Let's talk about Sweden

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Says who?

Anyone who realizes that some of the things in it could be done better and it could use major updates... not unlike the 5 we have had here in Michigan. Constitutions are not supposed to be static objects..

[km1125]

What we actually needed quite a long time ago is a second constitutional convention.

I'm honestly not sure we could assemble enough smart people who only have the good of the country at heart to pull that off.

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What we actually needed quite a long time ago is a second constitutional convention.

I'm honestly not sure we could assemble enough smart people who only have the good of the country at heart to pull that off.

You may be right... it may have to wait until we are at the bottom end of the cycle again... all of this Polarization tends to roll in cycles and we are getting to a party realignment. Give it 25-30 years.

[audiophile]

Covid-19 can't be stopped? IF that is true then Sweden's approach may be correct.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/o ... eradicated

[MWmetalhead]

Also - I know that everybody who is criticizing Sweden is limiting their comparison to Norway and Finland. But when compared to ALL of Europe, Sweden's per-capita death rate is right in the middle of the pack. Not to mention, the state of Michigan's per-capita death rate is more than double that of Sweden. And we have some of the strictest lockdown restrictions in our country.

Michigan has hundreds of thousands of residents with high-risk, preexisting health ailments. You neglected to mention that healthiness of Sweden's population, in general, is superior to that of Michigan.

As to your view on the US Constitution, you and will have to agree to disagree. You are correct in that people alive in the 1700s couldn't forsee 21st century technology or problems, but that's why our founders included an amendment process. The Constitution, in my view, is quite literally the lone firewall between freedom and tyranny. Without it, I think the US as a nation would have fallen decades ago. I also think that the moment you start to make exceptions without formally amending it, the document immediately becomes worthless and the ultimate slippery slope ensues.

Your definition of "tyranny" is perhaps looser than my own. Governance is not necessarily tyranny. That said, I think you & I actually agree more than we disagree here. I will also say the "slippery slope" got underway a long time ago. That cat is long out of the bag.

By no means am I advocating disregarding the Constitution with reckless abandon. Far from it. However, it was a document written when mental health issues were not understood, modern technology did not exist, modern weaponry did not exist, biotechnology did not exist, global commerce barely existed, slavery was commonly accepted, and witch trials were occurring. It is a document that contains some ambiguity (the Ninth Amendment arguably serves as a prime example).

In a country with fifty distinct states, getting at least three-fourths to agree on anything is damn near impossible, especially in the polarizing climate we find ourselves in now. Sadly, a lot of our government has been operating in disregard of certain provisions of the Constitution for years for no good reason. Look at all the duplicative agencies and cabinet level departments when one compares the federal government to most if not all state governments. Talk about inefficiency! I think this, in part, can be blamed on the judicial branch not proactively preventing Executive and legislative overreach, and also, on the states viewing the federal government all too often as a "money tree." (Letting the federal government do the job is easier than asking state voters for more revenue; it's the path of least resistance! The feds don't need to raise taxes; they can just print & sell more bonds.)

Sure, from time to time, Attorneys General from various states will bring court cases against the federal government for overreach. However, such lawsuits are often driven by political orthodoxy rather than regard for the Constitution.

A review of Amendment chronology is interesting. The past fifty years have seen only two Amendments, which by far, is the lowest frequency of Amendment in the history of the Republic. This fits with what I stated above - Executive overreach, lack of proper oversight by the judicial system, states silently ceding power to the feds in order to avoid the inconvenient taxation question, etc.

What's surprising to me is how state borders have not changed in many generations. Usually, in a highly competitive commercial market, strong performers grow and weaker performers either get "crowded out" or get absorbed. See where I'm going with this? Fifty states is probably too many. Having fifty distinct state governments within the borders of the U.S. encourages inefficiency with tax dollars and delivery of services.

I think Australia has it right in that regard. Did I mention that Australia for the past decade has also been the nation with the highest or second highest median wealth in the entire world?

