Do you think that the death penalty is unconstitutional?

No. Just a bad idea.

I don't believe criminal penalties are addressed in the Constitution.

No.

You can probably make a case against it, but I doubt constitutionality would be the issue.

Maybe like in Capital murder cases like the murder of a Police officer or Judge then they should use the death penalty in these cases it should be warranted and even domestic violence that is so gruesome and heinous the death penalty should be called for in these cases as well. Yet Colorado wants to do away with the death penalty to save money and after only one execution in 40 years this money can be spent where it needs to go the most?

No

I don't really care what we do with the criminally insane. Whatever.

I'm just glad I'm not the one dealing with them.

yes

I don't believe the death penalty is unconstitutional. There is a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, but it is possible to execute humanely, and there is certainly nothing unusual about executions. Ever since human beings first had laws, there have been legal executions. I believe rape and murder are crimes worthy of execution. I don't understand why the murder of a police officer or a judge should warrant any greater "punishment" than the murder of anyone else. We are supposed to be a "classless" society. Why make an aristocracy of particular professions?

I'm not sure there's anything in the US Constitution that prohibits it--I wouldn't say it's necessarily cruel or unusual, for example. However, I think it is unethical and should be done away with. Just because the framers of the Constitution weren't opposed to it doesn't mean we shouldn't be.

I know there are 8th amendment issues, but at the time it was written capital punishment was a widely accepted practice so as far as I know there's not much reason to think that the Founding Fathers had any desire to ban it. That doesn't make it right, and frankly it's hard for me coming from a country with an uncodified constitution to really appreciate the reverence in which the US constitution is held.

Unfortunately no. The law reads "Cruel AND unusual" punishment. There's no law against it being one OR the other. It could be the comfy chair, or if everyone were doing it, skinning people alive.

Huh, I never gave a moment's thought as to what it might be like to not have one.

I'm sure you folks think about your laws in its place, but laws can change, and aren't a cohesive body associated with national identity, as if written in stone.

And it is as if they were written in stone. The founding fathers and their constitiution are treated like being written by Jesus. Everyone tries to interpret what they meant, as if it matters what they meant, like we have some obligation to do as they planned.

When we do have a constitutional amendment, it's like a change in national identity, like we all agreed to speak a different language or something. It's been quite some time since we've had one of those though. I think though that insidious changes of even greater scope have gradually occurred under the radar, like the role of big business in government.

I don't think the death penalty is unconstitutional but I don't like it.

If someone has taken somebody elses life away they dont deserve to be condemned but put in jail instead. Unless it was a hippy

I'm not familiar enough with the U.S. constitution

Laws come and laws go. There are definitely areas of law that are a lot more entrenched, but even major changes to the law on succession (in the monarchy) are being proposed at the moment.

What's being proposed?

Currently, the throne passes to the eldest son (or closest male relative) of the monarch. A female can only be the heir if she has no male siblings (as was the case with the current Queen). There's strong support for changing that. Then there's the law that the monarch cannot be Catholic or married to a Catholic. Obviously, having a Catholic monarch would be problematic, as they are supposed to be the head of the Church of England, but there's talk about removing the law against them marrying a Catholic.

Changing the law on succession is a little trickier than just altering British law, as the monarch is also the head of state of all the Commonwealth countries, so they all get a say too. But here's hoping. (Though obviously, abolishing the monarchy entirely would be even better...)

You can't get rid of your monarchs, or you'd have no identity left for tourism except tea gardens. The whole world is counting on you guys to keep history and fantasy movies looking somewhat plausible.

Easy to say that from the comfort of a nation where you have an elected head of state...

You elect the people who elect your PM, who does much the same thing, don't you?

Royalty doesn't still actually have any governance role except as ambassadors, do they?

That depends. The roles of the monarch and PM are not clearly defined by written law. According to the written law, the Queen has an awful lot of power: she is able to declare war, select which party forms the government, dissolve Parliament (i.e. trigger a new general election), declare martial law (including seizing property), and so on. Over the years, those powers have gradually shifted to the PM, but without any formal changes in the written law. Precedent and tradition are well-established elements of our constitution, but some would say that they are still trumped by written law. What happens if a future monarch doesn't much like the people's choice of government? King Charles III is a rather worrying prospect, given his long history of attempting to meddle.

