Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
Deliberately designed to provide for exactly that possibility, by people who understood that a majority could screw things up just as thoroughly as an unelected, tiny minority (at the time referred to as "nobility") and thought it prudent to design a system that forced the presidency to represent as much of the diversity of a large country as possible.



... real jerks elected on a party ticket who would never get into office any other way, since it makes it rather difficult to "split the ticket."



No. It was basically designed by and for people who embraced the ideas of self determination and limited government and rejected a great deal of arrogant, hereditary "elitism" found in Europe then and now. (Then = aristocracy, now = progressive elite, both = [self snip to avoid the ire of moderators]) Which is why our government, when working properly, is structured around the exact "dysfunction" quite a few people are complaining of today. The semantic content of that complaining is: "the system is working but we aren't getting our way."

I wouldn't expect you to understand the why's of our culture and government. But when criticizing what you don't understand, keep in mind that this country was founded and built by people who wanted to discard much of what they left behind. That includes political structures designed and intended then, as now, to entrench self appointed elites. We aren't perfect, we get things wrong, and sometimes we take to long to recognize and fix our mistakes, but for all that we do a better job than most other countries, most of the time.
You are likely ill-informed.

The very early constitution led to little more than a club of gentlemen voting on how to rule the country as an oligarchy.


German can and do "split " their vote. I have two votes. One is for a choice of candidates and one is for a choice of parties. I can withhold one or for example choose a red candidate and a black party.


What Americans left behind was economic misery, some religious suppression, some African tribal societies, some famine and last but not least some monarchies.
Their constitution answered the latter, and that was more than 200 years ago. Newer constitutions include many more lessons, most obvious in the German one. That, by the way, was influenced by Americans who gave council and did not promote a 1:1 copy, but an advance over it.



What you demonstrate is the belief in (U.S.) American exceptionalism (in a positive meaning). That's quite fitting, as it's an as outdated view in this context as in many others.
Nowadays the U.S. constitution is merely an obsolete piece, full of poorly designed features, lacking incorporation of many important lessons and fitting only for a culture of inability to reform.


I don't claim that ours is near-perfect or a good example, but it was written to incorporate advances of more than 150 years over the U.S. constitution.


Btw, the U.S. constitution wasn't the first or even the first modern constitution. Corsica had the first modern one, in 1755. The oldest constitution still in use dates back to 1600; San Marino.


I understand that there has been a revival of interest in the U.S. constitution, if not even worshipping. Same for "founding fathers".
This doesn't change the fact that its lack of reform (instead mere amendments) means that it's a low quality constitution by modern Western standards.

You gotta read more than one constitution to see that with your own eyes, of course.