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Come on now Azred, you lived in Europe once... can't you leave us at least with a few good pointers from where we could start building our civilization ? :D

Quote:

Originally posted by johnny:
Come on now Azred, you lived in Europe once... can't you leave us at least with a few good pointers from where we could start building our civilization ? :D

<font color = lightgreen>You're not going to let me live that down, are you? [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

Quote:

Originally posted by Azred:
<font color = lightgreen>So I have been reading lately. You realize, of course, that there is an inversely proportional relationship between the length of a constitution and its usefulness/efficacy. That is to say, the longer it is the worse it becomes, because constitutions are meant to be "living" documents that can be amended in the future if need be, not a listing of what to do in every conceiveable possibility. *shrug*

I'm not saying it's a bad document or a good one. Merely stating that the length alone should raise some red flags. </font>

Heh.. aren't you aware that 'long is better' in Europe? If I want to tie my shoelaces, I need written permission from the government. ;) Anyway, this is what a EU blogger wrote about the size:

"I know, the text of the Constitution is way too long (more than 300 pages). True, the US Constitution is shorter - actually, only if you forget about the amendments and the 200 years of jurisprudence and of interpretation of the text.
The EU text is actually both a constitution per se and an international treaty: the EU is inventing something new, never done before. It is the result of the peaceful cooperation of a continent, something that the world has never seen before.
The national states will not disappear, hence the need of an international treaty. At the same time, an entity above these very nations is created and needs to be defined: this is where we need a constitution." (http://eu-constitution.typepad.com/e.../too_long.html)

[ 04-06-2005, 05:29 AM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

Yeah, splitting the atom of sovereignty has never been done before. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

To clarify:

Quote:

[T]he Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the state and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people -- who were, in Hamilton's words, "the only proper objects of government." Printz , 521 U.S. at 919 -20 (quoting The Federalist No. 15); see also Alden v. Maine , 119 S. Ct. 2240, 2265 (1999) ("By splitting the atom of sovereignty, the founders established two orders of government, each with its own direct relationship, its own privity, its own set of mutual rights and obligations to the people who sustain it and are governed by it" (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).

http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/4th/991055P.html

[ 04-06-2005, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dreamer128:

"...The EU text is actually both a constitution per se and an international treaty: the EU is inventing something new, never done before. It is the result of the peaceful cooperation of a continent, something that the world has never seen before. ..." (http://eu-constitution.typepad.com/e.../too_long.html)

True, it *is* called a constitutional treaty afterall. People just call it a constitution because it's shorter. [img]tongue.gif[/img]