Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 October 25

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October 25

Man Is Absurd, Says Who?

Who first said (and I paraphrase) that humans are an absurd combination of infinity and finitude, that mind is infinite and body not so much? There's a more specific and better formulation of this, of course. Our suspicion is that it was Schopenhauer, but we're not sure. Please help!193.55.52.3 (talk) 00:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like you might be referring to Kierkegaard, who at the beginning of Part One of 'The Sickness Unto Death' makes the suggestive remark 'A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity.' I quote from the Alastair Hannay translation in Penguin Classics. Wikipedia has articles on the book and its author. However, the mention of Absurdity makes me think of Albert Camus, who was influenced by Kierkegaard, and might have said something like what you describe. Incidentally, Primo Levi wrote 'Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust', which is a line in one of his short stories in 'The Periodic Table', though I don't recall which one.109.153.204.164 (talk) 07:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Best book on Mesoamerica

What is the best book on Mesoamerican culture and mythology? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

"Best" is a matter of opinion. My wife studies religion and her primary book on the topic is titled "Symbol and Meaning beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas". It looks like a bunch of thesis papers in a single book. -- kainaw™ 01:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there even any single book on Mesoamerica as a whole? It's all articles I guess. I like Michael D. Coe (Maya), but his books will be out-of-date, at least in places: the ones written before the decipherment of Mayan script. The best fast way to get information may be the catalogues of the important Aztec and Maya exhibitions of the last centuries. --Radh (talk) 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, in that case, what are the best individuals books on the various people of Mesoamerica? I know it "is a matter of opinion," but most people interested in a given area of study tend to agree on at least one book that is representative of the subject. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 11:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

India politics question

Sir, Iam writing a book, and needed information about who was in power during 1966-1977 at the new Delhi Municipality, India. I am unable to get the information. can you tell me which party was in power at the municipality? ( I guess it would be bharatiya jansangh). I also wanted to know whether Mr. Atal Bihari vajpayee, former PM of India, was holding any elected/ political position during that time. -Prasad ||||183.83.61.202 (talk) 07:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen our article on elections in Delhi? Assuming that the party which won the election was in power, Bharatiya Jansangh only held power from 1967 to 1971, with Congress in power before and after. This webpage has an, apparently reliable, list of positions which Atal Bihari Vajpayee has held. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha until 1967, then of the Lok Sabha throughout the remainder of the period you are writing about. Apparently he was imprisoned during the Emergency. Warofdreams talk 10:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Statistical distribution of income and also wealth

What quantitative parameters describe the distribution of a) income and b) wealth? I'm wondering if the form and values of the distribution gives clues about the wealthy: for example if the most wealthy achieve break-throughs that lead to a bulge or fat tail at the upper end of the distribution. 92.15.6.117 (talk) 10:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

There are very many articles that might be of interest: Income distribution, Distribution of wealth, Matthew effect (sociology), Income inequality metrics, Kuznets curve, Economic inequality, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer", Wealth condensation, Preferential attachment... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

In general, be careful with income distributions; they are frequently misused. For example, the fact that an income distribution is constant over time does not necessarily mean that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. There can be tremendous movement across income groups but, so long as the proportions of the populations within each group remain constant, the income distribution will not change. Similarly, a widening of the income distribution does not necessarily mean that the poor are getting poorer. It can simply mean that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting richer. Wikiant (talk) 11:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Another article that may be of interest is Pareto distribution. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Re-phrasing the question, if you had a graph (actually a histogram) with a horizontal axis of from zero to 10000000 or more in columns of one currecy unit width, and a vertical axis showing the number of people whose income or wealth was that amount, then what would the statistical distribution be of the graph, and what would be its parameters? The data would be for one point in time. Would the distribution be Guassian, logistic, exponential, what? Thanks 92.28.253.64 (talk) 14:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The distribution depends on the particular market you are looking at. Since you mention these distributions, I presume you have some background in statistics. Have you tried fitting some of the distributions to your data?

