Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Texas also changed their constitution to say "A marriage is defined as 
>> between one man and one woman", and then added a clause that said "Nothing 
>> is allowed to be like marriage" or some such to exclude "civil unions", 
>> having mis-worded it (should have said "Nothing *else* is allowed to be like 
>> marriage"), so now there's a big argument in Texas over whether anyone is 
>> allowed to be married at all. *That* all started when a gay couple that 
>> *was* married elsewhere and had moved to Texas tried to get divorced.
> 
>   Why do I get the feeling that the concept of "constitutional law" in the US
> is a bit different from what it means here? For example, I read somewhere that
> 
> "the Constitution of Alabama, the longest in-use constitution in the
> world, weighs in at over 350,000 words. It has 798 amendments, not
> including amendments 621 and 693, which do not exist. They cover
> everything from mosquito control taxes, to bingo, to protecting
> against "the evils arising from the use of intoxicating liquors at all
> elections," as well as the typical government operation stuff."
> 
>   That doesn't sound to me like a constitution. It sounds like regular law.
> 

Because the USA is a litigious bunch. The US constitution, not delving
into the state level, does set forth the way that the government works.
Until the amendments, the document describes how laws are created, a
very vague description of elections, how long terms are to be, who can
be elected, how the Supreme Court works, how the constitution can be
amended, and so forth. It was not until the Bill of Rights, the first 10
amendments, that basic human rights were added to the document.

And it is only 4,400 words.

>   At least here "the Constitution" defines the form of government and how
> it's elected, as well as principles about the basic rights all citizens
> have.
> 

About the same here.

>   The Constitution is not law. It's a set of principles by which actual
> law is created (in other words, when a new law is proposed, it has to
> conform to the basic principles set by the Constitution). You can't "break
> the constitution". You cannot be sued and convicted by breaking the
> constitution. You get sued and convicted by breaking the law (which has been
> created in accordance to the basic principles of the constitution).
> 

Alright, so lets use an example from the US constitution, because I have
to admit to not reading any other one. The First Amendment says, in
part, that Congress will make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
The Fourteenth Amendment has been taken to extends that protection to
the state level and beyond, such that no government can remove those rights.

Now, what happens when some officer of the state, say a police officer
or public official, takes it upon them self to interfere with an
individual's freedom of speech? How would other systems handle that?

In the USA, the only people who can be sued for violating the
constitution are those in the government, not individual citizens.

>   Hence the Constitution is relatively short. It doesn't go into minute
> details about extremely specific things. It mandates broad (but as unambiguous
> as possible) limits under which actual law can be created. It says things
> like "no one shall be sentenced to death, tortured or otherwise treated in a
> manner violating human dignity." It doesn't specify things like mosquito
> control taxes or bingo regulations. If those things need to be regulated,
> they are done so by regular law.
> 

As it should be, but states do it for a variety of reasons. The easiest
to understand is that individual laws can not contradict the
constitution, but amendments to it can. So, should the government want
to push through a law that they know would violate certain rights set
out in the constitution, and have voting power to get it done, an
amendment is the better way to go.

Corruption and lawsuits, sometimes I think that is all that runs this
country.

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