Episode 283 - Max Changes the Constitution, Part I
Max woke up one day and decided to do a rewrite of the US constitution with a long amendment. Aaron discusses this with him over drinks outdoors in the dead of night.
Links
CNET: Telecom Tax Imposed in 1898 finally ends
List of Amendments to the US Constitution
United States Presidential Election of 1804
Transcript
Max: You're listening to the local maximum, Episode 283.
Narration: Time to expand your perspective. Welcome to the Local Maximum. Now here's your host, Max Sklar.
Max: Welcome, everyone. Welcome. You have reached another local maximum. Today, of course, I'm not only joined by Aaron, but I'm actually live in Aaron's House. How you doin’, Aaron?
Aaron: I'm doing well. We're recording about our usual time of the evening,
Max: Right? But it feels like it's late at night, because we're out on your porch here in Massachusetts. And not only that, but I don't know if you guys can hear it. But do you hear all those like, sounds of- what are these crickets or frogs or?
Aaron: I think it's the amphibians of the night.
Max: Well, I mean
Aaron: That's a song that was cut from Phantom of the Opera.
Max: It's a little bit. I don't know if it's creepy out here. But it definitely feels like it's the dead of night. And so, and this is fun. We've got some, we've got some beverage out. And we're gonna tonight we're talking on your porch. So we're taking a chapter out of Rob Bernstein's playbook.
Aaron: It is not quite summer yet. But I think this is close enough to consider part of your summer porch tour.
Max: Oh, well, I'm not doing a summer port tour.
Aaron: But if you do one more porch that counts as a tour.
Max: All right. So today, we're going to talk a little more political and I don't worry, I'm not going to go off on like, you know, Biden, and Trump and all that.
Aaron: No indictment talk here.
Max: No, no, you, you know, catch me in person. You can get me to go off on that. But I, you know, there's so many people talking about that, if you're a junkie for that stuff, you've got it. So I want to talk about the big questions, the stuff that's going to echo throughout the decades and the centuries. So I'm talking about, you know, I decided to get up one day and change the constitution. How's that sound?
Aaron: I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. What do you think is wrong with the way our country is being run?
Max: Well, I was reading some articles about the 17th amendment. Now. So as you may know, the Constitution has been amended, I think 27 times. So those are changes to the Constitution. Right. And actually-
Aaron: That includes the original bill of rights. The first 10?
Max: Yeah, the Bill of Rights, were the first ten.
Aaron: Those were all done in one go, right?
Max: Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they were literally one go, but they were within like, a year or so. And so I actually think most of these amendments were pretty good. Surprisingly, some people will disagree with me. I'm sure some people in Pork Fest, for example, take very It's not what's called contrarian views on these things.
Aaron: Contrarian, libertarian? Heaven forbear.
Max: No, but so I actually think most of them are good. I think the first 10, right, are the Bill of Rights, then I think then you got to that we're kind of came in the decades after that. We're like, man, we kind of screwed up the election of the President, the Vice President…
Aaron: This is stuff that came out of the 1804 election fiasco?
Max: Yeah, I didn't, I don't know what the other ones, yeah a couple of ones like that. Then you had three that came out of the Civil War, which were like, you know, equal protection under the law. You know, voting rights shouldn't be based on your race and end of slavery, of course, like that. And then you got these three in the progressive era. And those I consider the only three bad ones and the ones that came after that were actually either kind of neutral, or they were fine or good. So those, those three were, and they came, they all came, I think around 1913. Somewhere thereabouts.
Aaron: This was first wave progressives, not not FDR progressives?
Max: No, actually, I don't think there were any amendments to the Constitution during that time.
Aaron: They changed the government through other means.
Max: Yeah, yeah. So those three well, because they already got their progressive amendment.
Aaron: So this was all was it Wilson’s administration?
Max: I don't think it was. I mean, I'd love to blame Woodrow Wilson. But I don't think, you know, an amendment takes the largest portion of the population to agree. And it's, it's really, you know, it can't be done just by a president. So, and then it comes from Congress initially. So it's, so it's really the the times it was the progressive era where everybody helped these ideas. So, I mean, yes, I consider Woodrow Wilson to be, you know.
Aaron: He's a poster child of the era, but it's not like he was the one man band.
Max: Right, right. In some ways. He was like, the worst president of the modern era in terms of his policies that I disliked.
Aaron: There are many things that he did that make him easy to cancel, shall we say?
