We Need a Constitutional Democratic Party

[Joanne98]

The US Constitution and the principle that no one is above the law suffered a numbing setback, Tuesday, when every Republican Senator, Independent Joe Lieberman and 18 faux Democrats voted to gut the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, one of the most important bulwarks again tyrannical government since 1789. The Senate voted 68 - 29 to ratify the President's massive illegal spying program and provide immunity for the telecoms who invaded the privacy of millions of innocent Americans.

The Fourth Amendment has been handed down to us unchanged for over two centuries:


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Almost none of that is left if today's bill stands. In an age in which "bipartisan" has come to mean weak Democrats joining unanimous Republicans to vote against the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment would be eviscerated by a bill that provides a virtual blank check for the executive to invade the privacy of Americans:

-- The President can direct US spy agencies to intercept every e-mail, telephone or internet communication of every American and anyone legally in the US with only the most minimal safeguards. Although the bill was supposed to deal with exclusively "foreign" communications, the techniques it sanctions will in fact sweep up domestic and foreign combined.

-- Acting without individual or particularized warrants from any court, spy agencies can sweep up millions of communications without differentiating between those warranting surveillance and those not. Procedures for separating out totally innocent persons or communications that have nothing to do with foreign intelligence or any security threat to the US are minimal to non-existent. Procedures allowing a secret court to review such procedures have been weakened, along with measures to correct violations of even these limited procedures.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/02/13/wishing-for-a-constitutional-party/

[Demeter]

1. Worker's Constitutional Party

Would plug all the holes in our system that corruption and money have bored.

[Selatius]

2. The 4th Amendment's been dead a lot longer than this, and you'll not get a new party.

Go back to Nixon and the War On Drugs. The 4th Amendment was gutted then. The asset forfeiture laws passed decades ago allow the government to seize property of suspected drug dealer even before his is convicted of a crime.

And the current electoral system won't change. The US uses a system known as single-member district plurality. It basically means each congressional district is represented by one person. The person who assumes power is the one who wins a simple plurality, not majority, of the vote. SMDP comes with it the problem of Duverger's Law, basically that in such systems only two viable parties will emerge. It's not true in all cases, but it's rather apparent in our system.

The only way a third party or a fourth party could enter congress in America is if the old system is overturned. The current parties would never give consent to such change. It'll likely only happen after another civil war or the threat of a civil war forces the entrenched parties to give up power.