How to Amend the Constitutionâ€About the Process

Amending the Constitution was never meant to be simple. Although thousands of amendments have been discussed since the original document was approved in 1788, there are now only 27 amendments in the Constitution. Though its framers knew the Constitution would have to be amended, they also knew it should never be amended frivolously or haphazardly. Clearly, their process for amending the Constitution has succeeded in meeting that goal. Constitutional amendments are intended to improve, correct, or otherwise revise the original document. The framers knew it would be impossible for the Constitution they were writing to address every situation that might come along. Ratified in December 1791, the first 10 amendments—The Bill of Rights—list and vow to protect certain rights and freedoms granted to the American people and speak to the demands of the Anti-Federalists among the Founding Fathers by limiting the power of the national government. Ratified 201 years later, in May 1992, the most recent amendment—the 27th Amendment—prohibited members of Congress from raising their own salaries.   Two Methods Article V of the Constitution itself establishes the two ways in which it may be amended: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. In simple terms, Article V prescribes that amendments may be proposed either by the U.S. Congress or by a constitutional convention when and if demanded by two-thirds of the legislatures of the states. Method 1: Congress Proposes an Amendment An amendment to the Constitution may be proposed by any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate and will be considered under the standard legislative process in the form of a joint resolution. In addition, as ensured by the First Amendment, all American citizens are free to petition Congress or their state legislatures to amend the Constitution. To be approved, the amending resolution must be passed by a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and the Senate. Given no official role in the amendment process by Article V, the president of the United States is not required to sign or otherwise approve the amending resolution. Presidents, however, typically express their opinion of proposed amendments and may attempt to persuade Congress to vote for or against them. States Ratify the Amendment If approved by Congress, the proposed amendment is sent to the governors of all 50 states for their approval, called â€Å"ratification.† Congress will have specified one of two ways by which the states should consider ratification: The governor submits the amendment to the state legislature for its consideration; orThe governor convenes a state ratifying convention. If the amendment is ratified by three-fourths (currently 38) of the state legislatures or ratifying conventions, it becomes part of the Constitution. Congress has passed six amendments that never received ratification by the states. The most recent was to give full voting rights to the District of Columbia, which expired unratified in 1985. Resurrecting ERA? Clearly, this method of amending the Constitution can be lengthy and time-consuming.  However, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that ratification must be completed within â€Å"some reasonable time after the proposal.† Beginning with the 18th Amendment granting women the right to vote, it has been customary for Congress to set a maximum time period for ratification. This is why many have felt the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is dead, even though it now needs only one more state to ratify it to achieve the required 38 states. The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, and 35 states had ratified it by its extended deadline of 1985. However, in 2017 and 2018, two more states ratified it, concerned about the constitutionality of setting those deadlines. An effort in Virginia to become the 38th state to ratify the ERA failed by a single vote in February 2019. Pundits expected a battle to ensue in Congress over whether to accept the late ratifications had Virginia succeeded. Method 2: The States Demand a Constitutional Convention Under the second method of amending the Constitution prescribed by Article V, if two-thirds (currently 34) of the state legislatures vote to demand it, Congress is required to convene a full constitutional convention. Just as in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates from every state would attend this so-called â€Å"Article V Convention† for the purpose of proposing one or more amendments. Though this more momentous method has never been used, the number of states voting to demand a constitutional amending convention has come close to the required two-thirds on several occasions. The mere threat of being forced to surrender its control of the constitutional amendment process to the states has often prompted Congress to preemptively propose amendments itself. Although not specifically mentioned in the document, there are five unofficial yet legal ways of changing the Constitution  used more often—and sometimes even more controversially—than the Article V amendment process. These include legislation, presidential actions, federal court rulings, actions of the political parties, and simple custom. Can Amendments Be Repealed? Any existing constitutional amendment can be repealed but only by the ratification of another amendment. Because repealing amendments must be proposed and ratified by one of the same two methods of regular amendments, they are very rare. In the history of the United States, only one constitutional amendment has been repealed. In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment—better known as â€Å"prohibition†Ã¢â‚¬â€banning the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the United States. Though neither has ever come close to happening, two other amendments have been the subject of repeal discussion over the years: the 16th Amendment establishing the federal income tax and the 22nd Amendment limiting the president to serving only two terms. Most recently, the Second Amendment has come under critical scrutiny. In his opinion piece appearing in The New York Times on March 27, 2018, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens controversially called for the repeal of the Bill of Rights amendment, which guarantees â€Å"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.† Stevens argued that it would give more power to peoples desire to stop gun violence than the National Rifle Association. Sources The Constitutional Amendment Process The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. November 17, 2015.Huckabee, David C. Ratification of Amendments to the U.S. ConstitutionCongressional Research Service reports. Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress.Neale, Thomas H. The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for CongressCongressional Research Service.