I would also suggest start reading at Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Market? Don't you mean country? I havnt got any data. 92.28.255.58 (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

No I don't. But you may - I don't believe you mentioned you were looking only at a country. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

See The L-Curve: A Graph of the US Income Distribution. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Economists usually use either the log-normal distribution (which fits somewhat well overall) or the Pareto distribution (which has been argued to fit better at the upper tail). These reflect some economic "realities", such as the fact that the distribution tendss to be left-skewed; the median is less than the mean, and that income (though not wealth) always has to be positive. Of course, the degree of fit varies between populations and you could construct more complicated distribution functions that would work better. Jørgen (talk) 07:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Killing of Lee Harvey Oswald

At the time of Princess Diana's fatal car accident in Paris, much was made about the rsponsibilty of the pursuing photographers. However, nothing has been mentioned of media culpability in the fatal shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, who allegedly killed him out of anger. Had Oswald not been paraded in front of the tv cameras as JFK's assassin, perhaps Ruby would not have reacted in the way he did. Why wasn't this angle ever pursued?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

In general I think most people would argue that it was not the "media" that paraded him out or made a big deal about him to the degree that it was the Dallas PD that did all these things. They are the ones who let Ruby in, did not check him for a gun, paraded Oswald in front of him without a vest, etc. It's hard to blame the media for what looks like simply bad police practice. If you're arguing that the Dallas PD shouldn't have made a big deal about Oswald being the assassin (and the media not repeated that with obvious interest), well, again, it seems like something in the responsibility of the PD, not the media.

In any case the analogy with Diana is a poor one. Diana allegedly died because of direct media action — trying to actually escape paparazzi, etc. Even if Ruby killed Oswald because he was in the media to an unnecessary degree (highly debatable), it would still be considerably more indirect media action than in the case of Diana. If a reporter had killed Oswald, then it might be a more apt comparison, but that isn't the case. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Diana died because she got in a car when the driver had been drinking and didn't wear her seat belt. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a fact that paparazzi were arrested after the accident so obviously the French police felt they had been partially responsible for the accident. As for Dallas, the instant Ruby stepped forward, the photographers let off a barrage of flash lights which had to have blinded the police leading Oswald out of the building. Yes, The Dallas police are to blame, but the reporters didn't help.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

According to Death of Diana, Princess of Wales: "An eighteen-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the car crash that killed Diana was caused by Paul, who lost control of the car at high speed while intoxicated." and concerning the British inquest "The jury decided on 7 April 2008 that Diana had been unlawfully killed by the grossly negligent driving of chauffeur Henri Paul and following vehicles.". So it seems Itsmejudiths explanation was correct. The article does not mention what happened to the arrested paparazzis though (anyone who knows what happened are invited to share their knowledge in the article). --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

In any case, the fact that they were being closely pursued by photographers on motorcycles probably didn't help. It's a different situation from Dallas in any case, which is the salient point here, I think. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I still fail to see how one can really blame the reporters. They used cameras? I mean, that's what reporters do. It's the PD who decided to let them in the building, and to not check for weapons, even though they probably knew Ruby was an unstable mob stooge. It's the PD who decided to not put a vest on Oswald. It's the PD who allowed the whole setup to happen. The media did not kill Oswald; Ruby did. Any negligence is at the hands of the Dallas PD, not the media. The media were just doing their job, no better or worse than they ever do. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said The Dallas PD were certainly negligent; yet if one goes over to YouTube and views the video clips of Oswald while in police custody, a reporter even admits that they had been in danger of violating Oswald's civil rights. He was being labelled by the media as JFK's assassin, when they should have said presumed. Hence the numerous death threats against Oswald.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm still not seeing this as a media problem — they did nothing non-standard in such a situation. It's hard for me to see what you would have expected them to do, other than add "presumably" or "alleged" in front of the assassination bit. (Which they probably did in most circumstances other than headlines.) Not use flash bulbs? Tackle Ruby? The onus here is clearly on the PD to control the situation, not the media to self-police. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Mr.98: this was a colossal screw-up by the police from the beginning. They publicized the arrest of Oswald, gave press conferences, and even announced to the public when they were going to be transferring Oswald to the county jail. You can speculate as to why they wanted that much publicity, but it's hard to blame the media under the situation. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

While it's no excuse or justification if the Dallas Police were in the wrong, perhaps in mitigation it might be remembered that they very strongly believed (as I think do most historians and serious reporters) that Oswald had also been responsible for the death on the same day (22 Nov. 1963) of one of their own, Officer Tippett (sp?) —— Shakescene (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I still maintain that the reporters sensationalised Oswald, which led to the police station receiving death threats against him. Questions fired off at him in P.T Barnum-style such as "Did you shoot the president?" were not professional nor helpful. As I said before a journalist who was present at the Dallas police station admitted on a YouTube clip (The Killing of Lee Harvey Oswald) that the reporters had come very near to "violating Oswald's civil rights". A reporter said this. Of course the police were totally to blame for the side-show atmosphere and the lack of security inside (they should have been completely covering him as he was being transferred and kept all photographers, press, the public away).--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

