I think there is an oppurtunity for a coalition between the far left and the far right over civil liberties, if only we can "agree to disagree" on economic theories until the rule of law under the Constitution has been restored. (There's even a good brand hook built-in: the Green Tea Party.)
I'm not American
All this talk of "the Constitution" as though it is some kind of 100% correct holy document handed down from on high to our superior ancestors is pretty irrelevant in the rest of the world.
It's extremely frustrating.
Or, more succinctly, "Build bridges, not guard rails." It irritates me that American politics is often an exclusive-or choice between freedom and justice.
The meme of "Restore the Constitution" can either be seen as a first step towards that goal, and/or a realistic low bar for what can actually be achieved. (The Constitution has always been somewhat broken, given our history with slavery, suffrage, and wartime abuses, but it's a more comforting narrative for most conservatives.)
If we could somehow pass a new constitutional amendment, I think the most urgent matter is electoral reform: instant run-off, and publicly financed elections. Whether you believe in a big or small government, we deserve one that we genuinely believe reflects our values, rather than the blatant corruption and "lesser evils" we live with now. If you remove the left-right smokescreen, Americans agree on more issues than it would seem; restoring faith in the democratic process would catalyze new progress in other arenas from there.
But it's not a first step towards that goal. A significant number of people who chant "Restore the Constitution" mean "before the Fourteenth Amendment".
> If we could somehow pass a new constitutional amendment
That's not restoration.
> I think the most urgent matter is electoral reform: instant run-off, and publicly financed elections.
That's fine. You don't need to rally behind "Restore the Constitution" to advocate for that.
We can keep bickering over our disagreements, or we can unite over our common ground. The latter is bound to have much higher efficacy.
Once again, you talk about how the government is sinning against your Bible. Your term for this deviation is "overreach", and your response to it is to "pushback" and put forward a messiah. These are guard rails. You are envisioning a future defined by what is not true: by the dearth of government overreach, by a less indiscriminate usage of drones, and so on. These are not bridges. They are walls.
Forgive me if I don't tithe, but I am not a member of this church.
You can build your coalition, but near as I can tell, you are acting against my interests.
To be clear: are you referring to working within a conventional political system (over 50% consensus), or outside the political system, through NGOs/technology/etc? The former is more easily achieved by allying with those you disagree with. What would be your practical strategy to building bridges instead? Not with long-term "consciousness change", but right now, today?
This is a campaign promise. This is where the jackbooted thugs come from. We never imagine ourselves to be the ones who start the oppression; it's always such a small compromise. We ally ourselves with someone who is distasteful, but gets the job done.
And the bridges never even get a blueprint, because our only concern is the quality and placement of the guard rails. That's all we end up discussing. We talk about freedom as if we knew what it was, and our first step is to curtail it because the people we don't like have more freedoms than the people we do like. And suddenly we look like Mohamed Morsi.
> What would be your practical strategy to building bridges instead?
We do something uncanny: we think about what we're doing. We consider why we want to do what we want to do. We strengthen our own ethical framework and hold it up for others to take apart. We turn our actions into natural consequences of a tested ethical structure. We ask others to do the same. We teach them how to build one if they don't know how. We compare and contrast our results. We argue about them; we disagree about them; we compromise and find ways to build policies despite those merge conflicts. That's a bridge.
Yeah, it can be argued that that's less practical than getting all the pro-slavery people in power and then hoping they fix our surveillance issues. Or maybe they'll just surveil the brown people and the atheist commies? It's unclear. A good chunk of them are in power right now, and they didn't actually stop this from happening. What would you trade with them for due process? Should we scratch health care? Religious freedom? Infrastructure maintenance? Public education? What would you give them for their support? You should know, and you should know why: that's part of practicality.
Yeah, it will take more time, more effort, more sweat, more tears. It's a harder road, because it's less traveled. But if you're going to pursue due process, why isn't the process due here?
What is government supposed to look like? Surely not "the status quo, minus a panopticon". What does a government predicated on human rights principles that transcend nationality actually look like? Why? What are the necessary demands on a state and society that such principles require? List out the rights. Prioritize them, if you wish, and postpone some that you consider least important. What are the consequences of meeting such demands? What does the resultant society and state actually look like? Who holds what power, and how, and why?
What is the collateral damage of your actions? Justify its acceptability. And try to make it more legitimate than, "This is what I care about most, so it's the most important."
All of that. Because you're promising me to build the bridge eventually, but every time I put down a beam, someone says, "Oh, I need that for another guard rail. Sorry." And pretty soon all we have are prisons and an American dream you have to be asleep to believe in. That's "right now, today".
Show me how you're not just more of the same.
Unfortunately, I don't believe it's about the Constitution right now. I think the problem is that civic priorities have shifted.
I think after the 1830's decision to use the commerce clause in more encroach into a broader role that it was a pragmatic decision at the time... however, that expanded role continued into what we have today. We should emphatically NOT have domestic arms of the U.S. Government with the power that the DoJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, DEA, ICE and their ilk are holding.
And the truth is, after the Civil War we shifted from a Federation into a Nation, with a National government. It's a situation we either have to accept or attempt to change, but that's what exists.
While the existing Constitution should be upheld as a first step, I do believe that some or all of the human rights protections should extend to all persons, not just citizens, and that spying on allies during peacetime is unacceptable. On a practical level, international spying is just a run-around for domestic spying anyway: we snoop on the UK's servers, they snoop on ours, and whoops, data on our own citzens!
I also think there is an oppurtunity for transnational democratic organizations, as depicted in Neal Stephenson's concept of "phyles". With enough people banding together worldwide, we can protect human rights with force, yet without violence.
Yes. But now your are talking about a world government. Do you think the one you hate would not have a major role? If they didn't have a major role would that really be a world government? Your country could try to negotiate anti-spying treaties, but your government is likely complicit. Maybe there is a seed for world governance here, but more likely politicians will play both sides as they always do.
In actual fact, you can just expand a constitution to explicitly include privacy for all humans, regardless of citizenship/nationality. The US courts could hold the US government to that standard.
It also is not an solely American ideology as concepts such as the flat tax and equality before the law can be seen in the Leveller Movement of 17th Century Britain. http://www.levellers.org/lev.htm
Then you prefer to get your ideology and news pre-digested, do you?
(I reckon it's always a mistake to restrict your reading so that it conforms to your own worldview.)
I'm not a libertarian. Libertarianism is a specifically American ideology that can be pigeon-holed best as right-anarchism. I'm not American: I'm a leftist with a strong attachment to social contracts, civil liberties, and freedom. If it causes you to stop buying my books because it doesn't gel with your preconception of what I ought to be, that's fine by me. But you don't get to tell me not to talk about it.