A Proposed New Constitution

By Al Carroll

How would you change the constitution if it were up to you? How should we as a nation change the constitution? Even asking the question gets angry and outraged responses. This is so even though parts of it are poorly thought out, anti-democratic, and have done tremendous damage to the nation.
For America’s constitution is a sacred cow. Some cows should not be worshiped. Some should be slaughtered. That is not true of all of the US Constitution, but America would be better off if some parts of it became hamburger. For nothing should be so revered that one cannot question it, change it, or discard it, and blind worship is always to be avoided. 
There is, among those on both the political left and right, what can only be called widespread constitution worship. Most on both sides hold up the constitution the way a vampire hunter in the movies holds up a cross to ward off vampires. 
America is great not because of the constitution, but in spite of it, and especially in spite of the founders. The constitution itself is clearly at the root of many of our worst problems in American society today. If it were up to the American public, the following solutions would have become law many decades, even half a century or more, before today:
1. Abolishing the Electoral College.
2. Ending the buying of elections.
3. Limiting the time campaigning for office, as they do in Great Britain.
4. Ending wars quickly in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Each war continued over half a decade after the American public wanted to get out.
5. Reforming the office of vice president, widely regarded with contempt by most, and producing candidates that even most voters of the same party as the presidential candidate did not want.
6. Ending corporate welfare and other wasteful spending.
7. Ending most foreign military aid, and support for tyrants and dictators around the world.
8. Limiting the power of the Supreme Court.
9. Ending the political monopoly of wealthy elites.
10. Guaranteeing privacy from government intrusion.
Each of these proposals have widespread bipartisan support and are hugely popular across the political spectrum by great majorities. But none of these proposals, not too surprisingly, have majority support among elected political elites, economic elites, or the leadership of either party.
The constitution itself is the biggest barrier to solving these problems. Not one of these problems have been, or ever could have been, quickly solved, precisely because the constitution makes it difficult. Most of these problems require a constitutional amendment, something made deliberately long and difficult by the founders. A few of these could be solved temporarily by ordinary laws, which could then be easily overturned next election.
So why not go to the root of these problems? Why not a new constitution? This is what A Proposed New Constitution argues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Al Carroll
• Release date: Aug 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536566093

Al Carroll

Al Carroll is Associate Professor of US, American Indian, and Latin American History at Northern Virginia Community College, and a former Senior Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia. His other books are; Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War; Presidents’ Body Counts: The Twelve Worst and Four Best American Presidents Based on How Many Lived or Died Because of Their Actions; Survivors: Family Histories of Colonialism, Genocide, and War; and A Proposed New Constitution. His next books will be Genocide Denial in America; Ira Hayes: The Meaning of His Life in Native Memory and White Stereotypes; and two alternate history works Confederate Terrorism and Confederate Tyranny.  He has written numerous articles that have appeared in Academia.edu, Articles Base, Beacon, Bristle, Counterpunch, History News Network, Indian Country Today, LA Progressive, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Truth Out, Wall Street Examiner, World News, and elsewhere. He is best known (and often vilified and demonized by racists) for his work as a human rights and anti-racist activist for New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans. NAFPS is a multiracial and multi-faith organization of over 2000 members based at www.newagefraud.org, defending American Indian spiritual traditions from New Age cults, imposters, commercialization, and exploitation for nearly twenty years. NAFPS works with traditional elders and other activists, providing research and resources used by numerous tribal governments, museums, universities, cult survivors, and people of all backgrounds.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons agreement. It may be freely reproduced and reposted elsewhere, in part or in full, if not for profit and given proper accreditation of authorship.

