It seems clear to me that people once thought (or at least if they bothered to think about it all) that The U.S. Constitution presented basic and sufficient protections for our political system from a Sheldon Adelson, etc. Boy, did Citizens United shoot that one all to hell. The fact is that every wealthy person in this country is more equal than any of the rest of us.
And I probably shouldn't "complain" about being more equal than a woman. And wouldn't even have the chance to, except for the fact that I am. Doubt that? Well, if there was some way to get The Equal Rights Amendment passed, I think that the resulting clarity might well be quite sobering to many.
What else did the original constitutional drafters leave out (and this is just my own "short list")? The real biggy is "The Right to Privacy", and we're perilously close to being only one "test case" away from learning exactly how fundamentally critical that particular ommission was. Ever wish we could get some true derelict unelected from Congress? No "Recall" possibilities. Mundane citizen protections like "Initiative", and "Referendum"? As far as I know they hadn't even been invented back in 1787.
Neither we, nor even President Obama (now even "Recess Appointments" no longer work) can force the Senate to forgo Filibuster idiocy? Which, of course, only plagues us today because our admittedly brilliant "Founders" were of a time and place which inevitably left them completely unprepared to forsee and account for 200 plus years, 50 states, 300,000,000 people etc., etc., etc.
But, hey, we don't even need to get rid of our current Constitution because of everything that got left out. I mean, if it was still possible to get important Amendments done, and if we had the time, money, and energy to finally push a gob of them through, we might even have something that would allow our government and our society to limp along. Sure, it would look like it was being held together by duct tape and bailing wire, but that's only because that's exactly what we would end up with.
But what about all of the useless crap that would still be sitting there starring all of us in the face every day?
Oh, what a wonderful tansition into all of that funky shit that the Repulicans are gearing up to mug us with by reinventing the "Electoral College"? You know, that little brain fart their resident genuises had that would allow them to gerrymander a Mitt Romney to victory with only X% of the vote (and I use X here because no one yet knows exactly how low they might be able to go with this one). Just exactly (to a Constitutional certainty, of course, because that's what would be the applicable standard if we allow them to keep going) what in the hell is an "ELECTORAL COLLEGE" anyway".
Read The Constitution much? Yeah, I'd rather do that than take a trip to the dentist, but I haven't really touched it that much since I completed my last Constitutional Law class. Some of the verbiage is just dreadful to the modern eye. "Emoluments", "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water", "for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful buildings", "Bill of Attainder", "Capitation", "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States", "Duty of Tonnage", "The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation", "appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls", "no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture", and on and on, and on. Plain english? Hardly! Easily comprehensible? Well, easier for me after 5 hours of law school credits, and not insurmountable, but still.
What is, in my opinion, insrmountable are things like exclusice reliance upon the term "he". No form of "gender neutrality" for those old boys. And that's still far better than "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons". "Three fifiths of all other persons", boy, is that an oldie but a goody. OR NOT!
Sure, this stuff did pass for "positive, inspirational, and uplifting" hundreds of years ago, but now? Really, it's entirely possible to argue that "pathetic" is an understatement.
If some folks wanted to look at the deficiencies and call them "offensive", well, I, for one, could provide no intelligent rejoinder. And, doing the math, the "some folks" who could comfortably qualify to react that way would constitute a large majority of our modern population. Lending very strong support to the reasonable conclusion that we can and should do better.
THE SECOND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.