reverence for the constitution

Margaret mairead at mindspring.com
Sat May 22 15:41:22 PDT 1999


Doug wrote


>kelley wrote:
>
>>funny, by 1848 that they held a Convention in Seneca Falls and wrote a
>>declaration of sentiments, modeled after the D of I. Their goal: to alter
>>the Constitution. Furthermore, a similar Convention was held by Freed
>>Slaves some time later, details escape me at the mo' Finally, both of
>>these were undone by what? constitutional amendments. oh but i guess
>>they were all falsely conscious, eh?
>
>They deliberately made it difficult to amend, becuase it was a document
>written by and elite trying to control a mass. You can mythify and revere
>all you like, but I prefer giving wider berth to the textual and
>institutional product of 18th century Southern planters.

Your privilege, of course. But can you name a document anywhere else that does the job better?

I think those planters were remarkably foresightful, me. Pity their political successors are such pillocks, but that's my fault, and yours, for allowing them to *be* successors.


>How is it defensible on democratic grounds that Wyoming should have the
>same number of senators as California?

What would you have instead: (a) tyranny of large states over small, (b) state-against-state land-grab wars, (c) automatic gerrymandering of state boundaries to maintain representational parity, or (d) no states at all?



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list