Chile's govt in shock loss as voters pick independents to draft constitution

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yup, let's murder the folk musicians to prevent that left-wing ideology.

What are you talking about? I never advocated murdering anyone. Which musicians are you talking about?

Just the dead ones.

I'm saying that the new constitution will probably be bad. And the procedure to make it is already bad because it's unconstitutional, even if the end result happens to be surprisingly good.

Yeah, evil left-wing ideology... gotta support a coup!

Why do you behave in that manner?

You mean bringing up the past when the leftists were going to ruin Chile and the US 'had to step in' in order to save Chile from itself, and murder some peoples?

No, I never advocated murdering dead musicians, either. And no, I do not support a coup. And it's just wrong on your part to keep accusing me like that.

Not accusing you of anything, just reminding people of what the anti-"leftist" mantra has led Chile to in the past.

Luckily, there will be no coup, there is no chance of that. But it seems likely the constitution will be left-wing, and even race-based, or ethnicity-based. I hope not. Maybe the worst parts won't get enough support, so there is some room for hope.

Otherwise... murder.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why does it matter that this "body" which is writing the new new constitution is unconstitutional? Lots of things are are unconstitutional - traffic lights for example, nothing in constitution mentions them.
Anyone could write constitution, it's passing it what matters.

Democracy, or at least something like it, is founded on a principal that there needs to be stability within the the foundation of the core laws. The irony being, the original Constitutions aren't exactly enacted constitutionally because... well... there is no Constitution to use as a basis for laying down the foundations.

The US is a good example of this when the Articles of Confederation were a bust, and the states realized that a stronger federalized system was necessary in order to have a stable nation. That was scrapped and replaced with the Constitution, which wasn't exactly the most legal maneuver. However, there was overwhelmingly broad support for this.

But in general, when it is easy to change the foundations of government, that means it is very easy to screw it all up. For instance, it took the US over 200 years to get to a stretching point of right-wing fascist totalitarianism in large part because our Government's founding documents are so hard to screw with.

 

[Elixir]

you want another Pinochet?

No, but a new Pinochet may well be the outcome ...

So might a representative democracy.
Maybe refrain from setting your hair on fire until you have some reason.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You mean bringing up the past when the leftists were going to ruin Chile and the US 'had to step in' in order to save Chile from itself, and murder some peoples?

I mean responding to my point of how a left-wing constitution is likely to happen and make things overall bad for Chile by suggesting things like support of murder, dictatorship, etc., yes. That's not a reply. I do not support coups, and in any case have zero power to bring them about if I wanted to.

Not accusing you of anything, just reminding people of what the anti-"leftist" mantra has led Chile to in the past.

It is not a mantra. And yes, of course you are accusing me. If you do not mean to, then you still write very strong, unjust personal accusations without meaning it.

And no, that has not led Chile to dictatorship. Pinochet and his supporters did that. Pointing out that Allende's policies were bad did not bring about Pinochet. He did so, and his supporters.

Otherwise... murder.

That attack is so, so unjust. And you still think you are doing the right thing. That's an example of the results of ideology, in your case left-wing ideology, it seems.

But no coup, or anything like that. And there will be less freedom and democracy, and more leftism.

Oh, and of course there will be murders, but that is regardless of what they write on the constitution.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Evidence?

The procedure was in violation of the constitution. When the government with massive public support decides to violate the constitution, that undermines the rule of law - because, well, they are in fact breaking the law openly! And the example of course is not good. As for the international image, well, people from other countries can read what happened, and it's my assessment that it's doing such damage, including the impact on the markets ( I could additionally post links to articles involving this too, but searching for the articles I've read over the past few months on the matter would take more time I'm willing to dedicate to the matter, so I'll leave it at that for now; maybe later). If you disagree with that assessment, then you're doing exactly as expected, no problem.

 

[bilby]

I am not a conservative,

I suggest you sue your posting history for libel.

 

[Gun Nut]

New proposals will require two-thirds approval and without a third of the delegates, the government will struggle to block radical changes to the constitution unless it can forge new alliances.

So the new socialist ruler of Chile (Allende 2.0?) wants to impose "radical changes" to the constitution?
That's not going to end well ...

I doesn't matter what his politics are. Constitutions should not be rewritten. We do it the right way--amendments that require supermajorites to pass.

Don't look up.

I just watched that movie, "Don't Look Up".... incredible cast.. good story... It's what happens when a divided nation, with both eyes on their own social media pages, is told that the end of the world is happening in 6 months.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

New proposals will require two-thirds approval and without a third of the delegates, the government will struggle to block radical changes to the constitution unless it can forge new alliances.

So the new socialist ruler of Chile (Allende 2.0?) wants to impose "radical changes" to the constitution?
That's not going to end well ...

I doesn't matter what his politics are. Constitutions should not be rewritten. We do it the right way--amendments that require supermajorites to pass.

Don't look up.

That means two thirds of the delegates, not of the population, doesn't it??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The content I believe will be pretty bad, but that aside, the procedure is bad independently of the content.

Which was exactly my issue with it. Constitutional conventions make it far too easy to change things. They are a necessary evil in creating a new country, but they should not otherwise exist.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

New proposals will require two-thirds approval and without a third of the delegates, the government will struggle to block radical changes to the constitution unless it can forge new alliances.

So the new socialist ruler of Chile (Allende 2.0?) wants to impose "radical changes" to the constitution?
That's not going to end well ...

I doesn't matter what his politics are. Constitutions should not be rewritten. We do it the right way--amendments that require supermajorites to pass.

I disagree. Sometimes constitutions need to be pulled down and started over. Not every development or system is built correctly or even recoverably.

I think that the US Constitution needs to be rewritten entirely.

Sometimes, 2.0 is necessary.

The existing system would allow for complete replacement of the Constitution. There's no need to take the risk of delegating it to a small group.

 

[bilby]

New proposals will require two-thirds approval and without a third of the delegates, the government will struggle to block radical changes to the constitution unless it can forge new alliances.

So the new socialist ruler of Chile (Allende 2.0?) wants to impose "radical changes" to the constitution?
That's not going to end well ...

I doesn't matter what his politics are. Constitutions should not be rewritten. We do it the right way--amendments that require supermajorites to pass.

Don't look up.

That means two thirds of the delegates, not of the population, doesn't it??

US Constitutional amendments don't require approval by two thirds of the population. As far as I am aware, no country has such a requirement for any kind of constitutional or legislative change.

To pass an amendment to the US constitution requires only a supermajority of delegates - in that case, the delegates are typically the elected members of the legislature.

It's difficult to get two thirds of a population to vote at all, much less to vote in favour of a particular change.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

US Constitutional amendments don't require approval by two thirds of the population. As far as I am aware, no country has such a requirement for any kind of constitutional or legislative change.

To pass an amendment to the US constitution requires only a supermajority of delegates - in that case, the delegates are typically the elected members of the legislature.

It's difficult to get two thirds of a population to vote at all, much less to vote in favour of a particular change.

But then IIRC 2/3 of the states must also vote for it. It's a much larger pool of people and they're not selected for the purpose.

I would prefer it was 2/3 of the voters in the states.

 

[Derec]

But then IIRC 2/3 of the states must also vote for it.

3/4.