Okay, yes, that's worrying...

[avevale_intelligencer]

Apparently the Republican front-runner wants to amend the Constitution so that it's more in line with what he sees as God's will. Presumably he will go on to recommend that the text in all published books and periodicals be replaced with the text of the Bible, since, after all, why would you ever want to read another book?

That is (I think) a crank. That is (I think) a loony. And if that has a hope in hell of becoming President, especially after the last one, then maybe the Constitution does need amending, if only to introduce some sort of screening.

The interesting thing from an outsider's standpoint is the depth of feeling a threat to the Constitution seems to arouse. After all, it's just a set of rules written down hundreds of years ago by a bunch of old guys who didn't even know about the Internet. But I can well imagine from what I've read on the subject that some Americans, reading that last sentence, might have felt the same kind of stab of anger--how dare I!--that a Christian might feel if I were to suggest on the same grounds that the Bible could do with some creative editing to bring it into line with modern thought.

Maybe America itself--the idea of America--is even more like a religion than I thought. Maybe it's more deserving of that status than some actual forms of religion.

Comments

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh. That rings a bell. I wonder if what I read was actually that every government since then has tried to repeal *that* amendment?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

"Administration". So far as we're concerned, the government remains the same; only those who administer it change.

Yeah, at various times, and often with bipartisan support (because, really, it's a *bad* idea - it creates a lame duck president who does all sorts of strange things in his final two years because he has zero accountability, and was created by a Republican congress still bitter about FDR), members of congress have introduced bills to start the process of repealing that amendment - the only way to do that is to create a new one, so the process is identical - but it's a long and arduous process and these bills have not gone anywhere.

And, sure, no president is going to deny that he'd like to serve more than two terms, but there would be no point in their trying - even if they were still in office when such an amendment were ratified, it would not probably not apply to them, just as President Truman was not affected by the 22nd Amendment. More than that - they would look greedy and that would turn off many voters.