Should the Constitution Be Changed?

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In my American Government and Politics class, our professor assigned a topic where the students had to discuss the implications of a modern constitutional convention and the way they felt about it. When she first brought up the topic in class I was for it, until I did a little more research and our professor explained her view of why America should not go down that path. For those of you who do not know, the first constitutional convention was called back in 1784, when the Declaration of Independence was created. We have lived by this document for almost 230 years and are the closest we have ever been to calling another meeting.

When my professor first brought it up, I thought that it is the best thing that could happen to this country, why not call a convention? Congress can go into this meeting and change the document in its entirety. If there is a possibility that my rights could suddenly be taken away, or limited, and I am set back 150 years to when my people had absolutely nothing, what would I do then? I refuse to let this government have me shaken and put all of this fear in my heart. I am extremely happy that I waited until my junior year to take my politics and government class. Now that Donald Trump is the President, I need to know everything there is to know about our system.

Although, when the Declaration of Independence was created, it gave people more rights and freedoms, but it was not intended for African Americans at that point in time. So many thoughts were running through my head like, “why not change the document all together?” and “America would probably feel more united if the minorities felt more included.” I am genuinely frightened by the possibility of this happening. The repercussions of this and the huge potential of things going wrong are monumental. What this meeting could take away from my family, me and anyone that looks like me, makes my very uneasy about it even being a possibility.

Reading my classmates’ responses to the prompt made me realize how big of a gap there is between the black and white communities. One classmate talked about changing the gun law and that is when I knew that we had totally different perceptions of this country. I fear losing my rights while others cry over guns. I wish that our generation could really see how vital politics are to our daily lives.

In this day and age we have several corporations and legislators teaming up and making the laws we live by every day. The American Legislative Exchange Council is the perfect example. The first few sentences on their “About” page states “The American Legislative Exchange Council is America’s largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.” They neglect to mention that they are endorsed by many big-name corporations. Why would you want to live under a system that lets corporations make laws, while hiding behind senators and state representatives? This whole idea boggles my mind. The simple fact that this is legal is insane.

I stand firm in believing that this document should stay untouched, refined or manipulated. At this point, it is very vague and left largely up to interpretation. The document was purposefully written that way to adapt to modern times. We do not need to change the document, we need to change the people that we indirectly voted into office. These people are interrupting it incorrectly or twisting the meanings to benefit whom they would like. Recently, I have tried to become more politically aware and taking this class has really opened my eyes. Just learning a few things about how are government system works can help with our generation’s lack of interest with politics.