[Poll Book Tally] Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution by John Paul Stevens no stars

[Karin]

There are no star ratings because I have no idea how to rate this book. Normally I avoid political books like the plague because as a lifelong independent I am never satisfied. Plus this is American politics, which in my personal opinion even after more than a quarter of a century and my knowing about the structure is still a confusing morass of contractions. This is not to say that I am aware of any country with a nice, clean, easy to understand set up that is free of all corruption and where there are zero power mongering people involved. If I were to rate the ability of the author to convey his ideas on paper in a readable fashion, that would be one thing, but of course one doesn't rate a book on just that, or at least I don't.

So, why did I read it? I am doing a team reading game and it was one of the shortest allowable books that I could borrow from my library on my kindle without waiting for a book on hold.

One of my problems is that I see inherent contradictions in some of the arguments and I am not good at arguing--in fact, I am really bad at it, and am not sure if it's because I am a non-linear thinker of if it is something else since I aced Algebra until I quite doing all of the work (not a story for here)--even if I found that there were some things I agreed with. As per usual, this book was quite a mix for me, and there wasn't a single chapter where I found myself agreeing 100 percent. At least one of his stances is something I completely agree with even if I don't agree with everything he argued, but there is at least one I do not agree with, but again that doesn't mean I disagreed with everything he argued. Thus my dilemma.

[NancyJ]

I almost requested this book from the library. I probably don't have a strong enough background to understand it all, but I'm really curious - What are the 6 amendments (or topic areas)? Gun control? Electoral college? Civil rights? Presidential powers?