(Shrug) I suppose it's in the eyes of the beholder. "Did you shoot the president?" seems like a pretty good question to me to shout at someone who allegedly just shot the question. Oswald doesn't have to answer. I'm still not sure what you're expecting them to have done in the atmosphere of Dallas after JFK had been shot. It was a pretty crazy time. "Would you like some tea, Mr. Oswald?" "Could you tell us, in as many words as necessary, how you're feeling about your incarceration?" When you parade a suspect like Oswald in front of a massive gaggle of the press in an unorganized fashion, of course you'll get reporters snapping of photographs and shouting out questions. If the Dallas PD had cared at all about that aspect of things, they would have restricted things better, set the scene better, etc. I have a hard time seeing the media as the culprit here, given the circumstances. Every analysis which shows the media to have done something inappropriate in a major way ultimately leads back to the Dallas PD having done something even more wrong. It was the PD that ultimately denied Oswald's rights to a fair trial, because they didn't keep him safe in the slightest. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mr 98 here. Jeanne, the journalists having been invited to attend or at least given no barrier to access, would it have been reasonable to demand that they take no photos of the first man accused of killing a US President in over 60 years, or to ask no questions about his alleged role in the President's death? What else should they have asked him about - his stamp collection? The media might be generally classified as a bunch of evil sludge-sucking sub-humans, and if making that accusation is your real point here, you won't get any argument from me - but it's old news, frankly. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

UN General Assembly 2010 logo

I saw a car in New York displaying this permit, during September this year. I am interested in the crest for the 2010 GA meeting, which I've not found or seen anywhere else. Can anyone help me? ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 08:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The image is of a big apple with the U.N. logo at its center. It does not seem to have been something issued by the UN, though, but by NYC, so I wouldn't look to the UN for information about it. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 23:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

novation

im writing this essay on novation in contracts .i came across this reading by this chap Ivan P. Mangatchev its called NOVATION AND NETTING BY NOVATION. this reading keeps goin over my head it available at [1] . has anyone read it ? was it real hard to understand? what is he trying to tell?Metallicmania (talk) 18:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It is written by somebody who does not have a good command of English, in particular who does not understand the use of articles ("the" and "a" - which is odd, because Bulgarian has a "the" unlike most Slavonic languages"). This makes it hard for me to read; but whether it covers the specialist subject well, I have no idea. Have you looked at novation? --ColinFine (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

yes thats what i thought of doing . hope more professors dont start writing like that.

ill just make do without this article cuz it never manages to make any sense thanks a lot colin fine!Metallicmania (talk) 05:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

[Adjusted formatting to return second sentence back within page width. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)]

$500 billion being taken away from Medicare

What is the basis, if any, for the claim that $500 billion is being taken away from Medicare as a result of the US health care reform act? --Halcatalyst (talk) 18:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

According to this watchdog site, what has really happened is that the plan changes the amount by which Medicare will scale up over the next decade, not a cut from existing amounts. (It is an expected reduction in projected spending.) In other words, the plan involves various measures to try and get a $500 billion savings in expansion of spending, not a $500 billion cut from the current budget. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is complicated, as with everything relating to health insurance, but to say that $500 billion was cut is not exactly correct, and to attack an attempt to save a half-trillion dollars seems like a very odd (read: disingenuous spin) talking point for Republicans to take at the moment. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Here is an (old) opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal as an example of the way the charge is made. --Halcatalyst (talk) 22:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

What I find disingenuous is that this is being taken up by Republicans who are supposedly opposed to growing government spending. They talk about ballooning federal spending on social services, except when it comes to Medicare, because they want to curry favor with senior citizens. I see it as being pretty cynical. "Federal spending on healthcare is bad, except when the other party finds ways to cut federal spending on health care..." I think one could have a non-cynical debate about this particular budget item, but the charge itself is not being leveled in a responsible and honest way, in this instance. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Disingenuously currying favor with senior citizens? Like, say, a $250 check to help them forget about the lack of a Social Security COLA adjustment this year? Contrary to what most Wikipedia contributors might believe, Republicans don't have a monopoly on any particular character flaw. Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 16:22, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

GOPers are against government spending; they just don't want to pay for it, and don't want anyone else to benefit from it. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Studies of the connection between The Ten Commandments and capitalism

Has there been any academic study of the idea that the Ten Commandments were the root cause of Capitalism?

