If the constitution is messed up, everything that follows is likely to be equally messed up.
You got that right.
Look at it this way...
EVERY country needs a dictator. You read me correctly. An American is tacitly supporting a dictatorship -- of sort.
A constitution (lower case wording) is a dictator -- of sort. Assuming that the
CONTENTS is sufficiently neutral, as in apolitical (not non-ideological), what make this dictator different and possibly superior to a human dictatorship is that it is impervious to being sway by fleeting whims. You cannot whispers into its ears and later deny your actions. That said, it does not mean a constitutional dictatorship is immune from being abused, but again, it depends on the
CONTENTS that were written when this dictator was being created.
The contents of a constitution are reflections of the attitudes of the document's founders. Do they know their times on this life are finite? Do they love the country and its people and that they want to bequeath to the country as much a benevolent dictator as possible for as long as possible?
Take the US Constitution (upper case wording) for example. From the beginning, when this non-human dictator was being created, the collective attitude of its founders was that a government is a necessary evil --
EVIL. Were they in their right minds? What kind of leadership is it when it blatantly believes that the government it leads is an 'evil' institution? According to this non-human dictator, the only authority it has are those conferred -- thru consent -- to it by the people it rules over. This is completely opposite from a human dictator whose normal character and behaviors are acquisitive and possessive: I take from you because I can and I will fight to your death to keep what I took from you. This is why the US Constitution is a radical and subversive document, especially when it was created. It is a dictator that limits its power.
The argument that the US is not a democracy but instead a constitutional republic -- is false. The US is
BOTH a constitutional (dictatorship) republic and a democracy. The character (contents) of this dictator is sufficiently resistant to alteration but can be changed and changed only thru highly involved process. No President can simply write his attitude into the Constitution. Any bill that is speculated to become law by the many leaders of the country, who are popularly elected (democracy) by the people, must pass Constitutional muster, meaning the bill must be examined and debated by the people to see if violate the philosophical foundation of the Constitution. Human dictators do not have this character. Whatever the human dictator say, it is instantly law.
A constitutional dictatorship is no guarantor of peace and prosperity but at least the people have a chance to have their views be instrumental in the characters of this non-human dictator. The people can plead to foreigners that they suffer under a human dictator and most likely they will receive sympathy and moral support for the removal of said human dictator. But if they chose to create a constitution and if they were careless in examining the list of characters to be the philosophical foundation of this dictator, they will have no one to blame but themselves when their lives are miserable and their country in continuous turmoil.