Because it’s worked. The alternative, opening up the entire system of government for debate, simultaneously, continuously, predictably tears itself apart in a generation. (That or you wind up with an unwritten Constitution only the elites can decipher.) The Constitution isn’t sacred. But it’s far from worthless as a basis of our society.
The Constitution was amended 12 times in the 1900s, the last being 1992. There are still multiple pending amendments.
And, as a Union of States, each also with constitutions and amendments, how do you treat the overall legal entity? Most developed nations are about the size of a US state - and some are slowly banding into larger groups like the EU.
So how is this anomalous? Do you have some list of developed nations rate of constitution updates? Are any of the structure like the US as a union of semi-autonomous states?
> Do you have some list of developed nations rate of constitution updates?
Yes. https://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/chronology/#
Picking only a high level misses that there are higher levels (such as world treaties and laws we are entered into) and ignores that the US is a conglomeration. When you'd pick Germany, but ignore EU rules, it's somewhat like picking Texas, and ignoring US.
It seems you're not really comparing frameworks very well.
The century that saw America exit WWII and the Cold War victorious while navigating a civil rights revolution? All amidst a series of peaceful transitions of powers, including the removal of a corrupt executive?
One can say many things. At the end of the day, the track record stands for itself.
This is separate from the question of whether the Constitution worked. It did. It produced a stable, powerful society. That some people are dissatisfied doesn’t refute that track record. It just points out there are dimensions on which it failed some.
That those people who are dissatisfied with that track record are now in control of the judicial branch of the US government doesn't refute that track record, I agree, but it does suggest that we are probably on a different track now, no?
Possibly. Let’s see what happens. The limited claim was that the Constitution worked over the past century. Saying some people are unhappy about the particular way it worked doesn’t detract from the fact itself.
Other countries have been very successful with other forms on basic documents. The American success may have been more successful with a document written to reflect a society without slaves, where you can travel across multiple state borders within a day, etc.
I mean, it’s a fine document and all, but can we please stop asserting without strong evidence that it’s the best ever or that it is the driving force of American success? That’s what I mean by fetishizing.
Straw man. None of this was asserted. All that was claimed is that it worked for the last century.