Max: Well, yeah, but also like, not worst in terms of like the most incompetent or something like that. But anyway, although we had that stroke, maybe.
Aaron: There's a discussion to be had there about, what is it? Is it Hamlin’s Razor? “Never attribute to malice that which could be explained with stupidity.” Do you want a well meaning incompetent leader or do you want a malicious skillful leader? They can each do damage in their own way. That's not what we're here to talk about. We’re here to talk about ways to blunt those risks.
Max: Right. Right. But interestingly, a lot of people ask the question, Are they stupid? Are they evil actually think it's like, it's a certain way of thinking that's promulgated, that leads to bad results. That's almost like a neither answer that I have. And that's sort of the science side. Okay. So those three amendments that caused so much trouble. The first one was the income tax, I don't think-
Aaron: Is that the 13th?
Max: Yeah, no. 13, 14, 15 were civil war.
Aaron: Oh you're right. So it must have been 16, 17, and 18. are the ones you're talking about?
Max: Yeah. So 16 was the income tax, which was passed, because they're like, look, it's gonna be 5% tops. Okay, guys. Like that. And you're not gonna pay it? Unless you're like a millionaire.
Aaron: My favorite tax tidbit is there was some tax that was passed to pay for the Spanish American War.
Max: Are we still paying it?
Aaron: No, no, they've well, they finally paid off all the bonds in like, I don't know, the 1990s or something ridiculous. And I don't have it in front of me. So I'm, I'm probably messing it up. But it was something that the intention was, yeah, it'll be a couple of years, we'll pay for it. And then, you know, it will be taken off the books. And no, it was decades, the better part of a century for sure.
Max: Yeah, that is a century because that's, yeah, 1900 to 1990. That'd be 90 years. Like you live a lot longer than the human lifespan average. So okay, so the first one can't do something about that, but decided not to. That's not my thing to do tax policy right now.
The second one is the 17th. Amendment. And that is the one that said, and that's the one we're going to talk about today. That's the one that says okay, senators are no longer going to be elected by the state governments. They're just going to be voted on directly by the people, just like the House of Representatives is. And let me get to that in a second. But first, just to round that out, and there's the 18th amendment that said prohibition: alcohol is prohibited.
Aaron: I think you mean the 19th No, it was the 18th. Okay. Because 19th was the other thing.
Max: 19th is women the right to vote, which I'm sure there are people who are against that. I'm okay with 19th, 20th, and all the rest of them.
Aaron: I mean, the great thing about the prohibition one — you said was the 18th?
Max: Yeah.
Aaron: That’s the only one that has been repealed. So it counteracts what I said a moment ago about it being one way ratchet. It is, it is not just theoretically, but in practice possible to undo what has been done through the amendment process.
Max: Right. Right. So there are three bad ones. And we've already slayed one out of the three. So two more to go. Right.
Aaron: We were going for a meatloaf here.
Max: Right. So the 17th Amendment is really interesting, because I was presented this amendment in, you know, in like high school as this was like an improvement to our democracy. And this meant that, okay, now the people have more control over who gets elected, not only can they elect to the House of Representatives, but they can also get to elect their senator. So that made the country more democratic. And I think that's kind of the the talk about it today.
Aaron: That certainly seems to align with and I'm sure you'll get to this later. But the discussion about you know, popular vote versus Electoral College, that that was a shift closer to representing the popular will of the people. Popular of the people. Is that redundant?
Max: Yeah. So yeah, and there are still quite a few people who oppose the 17th Amendment, or, you know, want to repeal it. But you know, once you put it into the political sphere, you always get called the same thing.
You don't get called a fascist, you don't get called. But you get called a, you don't get called a Nazi or white supremacist, but you get called a troglodyte. That's the word that you use to describe someone who opposes the 17th of I just, I don't know who makes the rules.
Aaron: When you say troglodyte I picture. A creature that lives in a cave possibly has extra eyes looks a little bit like what is what's, what's it from Dungeons and Dragons — a kobold?
Max: Yeah, that's what I thought too. But I looked it up, it actually turns out to be a caveman. So like prehistoric, Neolithic.
Aaron: So I got the cave part right.
Max: Right. So and obviously, as you know, in that society, they are known for having a Senate that is elected by the constituents in a federal system. Some people point out, well, what was the 17th Amendment meant to achieve? And did it achieve it?