"Thou shalt not steal" implies that having personal property is OK. "Honour your father and mother" suggests you do what those in authority, such as your boss, tells you. If the ten commandments where different, for example "Thou shalt not possess" and "Honour your own judgement" perhaps communism would be the dominant world culture. 92.28.255.58 (talk) 21:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The commandments you cite are compatible with slavery and feudalism as well as capitalism. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ox" could at a pinch be used as a justification of some kind of socialism. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

About the closest you'll get on this is the protestant ethic (Max Weber). He argues that a particular interpretation of Calvinist Christian theology had a major influence in the development of modern capitalist systems. --Ludwigs2 22:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

How do you get from honoring your father to obeying your boss? That would seem to be part of a capitalist religion. Wnt (talk) 22:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The Ten Commandments are compatible with pretty much every economic system. Everything you've described is completely compatible, for example, with the feudalism that ruled Christendom for the hundreds of years before capitalism developed. Capitalism has nothing to do with obeying bosses, in any case, and coveting other people's stuff (and sometimes even stealing it!) is pretty core to how the history of capitalism has played out. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

If people did not obey their bosses then it would be impossible to have the factories or other hierarchical organisations we are familiar with. 92.24.186.217 (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, not quite every: the atheism of Marx really wouldn't work well with the first few. Nyttend (talk) 00:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The atheism/materialism isn't strictly necessary for the economic system. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I would have said that capitalism predates the Ten Commandments. The vast majority of clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia are records of commercial transactions. Looie496 (talk) 23:16, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

But capitalism in general is more than just a barter economy, or the existence of markets. Ancient Mesopotamia was not "capitalist" in the sense that, say, Western Europe became in the late 16th century. See capitalism, history of capitalism, etc. In any case, capitalism as we know it today did not come from the Mesoptamians, and so a presumable argument about the Ten Commandments and modern, European-style capitalism could still be valid, even if it was predated. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

According to Jewish tradition, the prohibition of stealing in the Ten Commandments is a reference to kidnapping -- the Talmud this out via a rule of exegesis that compares this with the adjacent commandments, which carry the death penalty -- and the only prohibition of theft that carries the death penalty is that of kidnapping. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone developed a way to measure the rate of legal change?

There are politicians such as Barack Obama and the Tea Party Movement who campaign on the basis of creating change. Sometimes it is threatened that an action will create excessive legal change, such as a plot in Iowa to oust Supreme Court justices who found that the state's constitution allowed gay marriage.[2] But can anyone measure change?

Now it's obvious that there are simple metrics. Count up the letters in all the passed legislation. But it's also obvious that certain laws or lesser regulations, e.g. Executive Order 9066, have very dramatic effects despite a terse appearance. It might be that there is a way to measure laws in terms of the number of people affected X the severity of penalty applied, but I can picture similar problems.

One thing I'm wondering is that if such a metric existed, would it directly affect the interest rate? Logically it would seem that the more uncertain the rules under which businesses operate, the less likely it is that a lender will see the money returned. But I'm not sure if this would really work or if some more specific metric would be needed. Wnt (talk) 22:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how you can call a regularly scheduled election a plot, but whatever. Googlemeister (talk) 16:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Economics is usually called "the dismal science" partly because it, notoriously, fails all the time at all of its predictions. Your idea of measuring the impact of a law is appealing, but impossible without a time travel machine and the ability to both (a) use the machine at will, and (b) pass laws at will, so you can do an A/B test. (And that would only be possible if you had some sort of instantaneous GDP or M2 money supply calculator — it wouldn't measure things like how much a civil rights law impacts the nation.) To your latter paragraph, I don't think that legal uncertainty is much of a factor in bankers' decision to lend. What is a factor is the uncertainty over whether the company is going to earn profits necessary to service the debt in the face of uncertainty over their customers' satisfaction, their customers' ability to afford the products or services, the competitive environment, the control of costs, the ability to retain staff, and the other 500 things a business owner has to worry about. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Political scientists have created variables to measure policy change in certain areas. I don't know if it's possible to make a universal variable of "legal change." You can measure the number of laws passed by legislatures, but that doesn't always reflect the amount of real change. Congress tends to pass far more statutes per year than does the British Parliament, but that's because Congress tends to micromanage the state far more than does Parliament, not because Congress is necessarily doing more to change the country. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It was actually called the "dismal science" because several prominent 19th-century economic thinkers advocated that people should be utterly selfish, and that charity was a bad thing. In Victorian Britain, much "Political economy" boiled down to arguments as to why it was a good thing that the rich were rich and the poor were poor, and that any attempt to change this in any way was a blasphemous attempt to interfere with the natural order of society as determined by God and/or Malthus... AnonMoos (talk) 10:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Rank of United Nations President of General Assembly