I think too many Constitutional scholars are fixated on ancient history (learning from the past is a GREAT and necessary thing, don't get me wrong) rather than finding ways to improve upon an already great document by benchmarking / grading our Constitution against other countries with democratic freedoms and robust economies. The low rate of Amendment activity over the past fifty years seems to support this notion.

[bmw]

MW - I generally agree with your analysis. About the only place I would differ is in that if we loosen up the rules for amending the Constitution, it won't be Constitutional scholars making decisions on how to amend it; rather, it will be politicians making those decisions, and any such changes these people would come up with will almost exclusively expand the power of government rather than expand individual personal or economic freedom.

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MW - I generally agree with your analysis. About the only place I would differ is in that if we loosen up the rules for amending the Constitution, it won't be Constitutional scholars making decisions on how to amend it; rather, it will be politicians making those decisions, and any such changes these people would come up with will almost exclusively expand the power of government rather than expand individual personal or economic freedom.

Constitutional scholars don’t currently make such decisions. Politicians do.

[craig11152]

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.

Thomas Jefferson

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The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.

Thomas Jefferson

Nice find! Jefferson was one of the more liberal founding fathers though so I’ve seen his stuff dismissed on that basis before or outright ignored.

[TC Talks]

It looks like the "Just ignore it" failed miserably, killing thousands.

Still a believer BMW?

Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.

This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.

“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”

Sweden is exposed to the vagaries of global trade. Once the pandemic was unleashed, it was certain to suffer the economic consequences, said Mr. Kirkegaard, the economist.

“The Swedish manufacturing sector shut down when everyone else shut down because of the supply chain situation,” he said. “This was entirely predictable.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/busi ... virus.html

[bmw]

Ask me again once the pandemic is completely over. Sweden will be one of the first countries to reach a state of herd immunity. As for other countries who lag behind Sweden in death tolls? Their time is coming.

[TC Talks]

So you have no problem that thousands of additional people are being killed? What a classy guy.

Why is getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 to “get it over with” not a good idea?
With some other diseases, such as chickenpox before the varicella vaccine was developed, people sometimes exposed themselves intentionally as a way of achieving immunity. For less severe diseases, this approach might be reasonable. But the situation for SARS-CoV-2 is very different: COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of severe disease and even death.

The death rate for COVID-19 is unknown, but current data suggest it is 10 times higher than for the flu. It’s higher still among vulnerable groups like the elderly and people with weakened immune systems. Even if the same number of people ultimately get infected with SARS-CoV-2, it’s best to space those infections over time to avoid overwhelming our doctors and hospitals. Quicker is not always better, as we have seen in previous epidemics with high mortality rates, such as the 1918 Flu pandemic.

https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles ... vid19.html

[Rate This]

Ask me again once the pandemic is completely over. Sweden will be one of the first countries to reach a state of herd immunity. As for other countries who lag behind Sweden in death tolls? Their time is coming.

Even Sweden regrets that they did it the way they did for god sake.

[bmw]

I'm just accepting the reality of the situation. There are no good answers - and there were no good answers as of probably sometime in January. Since we keep arguing in circles there's not much else for me to say here. The reality as I see it is that given how contagious the virus is and given how many people already have it, the best course of action is to just let it run its course while doing what we can to protect the most vulnerable groups of people until we can get a treatment/vaccine. The one-size-fits-all strategy of trying to prevent everybody from getting sick IS NOT WORKING as should be blatantly apparent from the current numbers. Like it or not, we are ALREADY ON THE PATH, and it is inevitable, to eventual 70% infection and herd immunity.

[km1125]

Michigan ALONE has had more deaths than Sweden due to COVID. I don't think we know yet how many additional deaths we'll have due to the associated shutdown either.

Luckily, the feds have pumped money into the state's economy, or we'd see THOUSANDS of more deaths due to starvation and crime due to everyone going broke. That can still happen this year though, if folks don't start getting back to real paychecks.