A Constitutional Convention Coming?
Posted by Michael E. Marotta on 6/24, 2:14pm

CNN.com's "Global Public Square" laid the groundwork for next week's TIME magazine. Calls for a new constitution are now heard outside of radical circles.

Objectivism has not yet developed a system of political science that explains why we appoint the Supreme Court for life but elect the President, rather than the other way around. Why not select the Secretary of State or Attorney General to a six-year term? In fact, the Cabinet does not appear in the Constitution at all. Maybe it should. That would limit it.

Why have two legislative houses and not three or one? Is there an objective standard?

Objectivists say that the only proper purposes of government are police forces (army) and courts of law. In John Locke's Second Treatise, the three branches of government were Legislative, Executive, and Diplomatic. The courts were not of the government, but of the people, a protection against the government. The word "police" appears nowhere in the Constitution. The army was meant to be rallied as needed with the Navy created by Congress to protect us from invasion from without. (A standing army could tyrannize the people, they felt.) Do the army and police need to be specifed in the Constitution?

In Atlas Shrugged, Judge Narragansett writes that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade..."

Your Take:
Is it time to update the U.S. Constitution?

Here at GPS [CNN's "Global Public Square"] we’ve read through over 3,000 viewer blog comments, viewer e-mails, Facebook messages and Tweets to suss out what changes, if any, you would like to see to the U.S. Constitution. Here’s what we found:
About a third of you were appalled by the idea of changing the U.S. constitution at all.
Others pointed out that the constitution has been changed before, in the form of amendments.
For the majority of viewers that did want changes, the most commonly requested change was to eliminate the Electoral College, which was created by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote.
Many GPS readers called for more direct democracy instead of representative democracy.
Many commenters also vehemently support the Electoral College, pointing out the reasons for its creation.
There were many viewers that wanted to term limits in place, particularly for Congress and the Supreme Court.
For more discussion of the U.S. Constitution, Fareed Zakaria is joined by CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin this coming Sunday at 10am ET/PT on GPS.
Also, next week the cover story of TIME Magazine asks of the Constitution, "Does it still matter?" There will undoubtedly be lots of debate surrounding this issue. Looking forward to more lively discussion on the Global Public Square.

Full story here (same as Link in Title).

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