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Comment by sheikhnbake | Hacker News Reader

The fact that this conversation is happening at all is indicative that our current form of government and its founding documents were inadequate in preventing the existing situation.

If the constitution was appropriate, the people would have the explicit legal means of remedying this situation without relying on elections several years after the constitutional crises was underway.

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A piece of paper doesn't make any difference if what's written is not observed, nor the rules it laid out followed. The fact that the president can commit crimes - like declaring war without the approval of congress - and have no consequences, means that the problem isn't with the written text, it's in enforcing it. And citizens can only enforce it with elections, or with civil unrest.

I would say that the constitution not enshrining a method of enforcement outside the auspices of the executive branch is an inherent failing of the document. Which would then indict its inability to be amended as originally intended over time.

The fact that it was intended to be a living document and has not remained so, I would argue, is partially responsible for our current predicament.

The legal remedy is impeachment. That was tried twice, and in subsequent elections “the people” reacted by moving us even farther away from being able to use it. There’s no constitutional problem here; there’s a people problem.

The fact that it was intended to be a living document and has not remained so, I would argue, is partially responsible for our current predicament.

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