Great article, if for no other reason than it appeared here, a place I never expected to see these sentiments.

I could make appropriate comments on every paragraph you wrote, but will limit myself to these:

I, too, served in the U.S. Army just after the Viet Nam War ended, although as an enlisted man. While I was in Reagan became President and I saw some of the changes first-hand, having served in Central America during the Ollie North days. I saw things that ensured I would never enjoy, or want, a military retirement.

Your comments on what is needed for a revised Constitution are dead-on, particularly your statements, "Corporations are not people. Nor are they U.S. citizens." People need to realize that they are absolutely, definitely, 100% NOT U.S. Citizens and that they have only one purpose, enrich the Corporate Officers and Largest ShareHolders at any expense… ethics be damned. Money is all that matters and taking advantage of every law they buy is all that matters to them.

Unfortunately the odds of any change at this point are slim to none. As an example, the Surveillance State pretty much shutdown OWS and got some excellent practice in shutting down the next wave of this type of mild insurrection. Between the massive surveillance and extreme militarization of local police forces. along with 10’s of thousands of "laws" on both Federal and State Books, anyone can be jailed at any time for anything, and the propaganda wing of the governments, i.e., all major corporate media outlets, will do their damnedest to make sure that the average American will buy the suppression hook, line, and sinker.

An old WWII Vet I know that spent time in Germany before WWII told me one morning during a breakfast back in 2004 (9 years ago) that he was watching 1933/34 Germany on our streets today. I believed him then, one month before I took a job as a military contractor in Iraq due to lack of a decent paying job in the U.S.

And I still believe him now. The transition is slower, but better thought out and better executed… Too bad.

The only bright light is Edward Snowden’s revelations. Maybe the majority of American People will wake up in time and throw all the incumbents out for good and outlaw Corporations as Citizens/People.

That and the unintended consequences of supporting what looks to me like a thoroughly corrupt and doomed financial system.

These may bring about be a decent "reset" and, hopefully, in time.

Carnivore …. Total Information Awareness… Skipjack … CLEA

Is you want to learn more check out eff.org or epic.org

All of this information is public knowledge if you dig hard enough on the net…. however some of this information is no longer found… seems to have disappeared along with my telecom employment when I expressed my views and knowledge of the then title three wiretap laws from the supreme court to my supervisor and how it related to my job …. so I must just be a crank like Ron Paul

http://news.techeye.net/security/nsa-hopes-us-people-cant-add-up

What could really help you guys out as KrzyKat alludes to is some limits on campaign spending and contributions (we have some REALLY strict rules about that with some SERIOUS fines; some people have recently received a couple).

America needs to "stick its nose in everyone’s business" because otherwise you get Hitler. We can’t have that again. But probably it could be a bit more consensus driven than it has been over the last 15 or 20 years.

We do have school shootings and nut jobs up here; not as often but remember we have 1/10th the population. But the body counts are lower because we don’t allow assault rifles. Google Montreal Massacre for one of the worst examples.

Anyway, what I would hope (but expect won’t happen) is that America could become the leaders in intellectual cultural and constitutional construction you’re capable of being. By that I mean you’d evaluate lots of constitutional options, and come up with something of a consensus of what’s REALLY important and build on that to create something relevant and with the correct checks and balances.

We also need to end the marriage tax holiday, and all marriage benefits. Marriage itself is a religious institution and should be left alone as a religious right. But the privileges afforded to those who get married should cease, as partnerships between m/f become less common. People should pursue typical legal counsel for any needs.
Also, the need for a "spousal" benefits ceases with both individuals working. As well this would end discrimination of some based upon their preferences.

Discussing changes to the United States constitution is like discussing changes to the weather – you can talk about it all you want but it is very unlikely anyone will be able to change it in the foreseeable future.

I wish I were wrong, and would love to be proven wrong in this case. But, do you know of anyone that is making a serious effort to collect and curate the best ideas on how to change the Constitution? As far as I know, no one is even making a serious effort. A good first step would be to set up a web site or some other mechanism to collect serious ideas for constitutional reform, and I don’t think anyone has set out to do that.

One reason our constitution no longer works is because it is so old and in no way representative of the values of people today. The people have one set of values, the constitution quite another. Given how fast the world is changing, it would be as if the people of 1776 were using laws that were written for ancient Sumerian or Egyptian societies. We are a different breed of people now, with different values, yet are legislators are still working with laws that were written when riding on a horse was the fastest way to get from place to place, when people died at a much younger age, when slavery and racial discrimination were common, when women were expected to marry, stay home and raise kids and keep their mouths shut, and when guns had to be fired one shot at a time and after taking that shot you had to stop and reload your powder and bullet. It was a time when agriculture, logging and furs were main drivers of an economy. It was a time when a newspaper was the primary form of mass communications, and there were no wire services, so no way to conduct a mass media campaign. I could go on but the point is that the world back then in no way resembles the world we have today, yet we are trying to interpret laws written for that era as though they will still work in this era.

But the reason I think it doesn’t happen is because everyone is afraid of what a new constitution might be like. We fear, probably with considerable justification, that the special interests and big corporations that manipulate our laws and legal system today would just love the opportunity to help craft a new constitution. And you know they would use every bit of propaganda and mind manipulation at their disposal to get what they want. If you think our constitution couldn’t be worse, think about what it would be like if the corporations, special interests, and fundamentalist religious zealots got together and tried to craft one that would make them all the rulers of their respective domains.