Cultural And Racial Discrimination By Angel Kyodo Williams

different culture, who are of a different race. . . . We may have a concept about happiness, about freedom, about the future, and we tend to impose these concepts on other races, other groups, other cultures, other countries, and we create suffering for them. We think that everybody must accept and live up to our political model in order to qualify as a civilized people. Thinking this way is like tying ourselves up with rope and using the same rope to tie up everybody else. Cultural and racial discrimination creates suffering for ourselves and for others. We have to give ourselves a chance to learn new ways of thinking and acting so that we can create connections with other civilizations, other races, other cultures. We cannot remain stuck in our superiority complex, whether it is based on race, on culture, on technology, or on ideology. Diversity is needed, another leading Buddhist teacher states, to relieve our suffering—the suffering of dominant group members. angel Kyodo Williams states: Where diversity of mainstream communities is concerned, most of the work is for white folks to attend to. The dominant group is actually suffering because it is not dealing with something that is present. The structures may make it such that they don’t have to, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are suffering. Any time we’re part of a system that perpetuates oppression, ultimately we’re suffering in keeping that system going. In American Buddhism these kindsShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesBosses† 34 Case Incident 2 Era of the Disposable Worker? 35 vii viii CONTENTS 2 2 The Individual Diversity in Organizations 39 Diversity 40 Demographic Characteristics of the U.S. Workforce 41 †¢ Levels of Diversity 42 †¢ Discrimination 42 Biographical Characteristics 44 Age 44 †¢ Sex 46 †¢ Race and Ethnicity 48 †¢ Disability 48 †¢ Other Biographical Characteristics: Tenure, Religion, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity 50 Ability 52 Intellectual Abilities 52 †¢ Physical Abilities

The History of Mental Illness Free Essays

People with depression and people who are sad are something totally different. Last y, people with schizophrenia are viewed as crazy and dangerous. For these reasons, history has viewed these individuals differently and have been misunderstood. We will write a custom essay sample on The History of Mental Illness or any similar topic only for you Order Now Because of the fact that people never quite understood mental illness, undivided LULAS were often mistreated. If you had a mental illness, you were perceived as a danger to socio TTY and were immediately transferred to jail with no further questions asked. Things like HTH s are difficult to believe, but they did in fact happen in our world. People with mental illnesses ere not allowed out and were basically isolated from society only because people did not undo restart what was happening in their minds. Imagine having to face a life inside a jail cell or a public basement for most of your life. To me, having a mental illness is all too familiar so when I hear about things like this t hat actually happen in history, it hits me hard because if were to have been born in this c entry, I know I would have been one of many to experience the categorization and the enough ionic confinement Of these mentally ill individuals. In the 1 Boob’s for example, people were not vie deed as â€Å"crazy’, they were viewed as being Satan. However, there were two specific individual s who began to do something about these dangerous conditions. In the sass, activist Throated Dixie fought for better living conditions for the mentally ill after witnessing the dangerous and unhealthy conditions in which many patients lived. Her initiatives created a number of a asylums, but the horrible conditions still went on. In these asylums, the rooms were so small and yet so incarcerated that a Patti .NET could not move very far. Also, doctors were not very clever in coming up with ways to treat the SE people, so they just began to make treatments up as they went on. One of the treatments that t a doctor would use is lobotomy, which essentially means that they would drill holes into the patient’s skull to examine their brain. Another treatment they would use was electroshock there app. This meant that the patient would have a helmet on their head that would transfer electricity t 0 their brain to treat their illness. A man by the name of Clifford Watching Beers lived to tell his tale. Clifford was one of many battling a mental illness. In his biography, he describe sees it as a â€Å"history f a mental civil war† which he had to fight single handed on a battlefield that â€Å"lay within the compass of his skull. † After attempting to end his life, Beers ended up getting I n trouble with the authorities and had to attend court. As his punishment, he was sentenced to attend a mental institution in New Haven. After being admitted, the attendants shaved his leg s and put muffs on his wrists for