Because, you know, there is one problem with having these large electoral districts, which is like, you know, first of all, you get a lot of money going into politics here, all the senators are raising money from all the same states. There's a very high barrier to entry to being a Senate candidate who actually has a chance to win, which essentially means you're either one of the two main parties, or you're some kind of independent from a small state, maybe, but that rarely happens. A billionaire independent could probably do it, pull it off.
There are some independents in the Senate now, but like Kyrsten Sinema, elected by Democrats, so it doesn't really count.
Aaron: And I would say that for the most part, you don't become rich, and then become a senator; you become a senator and then become rich.
Max: Well, that's a problem, too. And so I think one of the-
Aaron: If you're rich, you buy senators.
Max: Yeah. Well, this is a little bit of a, you know, a kind of a conspiracy theory behind the 17th amendment was that lobbyists were having a hard time, like bribing the Senate. So they said, well, the State Senate's they're corrupt, they're making these corrupt bargains, or the state legislators and making these corrupt bargains to choose the senators, which I agree with, it's probably true, or certainly was true.
And so we need to get make it more fair, so that now that the people like the senators, but then of course, the special interest loop and say, “Hey, we can help you out with your campaigns. So why don't you listen to us when we show up at the lobby of the Senate door, and tell you what legislation you should pass?”
So that really is a big problem. And also, you know, the purpose of bicameralism? Well, I think there were two- and so you know, oftentimes, people who are against the 17th Amendment, kind of couch it in a certain way that I think I sort of disagree with, or maybe I'm taking a different approach, because they often say, like, look, the founders were totally right. They were infallible.
Now, they don't usually say that. But they kind of act like, look, we totally got it right the first time. And then these progressives sort of mucked it up and, and kind of screwed up our system of government. And now we no longer have federalism in the sense of, you know, federalism is you're supposed to balance the role of the states versus the role of the federal government. And we've gotten too top heavy as a result of this amendment.
Aaron: The counter argument would be that by moving to direct elections, that it's not that the power is being given up to the federal government, it's that the state government is being given a smaller role in intervening between the electorate and the federal government.
Max: Right. Exactly.
Aaron: Your mileage may vary.
Max: Yeah. So I think I think actually, the founders botched the Senate, and that, and that led to the 17th amendment. Now, yes, let's have the 17th amendment 120 years later. It's hard to, you know, it's hard to blame someone for writing constitution that gets subverted in 120 years. But I want to explore.
Aaron: Do you think it was broken from the start, or it evolved into a broken state? And was that inevitable given how it had been structured?
Max: That's a good question. But yes, I think that if you look at the debates that they were having, when they were coming up with the Constitution, they had different ideas on what the Senate was. And so it's like, if you're doing a project, and you're like, well, half the people think that the project's goal is Z. And the other half think the project's goal is why you're gonna get this kind of Frankenstein-ish response that maybe might not do X or Y very well.
And so the reason, here's how I think they botched the Senate. So, the kind of the people who call themselves Federalists, they wanted a stronger central government. And these were people like Madison, who was coming up with most of the Constitution — he was kind of leading that whole thing from the south and then Hamilton from the from the North.
They did not see the Senate as the voice of the states. They kind of saw the Senate as like “No, we need these wise, aristocratic type people.” They were thinking more the British House of Lords.
Aaron: Which, unlike our contemporary British House of Lords, which is largely neutered in power, whether legally or just through precedent practice and tradition, they actually had political power at that time. And they were, you know, lifetime appointments. And usually Lords — you know, well, it's the House of Lords — so usually actual nobility, possibly from a clergy. People of old blood and traditional stock are in the United Kingdom.
Max: Right, right. And so, like, Hamilton wanted to copy that. He wanted senators to serve for life. And I think the President was gonna just select them as they, as they croak.
Aaron: As much as he was an advocate for the revolution. He was certainly not certainly not looking to tear down class structure.
Max: No, he was he was all for it. And, you know, I've spoken about him on the show, like, brilliant guy, but that's where he stood. And actually, there were some anti Federalists, who were kind of against this approach to the Constitution. And there was even a quote by one like, no, like, I'm the real Federalist, you guys are nationalists kind of thing.
Aaron: Did they call themselves that?
Max: Yes.
Aaron: They bore the label anti-Federalist. Because I know in many political hot topics, what you call yourself and what your opponents call you do not necessarily align.
