USA - why is the constitution so important to you that even the amendments to it are almost sacrosanct?

Speaking as another Brit, the constitution is the basis of how the country works so it is virtually like holy writ. As you know, we don't actually have one that is written down in one document but there are certain principles and conventions that we hold dear, like parliamentary sovereignty, a non-political monarchy, elections conducted the way they are, the Queen can pick anyone to be Prime Minister BUT it's not going to work unless she picks the leader of the winning party at a general election, and all that stuff.

The thing with a constitution is it contains the basics that should be very hard to amend unless the country REALLY REALLY wants to. Looking at it that way, the US Constitution is quite the little masterpiece of drafting. Read it and what it says is this:

- there shall be a President and this is how he is chosen and this is what he does

- there shall be a Congress to make laws and this is how it is elected

- there shall be a Supreme Court and this is what it has power to rule on

- this is what the federal government has power over

- the Constitution can be amended in this way.

Perfect. In fact it's Take 2 - the Articles of Confederation made 10 years earlier had certain deficiencies, not least that they gave the federal government responsibility for defence but failed to give it the power to charge tax on the states to pay for it! Oops...

Oh well, they got it right second time round. All the kerfuffle is with the Amendments, because sometimes they are unwise... does this REALLY need to be in the constitution or just an ordinary law? Finally I get to the 2nd Amendment! Read ALL of it and the intention is clear - at the time, the USA didn't have an army, but you need defence. Give citizens the right to bear arms and you can put together an army when you need one. Roll back a few more centuries and England had a very similar law. Every able-bodied Englishman must own a longbow and practise with it every week so if we need you to fight the French (and we were in virtually perpetual war with France at the time), you're all ready for it. (When I was in the Scouts, I used to do archery - Skip taught it, so I know what I'm about with a bow and arrow and got my Master-at-Arms badge. So I learned that modern plastic/composite/fibreglass bows are easier, and a medieval longbow is MUCH harder to pull. You really need arm muscles so regular practice is essential to build them up. But if you can shoot with a longbow, the arrow is forceful enough to punch through armour - and that's how we won the Battle of Agincourt!)

What you have in the USA is this continual feeling, because the days of the Wild West weren't much more than a century ago, that "we need our guns". And they will appeal to the 2nd Amendment to say "look, it's our RIGHT!" It's in the constitution so that gives them a reason to go on and on about it. Of course over 200 years later with 20/20 hindsight it clearly isn't working now, but it's there.

Here's another one, which Donald Trump has brought up. The 14th Amendment gives US citizenship to everyone born on US soil. This gives the "anchor baby problem" - illegal pregnant immigrant gives birth while she's in the USA, baby is American, "why can't I stay here with my American child?" We solved that one with the British Nationality Act 1981. Easy to do because there is no written constitution and Parliament can enact anything. But the USA can't do it quite so easily.

Our history is different that yours in that our Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms due 250 years of British rule which regulated them in order to control us. Then we had the wild wild west, after the Civil War between the States. Then we had the gangsters/mobsters of the twenties and thirties. All was relatively quiet until the sixties when sides were drawn between the liberals who came to political power and wanted limitations on the Constitution and conservatives who didn't want that. Several dozen mass shootings 45 years later and here we are. Again, The United States is founded differently than countries who had Kings and Queens.

Look at it this way.

If we just ignore fundamental rights that we don't really like any longer, or feel is outdated, what is to prevent some future government from getting rid of rights like freedom of speech, the press, or religion?

What's to stop unreasonable searches and seizures?

The thing about fundamental rights is that they can't be taken away. That's what makes them fundamental!

why are amendments added but never removed