About the Author

Al Carroll is Assistant Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College, teaching American, American Indian, and Latin American history. He is the author of four history books and numerous academic and journalism articles on history, politics, international relations, presidents, veterans, racism, and spiritual and cultural traditions. His writings have appeared in publications such as History News Network, Indian Country Today, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and Wall Street Examiner. He is best known for his work as a human rights and anti-racist activist for the group New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans (NAFPS) based at www.newagefraud.org, defending Native spiritual traditions from abuse and exploitation for over fifteen years.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Proposed New Constitution in Full

Explaining the Articles and Arguments For Them

Article 1- Continuing and Expanding the Original Constitution and its Amendments

Article 2- Insuring Greater Democracy

Article 3- Guaranteeing the Right to Vote

Article 4- Ending the Buying of Elections

Article 5-Voting Guarantees Benefits

Article 6- Limiting Corporate Power

Article 7- Ending Colonialism

Article 8- Renouncing War

Article 9- Referendums and Recalls

Article 10- Nonprofits for the Public Interest

Article 11- Ending Institutional Support for Hatred and Discrimination

Article 12- Ending Class Bias in the Law

Article 13- Ending Special Treatment for Wealthy Elites

Article 14- Limiting Idle Wealth

Article 15- The Right to Privacy

Amendments That Don't Belong in the US Constitution

Conclusions: Why a New Constitution Is Needed

Notes

Other Works by Al Carroll

Introduction

How would you change the constitution if it were up to you? How should we as a nation change the constitution? Even asking the question gets angry and outraged responses. This is so even though parts of it are poorly thought out, anti-democratic, and have done tremendous damage to the nation.

For America’s constitution is a sacred cow. Some cows should not be worshiped. Some should be slaughtered. That is not true of all of the US Constitution, but America would be better off if some parts of it became hamburger. For nothing should be so revered that one cannot question it, change it, or discard it, and blind worship is always to be avoided.

There is, among those on both the political left and right, what can only be called widespread constitution worship. Most on both sides hold up the constitution the way a vampire hunter in the movies holds up a cross to ward off vampires. Everyone from the most stoned pot smokers to gun toting militia groups calls on the constitution as support for causes, beliefs, and attitudes they hold dear.

This constitution worship is every bit as blindly enthusiastic as it is unknowing of the actual history of the constitution, and how and why it was adopted.  For this, most people are blameless. People cannot be faulted for what they were not taught, or more often, falsely taught. I made the same argument in Presidents' Body Counts, and others, notably James Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me, argue likewise.

For the founders themselves did not think much of the constitution. Jefferson wanted a new constitution every twenty years. Other founders disagreed, largely because they were not sure the constitution would last twenty years. For the founders, it was a pragmatic, even temporary, measure, not holy or intended to be permanent. Constitution worship did not become a regular feature of American society until near the start of the twentieth century, in part as a way to assimilate immigrants.

I often tell my students that America is great not because of the constitution, but in spite of it, and especially in spite of the founders. The constitution itself is clearly at the root of many of our worst problems in American society today. If it were up to the American public, the following solutions would have become law many decades, even half a century or more, before today:

1. Abolishing the Electoral College.

2. Ending the buying of elections.

3. Limiting the time campaigning for office, as they do in Great Britain.

4. Ending wars quickly in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Each war continued over half a decade after the American public wanted to get out. 

5. Reforming the office of vice president, widely regarded with contempt by most, and producing candidates that even most voters of the same party as the presidential candidate did not want.

6. Ending corporate welfare and other wasteful spending.

7. Ending most foreign military aid, and support for tyrants and dictators around the world.

8. Limiting the power of the Supreme Court.

9. Ending the political monopoly of wealthy elites.

10. Guaranteeing privacy from government intrusion.

Each of these proposals have widespread bipartisan support and are hugely popular across the political spectrum by great majorities. But none of these proposals, not too surprisingly, have majority support among elected political elites, economic elites, or the leadership of either party.

The constitution itself is the biggest barrier to solving these problems. Not one of these problems have been, or ever could have been, quickly solved, precisely because the constitution makes it difficult. Most of these problems require a constitutional amendment, something made deliberately long and difficult by the founders. A few of these could be solved temporarily by ordinary laws, which could then be easily overturned next election.

So why not go to the root of these problems? Why not a new constitution?

