Maybe freedom-above-all folks need to rethink what freedom is all about in this new reality.
If corporations weren't so powerful, they wouldn't be able to manipulate the government into passing laws that restrict choice among citizens.
These sorts of questions are where you see major differences between lots of different people who would all identify themselves as "conservatives" and agreement with many people would would identify themselves as "liberals". It isn't a simple system!
Nowadays the greatest threat, and a much more intelligent and subtle threat, too, is from Big Money. There's a war out there for people's minds, and we-the-people are currently losing.
Chaining up the bodies is so medieval and inefficient, so why bother, when you can chain up the minds and then the slaves will passionately defend their own chains. It's easy, too, just set up some "think tanks", or promote some newfangled ideologies that seem to promise "liberty" while in fact weaken the very defenses that support it. Problem solved.
I lived the first 2 decades of my life under communist dictatorship, so I think I know from first hand experience what freedom, or lack thereof, truly mean.
So you experienced a regime where government became too powerful and oppressive in the name of protecting the interests of the people, and you conclude that the biggest threat to freedom is not enough government to protect the interests of the people?
You've got to be kidding. Most of the violations of human rights that occur in the world come from governments. What other entity is powerful enough to take everything you have and thrown you in prison?
This is a clear case where a government founded for the good of the people has been side-tracked to operate at the good of a corporation, at the expense of the people. So I will stick with my earlier statement: governments have power due to the will of the people, and blaming the existence of governmental power for the fact that corporations bought the legislation is doublespeak.
The problem is not the existence of government (unless you are anarchist), nor is the fact that the government has the power to regulate. The problem is that a corporation bought legislation to restrict consumer choice, and that neither the politicians nor the corporations are being held accountable for the implicit (or even explicit) bribery that went on to make it happen.
Now is the time to fix that.
> I also don't think that "get money out of politics" is a pragmatic approach to amending the constitution.
But that's the current root of all evil. Unless you pull that out of the ground, bad stuff will keep sprouting up.
So, don't fret about where the river is going. Jump on in and take a ride. The water's nice and warm.
I would love to see it.
It seems to me that massive campaign donations from corporations are only effective when a large fraction of the voters is voting in an ill-informed, rather mindless fashion. And as long as voters behave thus, it's not clear (to me) that it would take much money at all to undermine the effectiveness of a democracy.
The wording of the amendment would be decided and voted upon at the convention (75% of states required).
Maybe something like "get governance back into politics" could take the form of a constitutional amendment requiring that every citizen vote (along with mandated funding to make that convenient for every citizen).