{"id":3460,"date":"2012-03-03T09:52:38","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T17:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/?p=3460"},"modified":"2021-12-21T15:34:53","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T23:34:53","slug":"losing-constitutional-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Constitutional Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Joel S. Hirschhorn,<\/strong> via <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20211005165206\/https:\/\/www.delusionaldemocracy.com\/\">delusionaldemocracy.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>March 3, 2012<\/p>\n<p>Among Americans there remains strong pride about the US Constitution, even though there is widespread support for creating reform amendments to it.\u00a0 Globally, however, what should surprise Americans is a significant loss of respect for it.\u00a0 Other nations, especially those creating new democracies, see better constitutions elsewhere.\u00a0 This is not opinion.\u00a0 It is fact.\u00a0 And it is important to understand this historic shift.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1923556\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new university study<\/a> sends a disturbing message to all Americans that want to hang on to the fiction that the US constitution is not only the world\u2019s best one, but does not need to be improved.\u00a0 Do not mentally block this finding: \u201cThe U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,\u201d according to the study by David S. Law of Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>What exists today is far different than what was proudly proclaimed in 1987, on the Constitution\u2019s bicentennial, by <a title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130825010146\/http:\/\/www.time.com:80\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,964901,00.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Time magazine <\/a>\u00a0which calculated that \u201cof the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why has the US Constitution lost standing abroad even though Americans cling to their belief that it is sacred and the world\u2019s best constitution?<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The new study examined the provisions of 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries from 1946 to 2006, and they considered 237 variables regarding various rights and ways to enforce them.\u00a0 This is what they found: \u201cAmong the world\u2019s democracies constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. \u00a0Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s.\u00a0 \u2026 the constitutions of the world\u2019s democracies are, on average, less similar to the U.S. Constitution now than they were at the end of World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor Law identified a central reason for the trend: the availability of newer, sexier and more powerful operating systems in the constitutional marketplace. \u201cNobody wants to copy Windows 3.1,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, the US Constitution is old and out of date.<\/p>\n<p>A Supreme Court Justice has also weighed in. \u00a0In a television interview during a recent visit to Egypt, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. \u201cI would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.\u201d\u00a0 She recommended, instead, the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20131004171957\/http:\/\/www.info.gov.za:80\/documents\/constitution\/\">South African Constitution<\/a>, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the <a href=\"http:\/\/athena.hri.org\/docs\/ECHR50.html\">European Convention on Human Rights<\/a>.\u00a0 Such a view should be respected.<\/p>\n<p>Should Americans disregard these findings and perspectives?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 Only if more people pay attention to this global trend will they better see the need to seriously consider constitutional amendments to improve American democracy.\u00a0 The core problem, however, is one shortcoming of the US Constitution: the great difficulty in amending it.\u00a0 In this regard, noted legal authority Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in his book \u201cOur Undemocratic Constitution\u201d that \u201cthe U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All over the country diverse people and groups on the right and left are advocating for reform amendments, such as getting all private money out of politics, creating term limits for Congress, removing personhood for corporations, and imposing a balanced budget requirement on Congress.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that Congress is quite unlikely to propose serious reform amendments, which means that the option in the Constitution for an Article V convention of state delegates must be used.\u00a0 But Congress refuses to obey the Constitution by ignoring the hundreds of state applications for a convention from 49 states, more than the single requirement of two-thirds of states in Article V.\u00a0 Learn more at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foavc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a> of Friends of the Article V Convention, the nonpartisan national group advocating for the first convention.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this: Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years.\u00a0\u00a0 But it would be silly to propose a totally new US Constitution; that is too radical an idea.\u00a0 However, it is amazing that Thomas Jefferson, in <a title=\"text of letter\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130509133141\/http:\/\/teachingamericanhistory.org\/library\/index.asp?document=2220\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 1789 letter to James Madison<\/a>, noted that every constitution \u201cnaturally expires at the end of 19 years\u201d because \u201cthe earth belongs always to the living generation.\u201d\u00a0 Too bad the Constitution gives Congress the power to convene an Article V convention.<\/p>\n<p>Americans should wake up, stop their delusional thinking and recognize that the US Constitution needs to be updated through reform amendments.\u00a0 We the people must pressure Congress to convene the first Article V convention.\u00a0 Otherwise the Supreme Court will continue to make interpretations that are more political than legal in nature and the federal government will continue to erode personal freedoms and liberties.\u00a0 And more and more other democracies will operate under better constitutions.<\/p>\n<p>[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20211005165206\/https:\/\/www.delusionaldemocracy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delusionaldemocracy.com<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new study examined the provisions of 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries from 1946 to 2006, and they considered 237 variables regarding various rights and ways to enforce them.  This is what they found: \u201cAmong the world\u2019s democracies constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall.  Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s.  \u2026 the constitutions of the world\u2019s democracies are, on average, less similar to the U.S. Constitution now than they were at the end of World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[1141],"class_list":["post-3460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-politics","tag-us-constitution"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Losing Constitutional Competition - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Losing Constitutional Competition - Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new study examined the provisions of 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries from 1946 to 2006, and they considered 237 variables regarding various rights and ways to enforce them. This is what they found: \u201cAmong the world\u2019s democracies constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s. \u2026 the constitutions of the world\u2019s democracies are, on average, less similar to the U.S. Constitution now than they were at the end of World War II.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/fogcityjournal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-03T17:52:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-21T23:34:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"FCJ Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@fogcityjournal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@fogcityjournal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"FCJ Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"FCJ Editor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/4e9da13336b29013e7c520909eaefe91\"},\"headline\":\"Losing Constitutional Competition\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-03T17:52:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-21T23:34:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\"},\"wordCount\":814,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"us constitution\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Opinion\",\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/3460\/losing-constitutional-competition\/\",\"name\":\"Losing Constitutional Competition - 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