Constitution worship is the reason. Most Americans have been so heavily propagandized to think of the US Constitution as undeniably great and downright sacred, something you just don’t question without being seen as un-American.

What is pretty comical is to see the most idealistic of leftists, who are deeply cynical of everything else that is elitist and coming from powerful and wealthy institutions, become like a fundamentalist when the constitution is brought up. What is equally comical is to see populist conservatives or libertarians become enamored of government power when it is enshrined in a document written by, after all, Deists and Enlightenment-influenced thinkers who did not trust organized religion or nobility. Both are smitten by constitution worship.

There are two obvious ways to deal with that. One is to challenge the holy stature of the constitution. Write the true history, which most historians and political scientists already know is not a noble one, but one of elitists hijacking a popular revolution.

The other solution is to keep what is best about the old constitution while adding to it. Propose a new constitution and a new constitutional convention, but make one of the first proposals to keep the best of the old document.

For the best of the constitution is not the original document at all. The best part is the amendments. The original document is not about rights and all about power, who has it and how they can wield it, and that it will always remain in the hands of elites. The amendments are what most rightly revere. Keep the amendments, and amend the original document of power to spread the power to the mass of people, and add more amendments to limit the power of elites, for good.

That is what this proposed constitution tries to do. It adds to the best of the document, keeping all the original constitutional amendments with Article 1. The rest of the articles serve the same purpose as amendments.

What of the first solution to ending constitution worship? Tell the true history of the constitution, uncensored, without the heavy doses of patriotic propaganda that leave out its elitist nature. That story has already been told many times in the fields of history, political science, etc. But to help the curious and open minded, and for the less patient, let me summarize the history of the adoption of the constitution. To do that, one has to go back to the American Revolution.

The American Revolution was not a real revolution at all. It was just an independence movement. In actual revolutions, elites are overthrown, killed off, imprisoned, or forced to flee the country. America's elites, plantation owners like Washington and Jefferson, were actually strengthened. They no longer had to listen to British authorities. Many scholars, the best known being the eminent Charles Beard, argued the real motive for the founders' rebellion was economic. The British Empire was run by mercantilism, which required colonies to trade only with the mother country. The founders wanted primarily more profit from trade, not political freedom. (Some scholars go farther and argue many of the founders actually pushed for independence to hold onto plantation slavery, fearing the rising abolitionist movement in Great Britain.)

But there were many in the middle and working classes who wanted a true class revolution.  There had been class warfare in the earlier English Revolution, the so called Roundheads who were middle class and anti-nobility, and the Levelers, primitive versions of communists who wanted to level off the wealth anyone could have. In the American Revolution, there were anti elite groups like the Sons of Liberty, and populist rabble rousers like Samuel Adams, George Mason, and most of all Thomas Paine. Paine, for example, later proposed a guaranteed income for all, taken directly from taxing the inherited property of wealthy elites.

There was a populist wave of the American Revolution before it was hijacked by the largely elitist founders. The Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 happened a year before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The public took control of Massachusetts courts, forcing judges and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor to resign. They overthrew every county government in Massachusetts. That is why the British were occupying Boston in the first place at the time of Lexington and Concord.

This was just the start of a populist revolution. There were over 90 Declarations of Independence before Jefferson's, from counties, cities, and states. Most were based on George Mason's in Virginia. Jefferson's declaration was an elite attempt to shape a popular uprising. There were also uprisings within the elite-led independence movement. There were mutinies within the US Army, in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Congress was forced to use a draft, bounties, even the promise of slaves to gain recruits.

After the war, there were early experiments in anarchism, socialism, and other revolutionary notions, especially for that time. For a year, Pennsylvania tried shutting down the government entirely. Pennsylvania also tried outlawing the collection of debt, a form of wealth redistribution. Slavery ended in seven northern states. One out of eight slaves in the US were freed. New Jersey even gave women the right to vote, and women's suffrage stayed on the books in the state until 1807.

Most importantly, aristocracy and feudalism were