Regional Subtleties

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Nic Name
Give me a fuckin' break ... I'm not sneering at the Constitution at all, let alone for being 200 years old ...

Whatever made sense in 1787, the equitable application of criminal law across the entire United State of America is long overdue.

I guess someone else must have posted the second quote under your username.

In any event, it's an unwarranted conflation of "uniform" with "equitable". We have somewhat different law in different states. Everybody should know what the law is where they live or travel. If you don't belive in capital punishment, I suggest you not commit murder in Virginia. Or Pennsylvania.

If the law is inequitably *applied*, there is usually grounds for a Federal appeal under the equal protection clause.

The principle applied in the design of the U.S constitution is that there's an advantage to dealing internationally--especially in matters of trade and defense--as a single unit...yet it's *not* wise to concentrate that much internal power in a central management, when power and control can be distributed and decentralized.

This is a lesson the Soviets learned. I kind of suspect the EU will learn it over the next 50 years or so...some of the "uniformity" we're seeing come out of *that* "great experiment" (to borrow from de Tocqueville) leaves me wondering.

I see that there is a Citizenship requirement to debate the American Constitution in the Cellar.

Um, you mean the "Constitution of the United States", right? I'd hate to think you took that annexation--er, I mean *merger* --hypothetical too seriously. Even though as eager as you are to debate, you didn't actually respond. I thought it would be interesting to frame a question that would involve your own self-interest. But then maybe you only want to debate about other people's laws

Your questioning my standing to speak in the plural about my country, its people and our government just led me to point out your own much weaker standing to hold forth on what we should do about our constitution. On the whole we like our system of government. And when enough of us agree it should be changed, we do change it.

Now, how about that hypothetical? Are you ready to surrender some of your sovereignty in pursuit of uniformity....oops, I mean "equity"?