Constitution doesn’t reflect reality of modern living

AMERICAN politicians regularly — and often hilariously — describe their country as the “greatest democracy in the world”, despite the fact a president can just squeak election in terms of real votes but win a landslide in the electoral college; despite the fact the balance of powers between Congress and the president are such that the system often seizes up; and despite the fact that new laws are sometimes not made by the legislature but by the US Supreme Court.

Such is the American faith in the wisdom of their founding fathers that they will regularly go to court to decide what George Washington might have thought of Super-PACs or people being allowed to keep assault rifles in their homes. Men who are dead for hundreds of years are being asked to make judgements about a world they would find utterly bewildering.

But the yanks are not unique in this regard: most republics place an inordinate amount of faith in their constitutions, regarding them as constant, inviolate and wholesome: a sort of legislative chicken pie. You can tinker with the ingredients slightly, but it will always be chicken pie: and everyone always will like it.