Max: Well, it almost sounds to me like, you know, I'm kind of feeling like, No, I'm, I'm the liberal, I'm a liberal, you're a socialist, or progressive or whatever, you know. So it sounds a lot like that when someone says, well, you call me an anti-Federalist. I'm actually a Federalist, but you're a Nationalist, this kind of thing. Or maybe it's just like, you know, different. A different opinion on where the political spectrum lies.
So anyway, so that's what they were looking for in the Senate. But what the other people were looking for in the Senate, and actually, one of them is our guy in Connecticut, different, although we're in Massachusetts now. But we grew up in Connecticut. Roger Sherman, he wanted-
Aaron: Was he also one of the authors of the declaration on that five men committee? Most of my knowledge of the declaration is derived from the musical 1776.
Max: Yes, yeah. Great, great musical. So especially that one song where they sing about, you know, where, like, they tried to get each of them to, to actually pen it. Sure, it didn't happen that way. But you know,
Aaron: I've, I've been in that meeting of a committee determining who was going to actually do the work.
Max: Yeah. And is it like, do it through song the next time you find yourself in that situation?
Aaron: I am not well disposed to the musical theater approach to management, but it would make things more interesting for sure.
Max: Yeah. All right. So, and this other guy from New Jersey, I don't know, who cares, New Jersey. They wanted the Senate to be the voice of the state. So he actually came up with this thing called the Connecticut Compromise, which said, “Okay, fine, the Senate would be apportioned as you know, each state gets equal, equal apportionment, the House will be apportioned by the people.”
Now, interestingly, a lot of kind of, sort of left wing talking points these days are like, well, we should get rid of the Senate. The Senate was made during an era of slavery. But interestingly, it was actually the people who wanted the Senate were mostly northerners, northern or small state type people. The Southerners loved the House of Representatives, because they were getting this thing called the three-fifths compromise, which meant that they were getting extra points for all their slaves, even though the slaves couldn't vote. So they were able to vote extra just for having slaves, and that gave them more representation in the House of Representatives.
So we get this compromise. And actually, that's why my document is called a new compromise, because there are a lot of developments in American history called like Great Compromises or the compromise of this year or that year, some of them are completely derided today, and in fact, I think we no longer say the compromise of blank year, like there's none that occur in the 20th century. There's certainly like deals struck by politicians…
Aaron: A lot of 1800s. You know, how are we going to bring new states in the union our compromise, this compromise, there’s the Missouri Compromise? Was there an 1820 Compromise? So that kind of thing,
Max: All of those are the same, that's the same one. All of these compromises are like they're not just regular old political deals, but these are like major foundational compromises, like, okay, we're having a big problem here. And this is how the country is going to work going forward. And we came to a deal. Oh, then we're gonna we're gonna stick to it.
And probably the best one is this Connecticut Compromise which created the Senate, even though I still think they've kind of botched it, but it created the Senate, created the House representative. The last one that has the moniker compromise is completely- well, it's very disliked today, because it's the compromise of 1877, where the Republicans decided to allow reconstruction to end in order to get the presidency. Now interestingly enough, I went to the Museum of-
Aaron: It's unpopular, but consider the alternative.
Max: The alternative could have been another civil war. Yeah. But well, it's just because they went to the Museum of, the African American Museum in DC.
Aaron: And this is a branch of the Smithsonian? Or is it independent?
Max: I honestly don't know, but like, you know, there was an exhibit on that. And they're like, why did reconstruction end? Why did Jim Crow start? It's because the Republicans, you know, sold us out and did the compromise of 1877. No mention of any other party that might have been involved in that compromise! And so I thought that was very-
Aaron: Do you know nothing of compromise? It's when one party asserts their will over everybody else!
Max: Yeah. But anyway, that compromise maybe could have had a better outcome than almost a century of Jim Crow segregation, I don't know. But anyway, the Connecticut Compromise going some of the early ones were actually kind of necessary and pretty good. The Connecticut Compromise was definitely one of the good ones.
But the problem was, some of those people were seeing the Senate as the voice of the states and some of those others, the kind of Federalists, some other people were seeing the Senate as “No, these are like the Lords you know, these are our version of Lords.” They're gonna be there for a long time. And they're going to be-
Aaron: So key to that being the six year term. Which is, you know, compared to the two year term in the House of Representatives, another key piece being-
Max: And it needs to be longer than the President. That's very important.
Aaron: Right, which there are many countries that well, that European countries tend to have a different approach to how they elect or appoint their chief executive. But those that do have presidents tend to have longer terms of office than we do in the US. I think French president is like six or seven years or something?
