because that pretty much is the state of any kind of speach it could apply to. either we operate from it as a first principle/“sacred text” or its scope shrinks as modern life loses any literal comparison to life in the late 1700s
That doesn’t make any sense. To the extent that “modern life” diverges from the late 1700s, then you don’t need the First Amendment. Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
What doesn't make any sense is proposing the constitution be interpreted as it was when there was no general right to vote or general right to political speech... then claiming this is the "voters decide" option.
Your argument undermines the whole idea of written constitutions. It just means that we should ignore the First Amendment altogether. If there is a problem with what people thought in 1789, how can words written back then possibly bind elected legislatures in 2026 in any whatsoever?
First, the US constitution as it currently stands admits modifications. Amendments are version bumps. My understanding is that they’re harder to come by these days.
Second, the constitution may be written but the interpretation is always changing. In particular, the interpretation of laws around restriction of free speech have lots of history of being interpreted in ways that may or may not be congruent with the intentions of the original authors, who’re dead, so we’ll never know the truth of it. It’s only been 107 years since the US Supreme Court decided that anti-draft speech in time of war COULD BE ILLEGAL. Apparently that was partially overturned in 1969.
Thirdly [naming, caching and out by one bugs!] it is far from clear that a written constitution will lead to a durable republic. It’s only been ~250 years. Too soon to tell.
> Second, the constitution may be written but the interpretation is always changing
It’s okay if the change is because you think the new interpretation is closer to what the constitution originally meant.
It’s democratically illegitimate to change the interpretation otherwise. A written constitution is already an impingement on democracy. But how can it be that whoever is doing the interpreting is allowed to restrict democratically adopted laws in ways the constitution didn’t originally intend to restrict them?
There is no right to vote in the constitution as written and interpreted in the 1700s. There is also no guarantee of freedom of speech. The first amendment was considered a rule that only applied federally.
What's democratically illegitimate is everything you wrote in this thread.
If your state government threw you in jail for what you just wrote that would be perfectly aligned with your "original understanding" interpretation of the U.S constitution.
> Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
You're essentially arguing against a constitution. Governments can work without one but it should at least be recognized what we're losing. There are no longer any practical limits to what laws legislators are allowed to enact.
There's a huge disconnect between what the voters want and what legislators actually enact which is why I'm glad we have a constitution. My home state, Ohio, actually tried to limit ballot initiatives because they knew they knew the upcoming abortion ballot measure was going to pass. Literally the definition of legislators not representing the will of the people. I wouldn't ever argue "some state legislature passed a law therefore it must be what the people wanted."
> I wouldn't ever argue "some state legislature passed a law therefore it must be what the people wanted."
That’s a broadside argument against democracy. You’re not just saying that legislatures sometimes don’t reflect the will of the electorate. You’re saying that’s the default. Do you really think that’s the case here? That people in Utah don’t support a porn tax?
The Ohio abortion referendum doesn’t prove your premise. It shows that, when you put a single issue to a public vote, you can get a different result than a legislature, where factions necessarily have to form coalitions to support or oppose platforms including many issues. If you put the abortion issue in a referendum with other issues like say police funding, you would probably get a different result—even with no legislators standing between the public and the outcome.
And how is your alternative proposal better? If elected legislatures don’t reflect the will of the people, doesn’t that go doubly or triply so for a handful of unelected judges interpreting a “constitution?”
> If you put the abortion issue in a referendum with other issues like say police funding, you would probably get a different result.
Ohio actually is aware of this which is why in the state constitution there's a rule that bills must have a single subject. The hypothetical abortion plus police funding bill would be unconstitutional.
> Voters in 2026 can decide what kind of speech they want to ban or not.
No, they can’t. The point of the constitution is to prevent arbitrary changes that violate the civil rights of the individual. A tyranny of the majority (the flaw in democracy) does not get to override fundamental individual rights.
By "fundamental individual right", I believe they're referring to the first amendment. How we should interpret the first amendment is not something we can put up to a vote. Only the judicial branch holds the power to interpret the law. As the root commenter noted, the Supreme Court has already decided that sexual speech is not necessarily protected by the first amendment.
At the same time, you're allowed to disagree with their decision. The Supreme Court tries its best, but there is no "100% correct" interpretation and individual justices often disagree (as they did on Miller v. California).
You can try to put it to a vote but I doubt Article V's requirements would be met in today's environment. So what's the point that useless thought exercise?