Dear all, I've read time and again in newspaper articles and blog posts (none of which I have links to at the moment) that the President of the UN General Assembly is actually ranked higher in diplomatic protocol thatn the UN Secretary-General. I can't seem to find much official evidence for this...which is perhaps also a result of every state having its own idea of protocol. The articles, though, made it sound as if it was an internationally respected principle. The best I've found is a United States Army protocol list which stipulates that the GA president ranks higher while the GA is in session, but not otherwise. Is there any United Nations guidance on it, or anything else that could be remotely conclusive? --129.67.159.4 (talk) 23:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything that clarifies the diplomatic order of precedence (ie., who gets to sit where at dinner), but the Secretary General article says: "The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations." WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

how do I protect my utopia's constittution against corrupt judges?

let's say I have a value, Freedom of choice to live in my utopia. I realize that if people can't leave because they see which way the stew is cooking, as in pre-Nazi germany, then I'm halfway to fascism.

so, how do I make sure 200 years from now a corrupt judge won't rule that whatever bullshit pretext the government is using to keep its citizens in good standing from leaving is constituonal?

As a simple heurisic, surely at least 10% of the population is in "good standing" and should be able to permanently leave the country without any hindrance. How do I keep judges from deciding that even if 0% can leave, if their is an iron curtain around my now fascism, it is offset by some fascist value they have 200 years from now?

I mean, anyone can read plain as day that congress shall make no law abridging the right of people peacably to assemble, yet such laws are made. How can you get clearer than "shall make no law" versus them making a law? I hate guns and think they should be all but illegal as in Europe, an many states have very strict gun laws, obviously "restricting people's rights to keep and bear arms". So obviously the constitution, which hasn't been amended to allow these, doesn't work? How do I make it work? very simple. I don't want my utopians being evil. So, any law that is evil would be unconstitutional. How can I actually preventing some constitutional judge from literally ruling "yes, this is evil. The alternative is worse. Actually, by being evil we are really better-off. We can't affor not to be evil, the benefits far outweigh the consequences, so, I'm going to allow the evil law, though I don't dispute that it is evil"? I want this case simply not to be possible. I'd rather Utopia fall apart, literally disband than be evil. How can I achieve this??? (except with strong AI). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.69.211 (talk) 23:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I detect a bit of soapboxing above, but I'll bite. The original poster is discussing the US in the latter rants. The answer is that the US Constitution is not as black and white as you portray. If you would trouble to read the US Supreme Court decisions, you'll find that there's sometimes a great deal of discussion over what laws actually existed at the time that various Constitutional amendments were written. A recent memorable example is District of Columbia v. Heller, authored by Scalia, where he goes into great detail about things like the unusual phrase "keep and bear arms" and what exactly it meant when it was written. The First Amendment guarantees the Congress won't pass a law regarding the freedom of speech, but nobody who wrote the First Amendment thought this meant that all libel laws were to be thrown out. Anyway, to answer your question about foolproofing your utopia's constitution, I would define several layers of precedence. "Layer 0" would be, "Anyone may leave this Utopia at any time." Layer 1 would then define the roles of judges and of other, lesser Constitutional regulations; and then in Layer 2 would sit ordinary laws. Your constitution would state (in Layer 0) that Layer 0 rules may only be changed upon a 100% vote of the populace. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll preface this with on old, old quip: There's no bigger fool than the man who kills his cow to protect it from thieves.

