There is another sort of old age the US suffers from. The government is now amongst the oldest nation-state organizations on the planet with probably the oldest written national laws (the constitution) still in use.
The cruft that has built up (from the 2nd amendment, to the electoral college) over 250ish years is a serious problem.
I doubt that’s the problem. The public policy government is captured by corporations. The military policy arm of the government is manipulated by a myriad of interests operating indirectly from the shadows — ranging from foreign intelligence agencies (ie Israeli) to military/industrial companies.
Old so competent senators barely matter. It’s all about unelected corporate boards and secret groups within influential government agencies.
I don't know, it seems like it's a weird argument but it's definitely a thought I've had too. When I was eyeballing the Egyptian dynasties I was bit shocked to notice how short lived they all are, compared to what I expected. The majority struggle to get to 150 years, no one gets past 300. In fact old man America will soon be an older polity than all of them except the much maligned Ptolemies (275 years). Same deal for the (well documented) Chinese dynasties. People think kingdoms and states are long enduring, measured in multiple centuries, but they're actually pretty unstable.
It seems like a weird unexamined law of the universe. Dynasties/polities struggle to make it past 300~ without some major interruption or something going wrong, if they haven't imploded earlier. There are exceptions. The Korean Joseon managed an eye watering 500+ years. And the Catholic Papacy has been going on continuously for closer to 2 millenia. But still, 249 years is pretty long in the tooth.
For that matter, look at Europe. France has gone through 5 republics and an empire since 1789 and they got a new constitution around 1958. (West) Germany has had three governments in the past 120 years, most recently in 1945. Spain has only been democratic since 1975. All of Eastern Europe has an entirely new state since 1989. Most of the smaller western countries got conquered by Germany in WWII. Even the UK in its current state is only since 1922, although that's a little unfair since I believe that was evolutionary; the last discontinuity was in 1660 if my history is correct.
I am guessing that the problem is worse where power is inherited. Just because the first guy in the dynasty was capable enough to make himself king and stay in power, doesn't mean his successors are.
The Magna Carta was a second, more forceful, iteration of the Charter of Liberties introduced a century earlier in 1100 by Henry I of England.
Clauses of both are still part of the basis of English Common Law (the Common Law cited in the US Constitution) and the Magna Carta is still being cited in recent times by politicians and lawyers in support of (UK) constitutional positions, and still, albeit rarely, cited in UK courts
in 2012 the Occupy London protestors attempted to use Magna Carta in resisting their eviction from St. Paul's Churchyard by the City of London. In his judgment the Master of the Rolls gave this short shrift, noting somewhat drily that although clause 29 was considered by many the foundation of the rule of law in England, he did not consider it directly relevant to the case, and that the two other surviving clauses ironically concerned the rights of the Church and the City of London and could not help the defendants.
It's firmly a part of the continuously evolving history of UK law:
Magna Carta carries little legal weight in modern Britain, as most of its clauses have been repealed and relevant rights ensured by other statutes, but the historian James Holt remarks that the survival of the 1215 charter in national life is a "reflexion of the continuous development of English law and administration"
suggesting that what the UK lacks is the stagnation of US law which hasn't yet evolved past the errors of scale that have crept in since its foundation; the US electoral could also do with a revamp to better serve the people.
The UK doesn't have an entrenched constitution through. Whenever there's a simple parliamentary majority for a reform in the lower house it can be done. In the US even simple laws can require a filibuster breaking supermajority in the upper change, and changing the constitution is much harder.
But that's more because they want to keep the charter, no? I mean that keeping the UK constitution "living" is much easier since the written parts can be legally changed easily.
And the 2 party system is a result of US electoral and constitutional law, which is entrenched. If the US had a new constitution from scratch today I don't think it would feature the electoral college, it's there because of legal inertia.
Yes, but I'm not arguing the US Constitution is older than the UK one, although it is much older than that of almost all countries I think. I'm arguing that the UK doesn't suffer from having an old constitution because its constitution changes more easily than the US one.
The sheer bulk of the law is a huge problem, but there are very clear and well thought-out procedures for amending the Constitution. Cruft is all the felonies and misdemeanors you commit just commuting to work every day, not the Constitution, which can be read and more or less understood by anyone literate in a few hours.
> which can be read and more or less understood by anyone literate in a few hours.
The fact that the supreme court even exists shows that this is far from the whole truth. Besides that, and even if it were the case, there is a pretty clear effort underway to do an end-run around large chunks of that constitution.
That's not a "problem" and not a "cruft" - it's how it was built by design. You may not like it - your right, of course, but don't pretend it's because it's "old" or "out of date". If the framers were alive right now, they'd insist on the same framework, and maybe made it even more robust, given how eroded those principles became over the years. They had a very particular set of ideas, how the relationship between the state and the people should work, and those ideas didn't change with time, they are still very actual and often at the center of the discussions. You may not agree with them - there was a lot of disagreement among the framers, and people who argued with them, too - but pretending you understand more just because you were born later is just arrogance. People 250 years ago weren't stupid.
Do they teach nothing of European history in America? Magna Carta? Basically the inspiration behind your constitution?
1215, still a few parts left as enforceable law today. If you think US institutions are old, try European ones. We're still supposed to practice longbow on Sundays.
America is middle aged, at best. You haven't even changed regime yet. Only every been a republic. Never changed religion.
How cute. Poor old Spain has been back and forth with absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republics and even a fascist dictatorship thrown in the mix.
The UK is a bit of an exception through, large parts of Europe have gone though at least some sort of revolution or a change in constitution in the last century, if not multiple.
And the UK constitution isn't entrenched. Whenever the House of Commons wanted it to change to fit with the times it could be done. Imagine if the US constitution could be changed by a simple majority in the House of Representatives.
To be fair, like 5% of the magna carta still carries weight as law today. The main framework of UK law doesn't come from the magna carta anymore.
> You haven't even changed regime yet. Only every been a republic
Right I think that's literally the point that GP was making? The US main legal framework is the same one from 250 years ago, which is not the case for the vast majority of Europe et al. Which leads to some weird interactions, and in some people's minds a lot of anachronisms. Like you gotta deal with the law written by armed revolutionaries protecting the right to own cannons and warships and whatnot (which continued pretty well into the 1800s), with the modern day of like.... maybe not allowing private ownership of 127mm naval guns or JDAMs.
The cruft that has built up (from the 2nd amendment, to the electoral college) over 250ish years is a serious problem.