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If yes, then what would they be? I am stipulating a max of five amendments here, mainly because five is a good round number and I cannot for the life of me imagine more than five being necessary or desirable.
This is kind of a weird question, since this is like asking “if I were king, what would I promulgate?” It's even more problematic knowing that imposing a law on the land out of the blue could be extremely disruptive to people, leading to unrest, riots, etc. With that in mind, I might make minor clarifying changes to the Constitution. The very notion of the “wall of separation” between Church and State is not really rooted in the First Amendment, but that is how it has evolved over time. The First Amendment really has little to say on the matter, so if we were to expound on it with more than just a few words, I think we could protect the Founder's original vision of how they wanted this to be. I would also redraw the power of Congress to regulate commerce via the Commerce Clause. In other words, I wouldn't abolish it altogether, but more strictly define it. I can't imagine that the Founders had envisioned Congress stepping into so many remote areas of life that they do now.
I wouldn't change the Constitution, just the interpretations of it. As Phid said, there is no wall of separation and there is no right to murder unborn human beings in it either.
It is a “King for a day” type question. I started thinking about it yesterday as I getting my breakfast ready. I would change it by adding five amendments.
- I would make the 2nd Amendment more explicit by confirming the individual right to bear arms and specifically disallowing
ANY type of Gun Control to include the prohibition on owning Automatic weapons, magazine, size or background checks.
- I would repeal the 16th Amendment and abolish taxes on income from any source.
- I would have a balanced budget amendment that would require that the federal budget be no more than 15% of GDP and require that national debt not exceed 50% of GDP with a time limit of 20 years from ratification for implementation.
- I would severely curtail federal power by making the 10th Amendment statement of state's rights more specific, I would probably also make nullification explicit as well because I think it is a great idea.
- Lastly, I would severely curtail executive power. I would specify which executive departments are allowed and require that future executive departments be created by Amending the Constitution. In my view, the only executive departments we need are State, War (not Defense), Treasury, and Justice just like Washington had.
