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The Multi-Layered Tragedy of Our Constitution.
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There has not been an update to our foundational document that has significantly improved the private or public stature of Americans, or the United States as a whole, since adults 18 to 21 gained the right to vote in 1971, a fifty year hiatus. While a constitutional amendment is not the only way to improve our nation, their power has highly idealized value, even though the additions are not always enforceable, which has been an issue in too many cases. Lawmakers can be encouraged to get some things accomplished, as well as the private sector, but if a major societal change is required, our system becomes polarized-politics mired.
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What makes our Constitution so sluggish, and is making our governmental structure, and political system irreparably updatable? The simple answer is the continuously added, and hardly ever reduced baggage from our original document, courts, Congress, political system. Also what Americans have packed in, refused to jettison, and therefore slogged along with on our backs, in our pockets, shoes, and between our waxed-filled ears, these two plus centuries. Almost no big changes in U.S. history have occurred on a clean slate. Our old selves are too often glommed onto our newish selves awkwardly, and prejudicially.
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