restraint. Since these attendants were incapable of understands Eng the operation of his mind and what they could not understand, they would seldom tolerate an y means of disobedience. Lastly, he described the bathrooms of the wards as â€Å"a room in which vehicles [were] washed in a modern stable. † After Beers came out of his punishment, he decided to begin to change the m minds of those who did not know what to do with individuals with mental illnesses. As a result, he founded Mental Health America in 1909. Mental Health America is a nonprofit organization the at helps those with mental illness. To this day, it still exists and it even provides counseling a ND treatments at no cost. Ever since then, America’s viewpoint on the mentally ill have changed for the better, A way in which it has changed is that now America provides effective treatment TTS that help the individual. One of the disorders that has been very effective in treatment is De oppression. Depression is a mood disorder caused and carried on by an interaction of gene ethic, biological, psychological, and environmental factors that affect the mind and the body. S meeting that is misunderstood by society is that depression is only feeling out of the weather . However, it is far more than that. Depression is the intensity of the feeling of sadness and a pro longed period of negative feelings. It causes a lot of argumentative behavior, aggression, and f linings of wanting to be alone. Doctors have discovered that this disorder runs in families and ca n be traced through several generations of a family. They have also found out that it is caused by a n abnormality in the way the brain produces and maintains its levels of certain chemicals that are involved in transmitting messages from nerve cell to nerve cell. To treat depression, it is v ere common for the patient to be treated with therapy sessions, but if the depression is too SST rang they will get both therapy and antidepressants. Another disorder that has been effective in treatment is anxiety. Anxiety is quiz tee normal in many people, but the way it makes it a disorder is also the intensity of it. A person w tit anxiety will most likely get many panic attacks. A panic attack is an initial frightening expel irenic of brief but intense fear that occurs out of the blue. A panic attack is most likely to happen n if the patient continues to worry about things that others would not normally care about. D actors have discovered that people with anxiety have imbalances in levels of enumerators titers. To help them, cognitive therapy works very well in patients because it challenges your thoughts and helps the patient to control themselves better. Also, some antidepressants he Ip to lower anxiety. Lastly, schizophrenia is one mental disorder that was even new for me. When found out my sister had been diagnosed with it, was very confused because I did not have any experience with this typical disorder. Schizophrenics typically hear voices that other do n to and believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Doctors have no true cause, but believe that exposure to viruses and malnutrition before bi Roth can affect greatly whether or not someone can develop this disorder. Also, it has been found the t schizophrenics have less gray matter and different brain chemistry and structure. How to cite The History of Mental Illness, Papers

Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy - Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this assignment is to elucidate on the concept of stable economic equilibrium. Stable equilibrium refers to the condition when any deviation from equilibrium automatically brings back to the initial equilibrium position. Free market equilibrium occurs when demand as well supply condition in market becomes equivalent. In this study, stable equilibrium is analyzed with the help of microeconomic as well as macroeconomic stability. In addition, stabilization in the Australian economy is assessed in the current period. The necessity of government intervention for stabilizing the economy is also explained in this study. Market equilibrium is a common example of stable economic equilibrium. The figure below explains market equilibrium. Now, market equilibrium occurs at the point when the demand curve (DD) meets the supply curve (SS), which is reflected by E. The equilibrium price (Pe) as well as the equilibrium quantity (Qe) is attained corresponding to this equilibrium point. Now, if change in price of the products creates movement from initial equilibrium point which in turn restores equilibrium without any external intervention, then this point is referred to as stable market equilibrium. According to the law of demands, increase in price level of commodities results in fall in demand for its quantity. Therefore, if the price of the commodity increases from Pe to P1 , then the customers decreases their demand as they cannot afford to purchase it (Garda and Ziemann, 2012). This leads to occurrence of excess supply of goods shown by AB. However, the retailers then decrease