The Founders warned of several ways that America could be turned into a Dictatorship. Washington warned against political parties, calling them a form of despotism, which would, if left unchecked, lead to a worst form of despotism.
John Adams warned of the people voting to gain "wanton pleasures, the capricious will" and how that would cause a decay into anarchy.
As far as contradiction goes, there a a few areas that the Constitution is rather vague. The place that comes to mind is the conditions under which a President can suspend Habeas Corpus. Does Congress need to declare a national emergency first? Or can the President do this himself? The Constitution does not provide much guidance on the federal courts. This is also an area where we must be vigilant- to ensure that activist judges don't take over our country.
Other than a few areas of vagueness coupled with the fact that freedom requires a virtuous and moral people (Washington and Adams), who are ever vigilant in the defense of freedom, I don't know of any outright contradictions in the Constitution. I suppose that is why it is part of the reason for it being amendable- so that future generations can give further guidance to their servants in government. (Which, in itself, could lead our nation into despotism).
Anyone who thinks that America could never turn into a dictatorship is fooling themselves, and would be wise to remain vigilant for freedoms sake.
Valid point as that is, I don't think thats what Godel was talking about. I am trying to work through tthe constitution. I think the source of dictatorial authority will be either Article 1 section 2 clause 1 and Article 2 section 1 clause 2 (along with some other pripheral ones) or through the judiciary using Article 3 but this needs a lot more work on my part. Its a nice pet project.
As I mentioned, Article 3 is one of the most likely. I don't know how the other two references you cited could be a problem. If you'd like to email me (jlv at ensigntech.com) I'd be most interested in your theories.
Summary of what I think this says (it's really long, in several posts, and I only skimmed): we don't know what the supposed contradiction was that Godel found in the Constitution.
"Apparently, the "inconsistency" noted by Gödel is simply that the Constitution provides for its own amendment. Suber says: 'He noticed that the AC had procedural limitations but no substantive limitations; hence it could be used to overturn the democratic institutions described in the rest of the constitution.'"
Yes, but that is not really a contradiction, is it? The People always have the authority to overthrow their government and setup a new one. That much was laid forth in the Declaration of Independence.
While in theory the People have the authority to overthrow their government, in reality, do you honestly think that the US government would allow this to happen without a mass killing of its own people? I have long been upset with the US, yet I have long given up on any hope that the US can put itself back on the right path.
The idea that damned the US is equality. I'm not talking about equality in the sense of race, gender, ethnicity, etc. I'm talking about the idea of putting everyone on a level playing field so that people's feelings are not hurt---not keeping score in youth sports, substantially dumbing down curricula, etc. This is what will eventually cause the downfall of American civilization. Anyone who will challenge the way things are currently being done will be viewed as a brutish person with an inclination towards intellectual elitism. I already see this happening.
You mean socialism? Yes, that has been a threat for a long time. I have not given up hope yet.
As far as your question is concerned, if things are bad enough to justify over throwing the government- of course the government isn't going to go peacefully. But some things are worth dying for.
America is a land of hope and opportunity, we have been through a lot of challenges (like the Civil War) and survived, and I believe we can survive the onslaught of socialism. The Principles of the Constitution will survive (eventually), even if our Representatives fail us, even if, for a season, the People fail.
Boring. Can't we find something more interesting. How about subverting the requirements for voting for state legislatures so that the voting requirements for the house representatives are automatically changed and then senators were originally appointed by the state governments...
If we are going to be conspiracy theorists (or something similar) we should at least try to find some interesting conspiracies.
Interesting question: who was smarter, Einstien or Godel. Admittedly, Einstein is much better known but consider their insights: Einstein had the insight that acceleration and gravity were manifestations of the same phenomenae and could be modeled by curvature of space. Godel had the insight that all sufficiently complex mathematical systems are incomplete. As an (aspiring) mathematician, I find the latter to be much more profound.
It can't possibly matter which one is smarter. We need more of those, that's it.
It helps if the media will portray either as a hero or role model for kids. So in that regard, Einstein was more of a success. Those guys started vocations. There is an exponential effect when your life inspires people generation after generation.
In one year, Einstein wrote four papers that individually could have won Nobel Prizes. Perhaps Gödel's revelation was more profound. But was Gödel smarter? I doubt it, at least using impressiveness of accomplishments as a proxy for intelligence.
This is quite confusing: you're talking about using "impressiveness" as a "proxy" to measure intelligence, then you're talking about measuring such impressiveness.
I don't even know what it is to measure impressiveness poorly -- I don't know how to measure it. Nobel-worthy publications are surely impressive, but it still does not measure intelligence. It measures how Nobel-worthy your work is.
The more you study intelligence, the more you realize that "smart" is such a vague concept that it is borderline useless.
Example: whose work was more difficult to understand? Godel's work came "naturally" to Godel; Einstein's came "naturally" to Einstein. They are both "unnatural" for most people. That says nothing about smartness, aside of that both are capable of something that most are not.
Next question: was Godel better at math than Einstein was at physics? My answer is "... huh?"
>As an (aspiring) mathematician, I find the latter to be much more profound.
I'm not surprised. People usually find their own subject more <fill in the blank>.
I think you also don't realize how profound Einsteins relativity is. It's a lot more than acceleration and gravity (even if that's how it starts), the implications change an immense amount of stuff.
That's why people find their own subject more compelling - they understand it more completely.
I would argue that it does. More abstract concepts often (and especially in this case) elucidate a concept with wider application. General relativity gives us insight into a possible model of our universe. Godel's incompleteness theorem gives us insight into all complex axiomatic systems in all possible universes. The difference is definitely there and an argument can be made (up to senses of aesthetics) that one is better than the other.
John Adams warned of the people voting to gain "wanton pleasures, the capricious will" and how that would cause a decay into anarchy.
As far as contradiction goes, there a a few areas that the Constitution is rather vague. The place that comes to mind is the conditions under which a President can suspend Habeas Corpus. Does Congress need to declare a national emergency first? Or can the President do this himself? The Constitution does not provide much guidance on the federal courts. This is also an area where we must be vigilant- to ensure that activist judges don't take over our country.
Other than a few areas of vagueness coupled with the fact that freedom requires a virtuous and moral people (Washington and Adams), who are ever vigilant in the defense of freedom, I don't know of any outright contradictions in the Constitution. I suppose that is why it is part of the reason for it being amendable- so that future generations can give further guidance to their servants in government. (Which, in itself, could lead our nation into despotism).
Anyone who thinks that America could never turn into a dictatorship is fooling themselves, and would be wise to remain vigilant for freedoms sake.