I like the idea of the Constitution as a living document, updated over time, but I'm also really glad it's so hard to amend. It's not perfect, but there are usually extremely good reasons for pretty much everything in there, and so if we're going to change something, it seems like a prerequisite should be a deep understanding of why something was put in there in the first place.
Take the Electoral College. It's en vogue right now to talk about abolishing it (it's also popular to talk about it as if it's sacred, and in both cases, it seems a lot of people's feelings about it are based on whether or not their favorite candidate won a recent election, but I digress). If people want to change or even remove it, that's fine, but they should first have a very deep understanding of why it is how it is - an understanding that's a bit deeper than they got in their high school U.S. Government class.
If you go back and read the Federalist papers, for example, you can't help but come away with a profound admiration for how much thought people put into these things, even if you don't agree with their conclusions. There's just a ton of wisdom and thought there. If you can come up with something better, great, but among other things you really should have to articulate their original reasoning and make a good case for how their concerns aren't relevant now, or that your idea is a better set of tradeoffs, etc. Just saying that the EC isn't fair falls way short of that - yeah, they thought about stuff like that, a lot.
Another reason why it's good to have a hard-to-modify Constitution right now is because we are currently pretty terrible at negotiating politically and building any sort of consensus - the hard work of bridge building is often skipped, and so more legislation is passing with the slimmest of majorities, and each presidency seems to do more via executive action. (And to whoever is tempted to respond with, "yes, the X party is terrible at this" needs to take a closer look at their preferred party, because both of the 2 major parties are terrible at it, just often in different ways. But they are both corrupt and broken to the core, at least on the national level) If we can't pull back from this and get to a more sane working and collaboration environment, the "unamenadability" of the Constitution might be the thing that saves us (or, maybe, the thing that delays our drive off the cliff by a few years at least).
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
To me the first step to fix this is understanding why anyone would want to amend it?
It seems like it was set up to be pretty bare bones, to resolve international and interstate disputes.
Today it looks like the federal government spends more in each state than the states do on themselves. This means that people in Texas (as a whole) have more say over spending in New York than people in New York do.
This makes it impossible for new states to enter the union, and you end up with spending policy in every state close to the median national voter, which makes everyone unhappy.
I think you should revoke incoropration and let each states constitution reign supreme as was originally intended.
California wants legal marijuana but the (badly interpreted) commerce clause makes this technically illegal.
NYC wants appropriate gun laws set by its residents, but due to 2A, it can't.
Revoke 14A and the temperature of the federal government will cool down.
Take the Electoral College. It's en vogue right now to talk about abolishing it (it's also popular to talk about it as if it's sacred, and in both cases, it seems a lot of people's feelings about it are based on whether or not their favorite candidate won a recent election, but I digress). If people want to change or even remove it, that's fine, but they should first have a very deep understanding of why it is how it is - an understanding that's a bit deeper than they got in their high school U.S. Government class.
If you go back and read the Federalist papers, for example, you can't help but come away with a profound admiration for how much thought people put into these things, even if you don't agree with their conclusions. There's just a ton of wisdom and thought there. If you can come up with something better, great, but among other things you really should have to articulate their original reasoning and make a good case for how their concerns aren't relevant now, or that your idea is a better set of tradeoffs, etc. Just saying that the EC isn't fair falls way short of that - yeah, they thought about stuff like that, a lot.
Another reason why it's good to have a hard-to-modify Constitution right now is because we are currently pretty terrible at negotiating politically and building any sort of consensus - the hard work of bridge building is often skipped, and so more legislation is passing with the slimmest of majorities, and each presidency seems to do more via executive action. (And to whoever is tempted to respond with, "yes, the X party is terrible at this" needs to take a closer look at their preferred party, because both of the 2 major parties are terrible at it, just often in different ways. But they are both corrupt and broken to the core, at least on the national level) If we can't pull back from this and get to a more sane working and collaboration environment, the "unamenadability" of the Constitution might be the thing that saves us (or, maybe, the thing that delays our drive off the cliff by a few years at least).