The guys who designed the constitution weren't worried about creating 'perfect' document that would last for ever. They were trying to design a 'living' document that would grow and change as the nation grew and changed. Not all change is good, but the hope was to create a system that would (over time) inhibit bad changes, foster good changes, and remove mistakes. It's actually done a fairly decent job of that, and while I find the modern movement towards constitutional literalism almost as disturbing as religious literalism, I suspect that it's just a phase that will (itself) change over time. I mean, no one really wants to go back to 17th century understandings of the good society. --Ludwigs2 00:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

This reminds me of a story. Kurt Gödel, at his citizenship hearing attempted to tell the judge how he had discovered that the US Constitution did not protect the United States from becoming a dictatorship. Einstein cut him off immediately, in an attempt to not further jeopardize his chances at citizenship. Sadly, the problem that Gödel discovered seems to be lost. I've heard speculation that the problem was simply that a dictator could be installed by a constitutional amendment that overrode all the relevant parts of the constitution, but I hold out hope that he discovered something more subtle than that. Paul (Stansifer) 00:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No constitution can ensure democracy. There have been plenty of perfectly democratic constitutions that have been completely ignored by the people in power. Certainly, a balance of powers can help prevent tyranny -- legislative impeachment to throw out crooked judges, for instance, and an amendment process that can overrule widely a disliked constitutional-law decision, as the Sixteenth Amendment overruled Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.. But in the long run, it comes down to the culture of the society. It's up to the leaders of the future in your country not to be evil, and for the people of the country to prevent them from being so. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a lot of discussion amongst academics about why civic institutions (like Constitutions and courts and laws) seem to work very well some places and not very well others; in America, if the Supreme Court eventually says "you must do it this way," everybody else generally plays ball with a few rare exceptions. Laws can be more flimsy as enforcement can be more variable, for example. The specifics of American civic institutions took a long time to develop to the place they are now; there's some argument to the fact that most of the success is just that everybody is taught from a young age that they should work that way, and thus they must work that way. (And why Presidents, even the worst of them, generally cannot sweep aside the Constitution for more than a few years at most, and even then in a limited sense.) In any case, how to design good civic institutions from scratch is a problem of enormous magnitude, as democracies find whenever they try to impose similar styles of governments on other regions of the world. It's not the sort of thing you can just write in a document and have stick — there have to be generations of stakeholders invested in maintaining the institutions. Want people to keep your system? Make sure it works acceptably well (which is not necessarily utopic or perfect) for a lot of different people in it, all of whom have strong incentive to keep it working to some degree. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

On this bit, "...many states have very strict gun laws, obviously "restricting people's rights to keep and bear arms..." It might be useful to quote the actual text of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The bit about the "well regulated Militia" is tightly knit into the "right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". The militia, as it existed in the 1780s does not exist anymore, except perhaps as the National Guard of the United States. Anyway, I suggest reading those articles. They shed much light on whether states with strict gun control laws are "obviously" in violation of the 2nd amendment. Pfly (talk) 09:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, in the case I cited above, District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court disagreed with your claim that it's tightly knit into that right. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I'm afraid I didn't read your earlier comments close enough, Comet T. I didn't know about that case, it's very interesting. So much for my notion of "tightly knit". And it seemed to make so much sense! Ah well, thanks for pointing out my mistake. Pfly (talk) 07:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(OP HERE). Dude, I don't agree with that! I think it should be repealed. But I can read an eight-century text (can you? Try it on another one of no political importance) and it is OBVIOUS that it means: "Since a Free state cannot be secure otherwise, the people must continue to have the right to keep arms and use them." (You can only "infringe" a right that someone had had). But the fact that judges can interpret that to mean something different from what it does is proof that my constitution could simply be ignored, or reinterpreted so that it doesn't mean what I want it to anymore. Actually the right you said is a perfect example. The argument for gun control is that the clause is not RELEVANT today. The same argument could be used for any clause in my constitution. How do I keep judges from straying from them??? 84.153.201.252 (talk) 14:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

An obvious response is: Why would you intend your constitution to retain and enforce irrelevant requirements upon the populace? I guess if this is a requirement of yours, you could write long, exacting requirements on how the constitution is to be interpreted and how not to be interpreted, and make it very explicit that every single word must be interpreted literally as the language was written in 2010, with lots of examples. But, as we are human and not masses of machine code, there are inevitably going to be loopholes that you didn't intend. Your goal may only be achievable in the world of the Sims. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2010 (UTC)