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The Ole Soviet Constitution!

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Unfortunately, I experienced the consequences of that constitution firsthand, and millions of people still do. What exactly do you find so crazy? The Soviet Constitution is more honest than those of dictatorships around the world because it was not ashamed of its ideology – though you will find no mention of gulags or the secret police in it. I don’t find it the least bit surprising. It’s certainly not honest – just look at all the “rights” it promises.

Btw, it’s interesting to compare it with the new EU Constitution. Aside from the “public ownership of the means of production” part, they are not that different.

http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/Tre...v00850.en03.pdf

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I, for one, am not too enthusiastic about the lastest Russian Constutition. But I admit it is a MAJOR improvement--it recognizes individual rights, for the most part.

The overly long listing of specific rights is not good way to protect them, though. I would think that a simple list of the most fundamental human rights, which should just logically imply all the others, would be more effective. Otherwise, one will encounter problems with entirely new situations in which none of the listed specific rights may easily apply.

Has any Objectivist ever written what an ideal constutition would be like? I'm pretty sure its organization of the government will mostly resemble that of the US, but how would it enumerate the powers of each branch? What specific powers would it grant? How would it properly restrict each branch to its enumerated powers and no more? How would it ensure a strict, logical interpretation within its broad context rather than the loose one we have today? How woud it delimit its function to only the protection of individual rights?

I know these are too many questions, but I'm not expecting an answer to all of them--just one or two.

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I'm not familiar with the old Russian Constitution, but this one doesn't impress me at all. It looks like something that might come out of a fairly bad European welfare state.

"Employable children who have reached 18 years old shall care for

their non-employable parents."

"Everyone shall have the right to a home."

"Everyone shall have the right to receive, free of charge and on a competitive basis, higher education in a state or municipal educational institution or enterprise."

"Everyone shall be obliged to preserve nature and the environment, and care for natural wealth."

Heh... Article 29 was my favorite. Did no one notice a problem here?

"Article 29

1.Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought and speech.

2. Propaganda or campaigning inciting social, racial, national or religious

hatred and strife is impermissible. The propaganda of social, racial, national,

religious or language superiority is forbidden.

...

5. The freedom of the mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be prohibited."

(LANGUAGE superiority? Huh???)

Has anyone noticed that constitutions become both more vague and more concrete-bound over time, and that you can count on the abstractions blatantly contradicting the concretes? I noticed this in the Iraq constitution too, though not quite to the same extent.

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Ok, so I just took a quick look at the old constitution. Yeah, it's really bad. But one thing that I thought was funny:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

I guess the first phrasing didn't work out very well, huh? (Not that this one was a resounding success either...)

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