Not to mention that our founding fathers deliberately made the constitution extremely difficult to change. Of course that does not stop the lawmakers and especially the courts from making defacto changes by passing laws that modify the meaning or intent. But far too often such modifications only benefit the rich and powerful.

Some things to consider: We do not live in a democracy, but a republic. Many people don’t understand the difference, and any teacher that teaches that we live in a democracy should be fired on the spot. In the past it was impractical to have true democracy, where every citizen had the opportunity to vote on every issue. But with modern technology, there is no longer such a high barrier to that. What if we actually tried true democracy, where we cut out the senators and congressmen and actually let people directly vote on the issues that matter to them? Would that work or would it result in an even more chaotic mess than we have now?

Our voting system is quite possibly one of the worst methods ever devised. For a partial explanation, watch CGPGrey’s videos dealing with the subject of voting at http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/ , particularly the first one on "The Problems with First Past the Post Voting"

The concept of "intellectual property" may have seemed like a good idea when the country was founded, but it could now be argued that patents and copyrights do more to retard progress than advance it. It was an artificial concept to begin with, so maybe we should throw those laws our altogether, but if not, at the very least they need serious reform so as to return to the original intent of advancing progress, and not just creating monopolies and businesses that make their livings by gouging and suing customers and other businesses.

Our education system is in serious need of reform. Kids and families go into debt to go to college, and often that college education does not significantly improve their chances for career advancement. And aren’t there better ways to learn then being lectured by a teacher or professor?

One of the amendments to the current constitution was meant to protect the free exercise of religion, and that’s good, but does it also mean that churches should be exempt from paying taxes on property they own, or that "ministers" should be able to flout many of the laws that apply to the rest of us, or that a particular religion should be able to have its moral standards enacted as the law of the land? Some of the happiest nations in the world (the Scandinavian countries) are also among the least religious, yet they still permit freedom of worship. Why do the fundamentalist religious types have so much influence AND get away with not paying taxes or having to obey certain other laws, e.g. zoning laws?

Then there are our wacky laws about drugs. By any measure, alcohol is much worse than marijuana, especially if you are driving a car, not that you should drive under the influence of either. But yet alcohol consumption is revered as almost a rite of passage for young people while using marijuana can get you serious prison time, at taxpayer expense, and a record that follows you the rest of your life. And with respect to other drugs, if it’s offered by a pharmaceutical company at an outrageous charge to consumers, then it’s okay, but if it doesn’t come from big pharma then it’s bad and in many cases you can be arrested for possessing or using it. And while on the subject, shouldn’t affordable healthcare and medication be a right for all people, rich or poor? Most other developed countries seem to think so, why don’t we? Oh, right, because there’s big money to be made by gouging people in the medical offices, hospital, and pharmacies. To bad if people end up destitute because they had the misfortune to get sick.

And then there are guns. Few people want nutcases running around with automatic weapons, yet our courts and legislators seem to think that our constitution protects that, and don’t they love those campaign contributions from the gun and ammunition manufacturers. The rest of the world thinks we are absolutely insane. They have sane gun control in Canada, and people are still able to go hunting, and guns and ammunition are sold there, yet you almost never hear of a school shooting or some nutjob firing at people from a tower up there.

Speaking of Canada, we could do a lot worse than simply adopt their constitution. I don’t know if this is true, or the actual details, but I once heard that the reason Fox News doesn’t operate in Canada is because there is some kind of prohibition against lying on the airwaves. Imagine if we had that in the Unites States, actual laws against lying to the public with some real teeth in them. For example, supposed that politicians could be barred from holding or running for public office if they were convicted of lying to the media or the public. Suppose broadcasters could lose their licenses if they knowingly and deliberately broadcast untrue news. Yes we consider freedom of speech a core value, but should that also carry with it a freedom to lie with impunity?

There are probably many other things that need reform, and those need to be discussed also. But my feeling is that we are now at a kind of tipping point. For so many years, the majority of people trusted the government, and it was considered "unpatriotic" to say the government was in the wrong (those of us that lived through the VietNam War era know how heated those types of conversations could get). But lately, there has been a real change in people’s attitudes. I think almost everyone realize that our government has become corrupt, and in some ways, almost as bad as the old soviet-style governments we used to pretend to hate so much. Since 9/11 our freedoms have been taken away; you can’t even cross the border into our friendly neighbor to the north Canada and then come back without a lot of hassle. Just ask the people living in Derby Line, Vermont – put that into Google or YouTube. Prior to 9/11 you could cross and come back with just photo ID. What next, something akin to an "iron curtain", for all practical purposes, between the U.S. and the rest of the world?

And finally, one big question that needs to be asked, though it won’t set well with some – why is it that the United States always has to stick its nose into everyone else’s affairs? The American people almost never want war, and typically some type of incident or provocation needs to occur for the American people to even support a war, and then much later we find out it was a "false flag" or contrived incident to begin with, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or maybe an outright lie. Maybe in any type of new constitution, there should be a much higher bar to the United Stares entering a conflict that has not touched American soil. My own feeling is that if we’d keep our nose out of other countries’ business, we wouldn’t be a target for every terrorist in the world. Maybe they would go pick on someone else if we left them alone, and we hardly come off as the good guys when we are bombing relatively defenseless nations and killing innocent civilians.

Anyway, sorry this is so long, but this is a dialog someone should be having. I may not be right about everything I’ve written here but I think it is a discussion worth having, and as far as I can tell, there are no serious efforts to give the people – and by that I mean real people, not corporations – a voice in how their country should be governed.