the product price for selling these manufactured goods. As a result, price declines and comes back to original equilibrium price Pe (Cournd et al., 2015). Similarly, if the price level of the good declines from Pe to P2, then its quantity demanded increases. Therefore, the retailers gains low profit owing to fall in price. As a result, they plans to reduce the commodities supply, which causes excess demand in the market indicated by DC. however, the retailers now strategizes to produce more goods for meeting the demand in the market. Thus, market adjustment process continues until the price restores i nitial equilibrium price Pe. This is termed as free market equilibrium in microeconomic stability. Macroeconomic stability illustrates the stability for the whole economy. It is usually measured by key economic indicators namely, GDP, fluctuation in level of product price, variation in unemployment level, balance of trade etc. Economic stability is also analyzed from the AD-AS model. AD represents aggregate demand while As signifies aggregate supply of the commodities in the nation. Both the national income and price level of commodities aids in measuring economic stability. Moreover, variation in AD and AS leads to fluctuation in price and real GDP of the economy. This is explained in the diagram given below: Assessing stable equilibrium in Australian economy Australian government takes economic decision based on the market operations as the economy is featured as market capitalization (Sutherland and Hoeller, 2012). Change in level of product price in Australian or international market. However, the retailers manufactures commodities and sets the price according to this signals sent to the producers. It has been opined by (Sutherland and Hoeller, 2012), GDP growth rate and rate of inflation facilitates the economist to assess whether Australian economy is at stable equilibrium. GDP is considered as one of the best macroeconomic indicators that help the economist in assessing health and stability in the economy. According to the data produced by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) , it has been noted that GDP of Australia has shown stability for over the last few years(Fontana and Setterfield , 2016) Though slight fluctuation in its GDP occurs, it does not influence the Australian economy. The figure below denotes that GDP of Australia has recorded the highest in 2013 , which was $1567.18 billion. After this year, its GDP declines gradually but drastic situations is not recorded since now. Price level of commodities is evaluated by the consumer price index (CPI). Recent data also reflects that inflation rate in this nation is also stable like its GDP growth. The figure below reflects inflation rate of Australia for last few decades. Instrument adopted by the Australian government for stabilization Australian government adopts various stabilization policies that is monetary and fiscal policies by utilizing stabilization instruments. These instruments are: Automatic stabilizer Discretionary stabilizer The government of this nation uses this instrument for designing the tax structures or other purchases. Although federal policies implemented by Federal Bank are not directly affected, aggregate demand is influenced counter cyclically (Corsetti et al., 2013). Based on the present economic health of Australia, the government designs the budget accordingly. Tax receipts including GST, PAYTG and excise tax are used under this tool. It is also termed as structural stabilizer. The Australian government uses this instrument in order to introduce new tax or change the existing tax , declining government expenses in industries like defenses, housing etc. Moreover, it helps the government in implementing the policies that helps the economy in recovering from bad economic conditions. Conclusion It concludes from the above assignment that currently Australia has stable economic equilibrium. The GDP slightly expanded over the years and thus remains stable. On the other hand, inflation rate of Australia declined slightly but remained within the target level set by the Reserve bank of Australia (RBA). Still government intervenes in the market by implementing stabilization instrument in order to keep price level low and attain stable economic equilibrium. References Australia GDP | 1960-2017 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast | News. (2017).Tradingeconomics.com. Retrieved 13 September 2017, from https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp Corsetti, G., Kuester, K., Meier, A., Mller, G. J. (2013). Sovereign risk, fiscal policy, and macroeconomic stability.The Economic Journal,123(566). Cournde, B., Garda, P., Ziemann, V. (2015). Effects of Economic Policies on Microeconomic Stability. Fontana, G., Setterfield, M. (Eds.). (2016).Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy. Springer. Garda, P., Ziemann, V. (2014). Economic Policies and Microeconomic Stability. Sutherland, D., Hoeller, P. (2012). Debt and macroeconomic stability: An overview of the literature and some empirics.