No, this is the core of a particular brand of politics: neoliberal politics. Where the financialization of everything is what's most important. There was a time, still in lived memory, where the US government was able to complete many types of projects and it also coincided with the period of lowest economic inequality (the great compression), the expansion of civil rights, and had the highest taxes against the elites this country has ever seen.
Obviously if you hate democracy you'll want to destroy this system, which is what they've been working at for the last 50ish years.
Tax rates are not the same as effective taxes paid, and US taxes as a percent of GDP are at an all time high. This is besides the fact that gdp is many times higher, growing geometrically.
It is an interesting question of what changed in terms of ability to execute, but lack of funding isn't the answer. I suspect it is a combination of scope creep, application to intractable problems, and baumols cost disease at work.
Every regulation, whether it's environmental, DEIA or anti-fraud, adds a few steps to each project. With enough regulations and enough steps, things just slow down to a crawl.
As governments and legal systems get older, they get into more and more situations where a bad thing happens, and the politicians must show that they've done something to stop a similar thing from happening again. Nobody can publicly admit that it's fine to letting a 5-year-old kid die once in a while, even if that would be the right call. This results in more and more layers of regulation being added, which nobody has an incentive to remove.
> Nobody can publicly admit that it's fine to letting a 5-year-old kid die once in a while, even if that would be the right call.
Sure, there are such cases, but a lot of regulation was written in blood, and the price that affected individuals or even our whole species paid was often monumental:
Having cancer literally eat the workers faces is not acceptable (=> radium girls), nor are mistakes like leaded gas or CFCs.
Everytime people advocate for big immediate gains from abolishing regulations, you can be almost certain that they are selling toxic snake oil.
Current US admin seems no exception, especially when comparing related promises with actual results (e.g. Doge).
edit: I'm not saying that pruning back regulations is bad, but it needs to be a careful, deliberate effort and big immediate payoffs are often unrealistic.
> Tax rates are not the same as effective taxes paid
Correct, but the tax system is nonetheless quite effective at setting behavioral incentives and disincentives. Higher income and estate tax rates incentivize capital being locked up in investments instead (for lower capital gains taxes); those investments put people to work and are subject to Labor negotiating higher compensation. Allowing donations to non-profits to deduct from other taxes allows private individuals (compared to a government bureaucracy) to more efficiently fund social welfare programs, which incidentally, also put people to work in the administration of such programs.
Funding government is not the sole goal of higher taxation rates, but rather, also how incentives in society are shaped.
It looks pretty steady around 17%. It was as high as 20% in the late 1990s. However, this does not include state and local taxes. I could not find a source for it. What is your source of information?
However, my main point was to refute the idea of some mythical past where the government was massively more funded, and therefore more competent and capable.
This also ignores the effect of the growing pie over time, but that is somewhat a tangent.
If someone is referencing back to the 1930s tax rates, those total receipts were closer to 10% of GDP when things like the Hoover Dam and Interstate System were being built.
Today, the rates are closer to 30% and the GDP being taxed is 25-30 times larger, controlling for inflation.
To me, this suggests that the reason we can't perform infrastructure projects is not lack of funding
By way of analogy, imagine someone making a $20k salary that can do big things while spending 10% of their salary projects. However, someone making $600k, spending 30% of that on projects can't get get meaningful work done.
These are the proportions we are talking about. It begs a lot of questions.
Are the projects really comparable? Did competence change? Did the working environment?
What I offer may be helpful, but you likely have strong reasons to ignore it:
I have been a part of a dozen “next Silicon Valley” projects across the US, with friends who have done it internationally.
I’d suggest studying how it happened in Paris/France and also how Portgual lost it.
The only thing that works is founders helping founders. Everyone else responds to the signal they generate.
If you try to send that signal with investors/vendors, you will attract a lot of people who will not build much value.
One formula I’ve see work is to faciliate college student talent interest in startups meeting with founder/CEOs who built very successful companies. It gets a fly wheel going.
When I was on the ground floor of the NYC startup scene, it took ten years to build up to a viable startup scene.
Your effort will likely take longer.
So the best help I can give you is this - don’t waste your life.
If you are willing to contribute a generational effort towards this goal, find every founder from N Mexico and meet them. Ask for their advice on your vision. Do what they recommend.
If not, save yourself the dissapointment. There are literally 1,000s of attempts that have failed. Venture studios do not work. Angel investments from people who are not in the industry of your startups do not work.
It takes a lifetime to build a network in an industry. That is what early stage founders need access to, from people who understand how to succeed in them.
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