One other flaw I just put to wtbob below is that the way the document structures elections, the result is a two-party system that simply cannot adequately represent hundreds of millions of people of diverse backgrounds. Given that the document was raised explicitly in response to inadequate representation, that's a problem. Is it the worst problem ever in a constitution? No, but it is still an issue.

Edit: For comparison, here in Australia we have a couple of major parties, a couple of big minor parties, and a scattering of small parties all in government at the moment. Or in Germany, it's entirely normal for major parties to have to band together to form a majority in order to govern - from memory, Merkel's party gets about 25% of the vote, and has to create a coalition with other parties to get the majority required. There is space in these systems for new parties to rise, and the concept of "you're either for us or against us" is nowhere near as prevalent as in the US. These systems have their issues too, but they are more representative of their people due to their flexibility.

Re: Germany, (I live abroad in Germany right now, it's fascinating to watch) The fascinating thing was in this latest election, her party very nearly won an outright majority, meaning it would have required no partners at all. I think the CSU/CDU felt just short of the 51% required. There's never been such a sweeping victory of that scale since the party's inception in the 50's.