What is the point of a constitution if any judge/lawmaker can create loopholes around its most crucial articles in complete secrecy?

What is the point of a judiciary system that uses secrecy so easily while at the same time putting common people behind bars for perjury?

How can people think they are free when they can be subjected to "laws" they never heard about at any time?

To be honest, I'm not a citizen of the USA so I shouldn't care. But all that is increasingly appearing to be the norm around the world and it's becoming extremely worrying.

When a country abuses their own rules, the heads of state must be tried in an international (criminal) court. But no non-lawyer knows how to do it, so it never gets done.

You're right about it being the norm. The only way to stop it is to sue them. it's literally the only thing they understand.

There a lot of competition for seats in the US House and Senate.

So, basically one thing we are waiting for in the US is House and Senate candidates who want to make speeches strongly in favor of restoring the First and Fourth Amendments.

It would be good news if the present members of the House and Senate would come out strongly for the Constitution.

So, why not? Candidate reasons:

(1) Currently the Dems have the White House and the Senate so don't want to appear to claim that the situation is rotten.

(2) Everyone in office is afraid of being accused of being "soft on terrorism". And if a politician gives a speech saying we should restore the full meaning of the First and Fourth Amendments and another loser, wacko, Jihader Boston bomber kills/or injures some people, then the politician's political opponents will scream "soft on terrorism".

(3) While some people are quite concerned about the NSA and Congress with the Patriot Act, etc. trashing the Constitution, likely and apparently so far not enough people are raising hell.

(4) Somehow the political dynamics in the US are strongly toward: Once the US takes some step for national security, reversing that step is very difficult.

A big example was Viet Nam: There the US went on and on and on spending more and more and more and right along, really, doing less well, for a very long time.

How long? In the late 1940s, the US supported the return of the French. When the French lost in, whenever, 1954, the US tried to prop up a 'US friendly' Saigon. By Kennedy's term starting in 1961, as Saigon started to lose, Kennedy said some of the right things:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kentv.htm

"I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it -- the people of Viet-Nam -- against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort, and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months the Government has gotten out of touch with the people."

During his campaign, LBJ also said some of the right things:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/timeline/

"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

Then, once in office, LBJ wanted to win a "coon skin cap" and added and added.

Then Nixon wanted only to 'win' -- I know, "Peace with honor".

From about 1961 on, a growing fraction of the US voters were very much against the war and wanted, really, just, to, in a single word, leave. In two words, leave immediately. McGovern ran on that, and lost badly.

The US demonstrations got bigger and stronger. The 1968 Dem convention in Chicago was a small war in the streets. There were many marches on DC. "Hay, hay, LBJ how many kids have you killed today?".

Still the White House and Congress wanted to "stay the course". As we were actually losing and people were hanging off the last helicopters out of Saigon, President Ford still wanted to send more money.

Gotta tell you, next to no one in Congress or the White House wanted out of Viet Nam. How'd we get out? The requests for much more in blood and treasure did fail in Congress. Then the North Vietnamese basically took South Viet Nam and Saigon and drove us out.

Then, for the "war against terror", the other side has no hope of driving out the US like the North Vietnamese did.

Viet Nam was the big example we were never to repeat, but we did. It didn't take much: A few wacko Jihaders hijacked four airplanes, and the US went all wacko: We ruined our airline system, trashed the Constitution with the Patriot Act, etc., occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and stayed for well over 10 years.

Gulf War I was an exception: There we remembered Viet Nam and the fairly simple and obvious lessons and applied them. So, we asked what's the goal; can we achieve it; how do we achieve it; how do we get out?

Goal: Drive Saddam out of Kuwait. How to achieve it: Have the Saudis give the US space for some airfields. For a few weeks, run one heck of an air campaign against the Iraqi forces. During that time, build up some ground forces. Then, release the ground forces into the Iraqi desert west of Kuwait for a big left hook, cut off Iraqi access to Kuwait, and kill off the caught Iraqis, all in just 100 hours. Invite the Iraqi military leaders to a tent, make them an offer they can't refuse, have them sign, and then mostly just leave. It worked as planned.

With that success, for Gulf War II it was back to Viet Nam style many years of badly conceived mud wrestling. Similarly in Afghanistan.

Net, again, once the US decides to pursue some such a national security effort, we go for years and years pursuing nonsense goals, being silly and ineffective, and just will not see, say, and act on the obvious -- leave.

More generally, the US wants to police the world. When the world doesn't look nice enough to justify the police effort, the response is more time, blood, and treasure for more policing believing that less police work would yield a disaster.

Alas, we ignore the lesson of Viet Nam: We couldn't have lost any worse than we did, both militarily (at the level at which we fought the war) or politically. Politically? We never could find anyone who could run the South from Saigon. So, with that big loss, what's happened? Did the world collapse? Did dominoes fall from SE Asia, east, all the way across the Pacific and land in Malibu? Did Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan, Guam, etc. fall? Did Peking and/or Moscow dominate SE Asia? Heck no. Instead now Viet Nam is doing well making, e.g., Brother laser printers. The US should be totally thrilled with Viet Nam. Likely and apparently the US could have had that outcome in 1947, 1954, ....

Bluntly, the US military and State Department, etc. just do not know how to do nation building. E.g., in Saigon we didn't know how to pick an effective leader. Apparently the situation is the same in Kabul. One reason is domestic US politics: So, if the nation building doesn't try to make the place look like Peoria, or some TV sitcom (Green Acres), then US politics gets all fired up. E.g., the US goes into a very traditional Muslim country and, for domestic US feminist politics, tries to educate the girls and have sexual equality, all of which is in wild conflict with social mores going back a few hundred years. We want them to have a constitution, a parliament, free elections, modern laws, a judicial system, roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, etc. Meanwhile the US loses out to some indigenous leaders who promise no such things. They have a way of doing things over there. That's not the US way, and we don't like it. But, we are total fools if we believe we can change their ways to being like our ways and more foolish if we believe that they will like our efforts at doing so.

Instead, if we are to work in such a country, then we need to accept, understand, and work with their ways of doing things. And, yes, that might mean that don't send the girls to school. And it might mean that structures of power and leadership selected by means not close to free elections.

Whatever, the US needs to make its policing efforts fast and effective and then leave.

Politicians need to speak something closer to the truth to the US voters and not promise to pursue foreign adventures to create shining cities on hilltops.

Until the US starts to look at reality and become effective, the US will continue to waste time, treasure, blood, the US Constitution, domestic tranquility, etc. In simple terms, on foreign adventures, the US needs to give it a rest, f'get about it, back off, cool down, relax, and then, something like it did after Viet Nam, rethink.

For defending the US, do that both more effectively and mostly closer to home and without nation building.

I'm not soft on terror or US foreign enemies: For Afghanistan, I would have leveled large areas of the place, all from the air, until the Taliban desperately called for peace at any price. But I wouldn't set foot in the place. Similarly for Saddam -- make him an offer he couldn't refuse, with B-2 bombers circling overhead just for practice, but again not set foot in the place. I wouldn't give them schools; I wouldn't give them so much as a short pencil. Then I'd leave.

The need is to defend the US. There's no need to trash the US Constitution.

Millions of US voters need to tell the politicians in clear terms to stop the brain-dead nonsense of wasting US time, treasure, blood, domestic tranquility, the domestic economy, and the US Constitution, wise up, and become effective.