Max: Used to be seven. Now it's five.
Aaron: Oh, they've downgraded it. So it, but it's not uncommon for it to be longer than the four year term that we are so used to here.
Max: Yeah. And Parliaments in UK last a long time, it lasts up to five years.
Aaron: They can.
Max: They can, right, but that's everyone.
Aaron: But so the other thing I was getting to with the Senate, which differentiates it significantly for the House is while it has a longer term, it does not all turnover at once. So every year, every House seat is up for elect- or excuse me, every election cycle every two years, every seat in the House is up for election, right? Let's ignore for a moment the advantage of incumbency.
But in the Senate, every two years, a third of the Senate is up for reelection. And so even if every Senate seat results up for election resulted in a change of the office holder or even a change in party, it would not necessarily it would not swing the composition of that body as dramatically as it could, potentially, in the House.
Max: Right. Right. And so and so there's the kind of continuity.
Aaron: A steady hand on the tiller for stability.
Max: Exactly. Maybe that's a good thing to have. And so that's why I think, okay. The problem is, though, what's the point of the Senate? If the point of the Senate is to represent the states, then the states need to have more control over their senator, they can't be like, Okay, we have this really important process, because we are handing over this seat the keys to the kingdom for six years. And once we hand it over, we are powerless, pretty much to do anything about it.
And so that sort of limits the state’s ability- in fact, it says in the Constitution that the Senate that the senators can only be paid by the federal government, not the states they come from. And the reason was that Madison was like, “Well, if the states are paying the senators, then they could just stop payments.”
Aaron: Because, presumably in the times of the Articles of Confederation, they, I'm guessing they had experience with that: where the state government or state legislature was not happy with how their representatives were behaving, and they just said, “Well, we're not going to pay you until you, you know, shape up and do what we're asking you to.”
Max: Yeah, yeah. So I think that this kind of tension between these two purposes of the Senate is what ultimately led to the 17th amendment and, and also led to kind of the problems that you saw at the end of the 20th century, where there were like deadlocks over, you know, who's going to be the next senator. And there are also cases of fraud and abuse or corruption in terms of choosing the Senator.
Aaron: Are we talking like Rod Blagojevich level corruption?
Max: Yeah.
Aaron: Okay. So pretty much on par with that.
Max: He tried to sell the Senate seat! It's not very valuable to sell a Senate seat that can be revoked at any time. But if you sell a Senate seat, but you know, it has an entire term left, it wasn't the full term of Obama's term, but it was your some of it, then all of a sudden, that becomes very valuable.
And so I think that caused the problem in the late 19th century, that led to the 17th amendment. And I also wonder if we could find problems that it caused earlier in the Republic. I bet we can. I just, you know, I'm not a historian. I haven't looked yet. But I'm guessing we can. That's just my hunch.
Aaron: Yeah. And, in a sense, part of Hamilton's objective, desire, vision came to fruition; that the Senate is kind of a nobility, an elite among Americans, certainly in the political class. Now, is that level deserved? I would venture that in many cases, no. But that doesn't change the fact that these are the people who are, you know, kind of American royalty, so to speak, right?
Max: Well, I mean, part of that is the 17th Amendment.
Aaron: You have your Kennedys or things like that. And how many people have used the Senate as a jumping off point to a presidential campaign?
Max: A few people, some of them are.
Aaron: Some more successful than others.
Max: Yeah. Some of them are chosen by special interest lobbyists, they also become basically actors and con men, like many politicians become. Probably you could probably say all politicians are actors and con men, but I think it has gotten exaggerated in recent years.
Aaron: Well, yeah. Because 100 years ago, or 200 years ago, I would like to think that the endless election cycle that we see with the House where you win election, and you almost immediately after getting sworn in, have to start fundraising and campaigning for your reelection, which because the you know, it's only two years and 18 months of that is going to be spent campaigning.
I would hope that, that in the 1800s, that was not the case, but it certainly has become so. The Senate is free from that, which on the one hand means that they're not always fundraising, that they're able to focus on the business of actually governing.
On the other hand, it means that they've got a probably a pretty solid four years where they can do, maybe not whatever they want, but they can take relatively consequence reactions, without having to worry about the impact on their chances of reelection.
Max: Some of them do.
Aaron: And then they can, they could probably even turn it around in the last two years, you know, get some some, some bills up on the docket that good to campaign on, even if they've been pushing in an opposite direction, or stuck in neutral for the first four years of their term.