But all of that is besides the point. The monarchy is based on nothing, it means nothing. All that it has going for it is history. If we were to start all over again, and design our nation from scratch for this modern age, would we include a monarchy? Just like your overly-revered constitution, if it doesn't make sense for current society and opinion, or if we can do better, then there should be no qualms about changing it.

I agree in theory. But, as I expect is the case with everyone else perpetuating the show, it comes down to historical romance. It's an awful bit like all the attention movie star celebrities get, even though some neighbor down the street from you whom you never heard of may actually be more talented and cooler.

I had no idea the monarchy still had such powers. I thought they were more like pets in a gilded cage.

Our president doesn't really have too many official powers either. His/her principal powers are simply the unofficial sway of leading the sentiment of the team. The three main powers are declaring war, appointing superior judges, and vetoing acts of congress; and congress can circumvent all of that even, if they were in strong agreement.

As you see though, we've got a president now doing things like putting us to work making trans-national bullet trains rather than frittering us into misery like Bush did, and it's mostly about just putting an opinion out there and having everyone go along with it.

~

I'm reminded here of the american pastime of patio barbequeing. If it were just invented, the fire marshalls would have to say "Are you out of your feakin minds? Open fires on people's porches? What were you thinking?"

> I had no idea the monarchy still had such powers. I thought they were
> more like pets in a gilded cage.

They are. But it's a cage where the bars are just wide enough apart that if they wanted to, they could bite. The fact that these powers have now passed to the PM (and his Cabinet) and can be exercised without Parliamentary scrutiny or approval is also sometimes cause for concern.

Thinking of other examples of major changes in British law that have flown in the face of tradition, a few years ago, our upper house (The House of Lords) ceased to be a body of hereditary peers and bishops. Half of the members are now "life peers" who have been appointed to serve until their deaths, but who will not pass their peerage on to their children. That was a huge change. Ever since, there have been plans afoot to take the changes further, and to either appoint the entire House, or (more likely given recent votes) elect between 80 - 100% of the members directly (probably by single transferable vote) and rename it the Senate. It'll probably take a few more years to be realised (it's 10 years since the last major changes) but it's definitely still quietly bubbling away and I imagine the next party to win a big majority in the House of Commons will make it happen - it's a good way to go down in history!

"..to the PM without Parliamentary scrutiny." - That sounds worse. Randomly born into lifelong power sounds less dangerous than having power around that others can grab by secret coup.

Our Senate is not as cool as our congress.

> Just like your overly-revered
> constitution, if it doesn't make sense for current society and opinion,
> or if we can do better, then there should be no qualms about changing
> it.

You may be over-estimating the reverence in which our constitution is held. That reverence is more lip-service than anything else.

Article 1, Section 10 of our Constitution says "No state...shall make anything other than gold or silver coin a tender in payment of debt...", yet today, there is no gold or silver currency being minted anywhere in the US. Our paper money bears the notice "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." Yet no constitutional amendment exists authorizing that state of affairs.

In many ways, I find this a very bad thing. The constitution was intended to set limits on government authority, but we have been lax and permitted government to pervade almost every aspect of our lives.

Are you sure you're interpreting that right.

It seems to me that even before the constitution, when we were a confederacy, one of our first purposes in this was creating a common federal currency, where before each state had it's own currency.

Thus I would interpret that line as meaning that the federal gov't can print currency, but for a state to do so, it must be of corresponding mineral value.

"The constitution was intended to set limits on government authority, but we have been lax and permitted government to pervade almost every aspect of our lives." - Yeah, the demise of the Xth ammendment.

> Are you sure you're interpreting that right.
>


Actually I am not sure I am interpreting that right. But I do know that somewhere along the way, we screwed up badly with regard to "lawful money of the United States".

Ok, that much I'll definitely go for. Our money is a conspiracy within a conspiracy, money printed on a whim by private owners of the Federal Reserve who apparently don't even exist (or they would own double everything ever bought with American money since 1913). I think we would have noticed a handful of quadrillionaires walking amongst us by now.

Amongst theories behind the war in Iraq is that Iraq was going to couple oil directly to the Euro, which would make the Dollar worthless paper in comparison. If everyone switched to the Euro we'd be screwed. Of course our currency is on thin ice as is. Because of the bailouts, and all that money injected into the ecomomy, our money is about to be worth half as much. It's a fancy trick to mask recession with inflation.