The Constitution of the United States is a document with seven articles and twenty-seven amendments at the time of writing in 2020. It does not represent a codified body of law, but nor is it the changeable Act of a sovereign parliament, as British constitutional documents are. Instead, the Constitution creates a flexible system of checks and balances which lay out the ‘ground rules’ for the institution, allocation and limitation of government power at the federal level. In itself, it makes any sort of positive governance difficult to begin beyond the core functions of foreign policy and defence, but once capacities and elaborations have been added, they have proven very difficult to reform. It is certainly the case that the original document, ratified in 1788 was both a response to the perceived weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation which preceded it, and a document which was less idealistic and more informed by Hobbesian and tough-minded ideas of power and capa...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.