Max: Right. Right. Okay.
Aaron: So do you want them to be more beholden to the electorate or have the freedom to take the action that they feel is best without being a knee jerk, follow the polls automaton?
Max: So exactly. So that's question one that I want to answer. And then question two that I want to answer is, you're never gonna get like, Republicans, conservatives think that they're going to have an edge if we repeal the 17th amendment. Now, I think that that might possibly be true.
Aaron: At face value, it's true in that Republicans control or or are or have, you know, if not outright control, majorities in more states than the Democrats currently. Now would this change the the game on the ground, you know, a ripple effect where that would no longer be the case, because this is all of a sudden become much more relevant and how people vote in their state elections changes maybe?
Max: Before the 17th Amendment people used to vote for their state representatives based on the senator’s Senate campaign, so that that could happen again. If we just repeal the 17th Amendment, which is not necessarily what-
Aaron: When you say people would vote for their state representatives based on the Senate campaign. What form would that take? Are we talking about ticket splitting?
Max: No, I'm voting for the Democrat for my state rep, because I want a Democrat senator.
Aaron: Oh, I see their representative to the state House in order to influence who gets sent to Congress in DC.
Max: Yeah, that was the major parts of the campaign.
Aaron: This is the confusing piece because most states have Senators and Representatives. And then at the federal level we have or the, in DC we have Senators and Representatives. And it's not always clear which which which level you're talking about.
Max: I have lots of thoughts in the state governments too, but we don't have to get into that.
Aaron: That's, that's 50 problems to be solved one at a time.
Max: To finish, my last point is, I also want to come up with a proposal that, like, it's actually a compromise, not just like, Oh, we're repealing the 17th amendment and a half the country is against it. But something that like everybody gets something out of it: these states, that state, and so on.
Aaron: Tempting as it is to say elections have consequences, I win, you lose, suck it, when it comes to the constitutional amendment process, whether through a single amendment or a convention of the states, that doesn't fly, right, you need to get buy in from from either from the Congress or from the convention. And then you need to get buy in from, what is it, two thirds of the states? Three fifths? So a simple majority isn't going to let you push your will through there.
Max: Exactly, exactly. So. So yeah. So that's the problem that I seek to solve. And that is, that's what this proposal is.
Aaron: Okay, so enough of laying the groundwork. All right, what's the silver bullet?
Max: All right. So that was a little taste, a little introduction to the proposal that I'm putting out there. And as some of you know, I'm going to be attending Pork Fest, which is actually a libertarian conference in New Hampshire later this week.
And so I just wanted to if you want to hear more about this, wait until next week, where we're going to get to part two of this discussion, but I want to play a little bit of it now, when Aaron talks about the plan for Pork Fest, because otherwise that goes out of date. So here you go.
Aaron: Now, if if people run into you at Pork Fest, will you have paper copies of this available? Or they just have to give you the secret handshake, and you can send them a link?
Max: That's a good question. I don't know. What should I do?
Aaron: Put Max on the spot. If you see him at Pork Fest, ask him. You say, “I want to see the great compromise document. What can you do for me? I'm ready to compromise.
Max: All right, great. It sounds good. Maybe I will bring paper documents.
Aaron: I offer you a link, and in exchange, I receive your unfiltered feedback.
Max: There's a lot of people at Pork Fest who are very anti Constitution.
Aaron: We were talking earlier about some of the events on the schedule, one of which I think is why the Constitution is terrible or failed or something along those lines.
Max: There was a debate about it. Like, the US. Constitution sucks.
Aaron: That's right.
Max: But we'll see what the terms of the debates are also argued by the same person I debated against earlier, so we'll see what's going on there.
Aaron: I'm beginning to be concerned by not only well, I guess it's aligned with his previous position that if monarchy is superior, then you would be opposed to the Constitution.
Max: Yeah, but it's also weird because who wants to secede from the United States, but then it's like, okay, I want to secede, but I also want a monarch. That's like that's kind of weird.
Aaron: Well, it would be difficult to do that without seceding, unless you're creating a monarch at the top of the federal government.
Max: I don't think he really proposes, like, the Kingdom of New Hampshire or anything like that, but I guess maybe we'll find out.
All right, once again, looking forward to getting out part two. And also, if you want to get your hands on this document, join our Locals, maximum.locals.com. Or you can just email me but do me a favor. You know, give me some good feedback if I give you access to this Google Doc. All right. Have a great week, everyone.
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