us-constitution
G&#246;del&#39;s loophole
<p>After WWII before Gödel was about to be interviewed in order to get a US citizenship, he had found a loophole in the US constitution which allowed a fascist regime to legally turn the US into a dictatorship. I tried searching it online and only found that  Gödel's loophole is related to article 5 of the US constitution; however, I couldn't find more information about it. So what is Gödel's loophole? Can you explain it to me?</p>

<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This article</a> lays out what little is known about the putative loophole, thought to depend on problems of &quot;self-reference&quot;. (This is because of the nature of Gödel's view on &quot;self-contradiction&quot;). Note that Article V might itself be amendable.</p>

<p>I suggest that Gödel's loophole (whatever it was) might have appealed to philosophers, but not so much to political scientists.</p>
<p>All Constitutions can be re-written.  All can be changed.  There is a mechanism through which the entire US Constitution can be re-written. Certainly an Amendment could be written and approved to strike through most of the document and replace the government with a Holy Dictator if enough states supported it.  This is self-evident to anyone with a cursory knowledge of government.</p>
<p>If Gödel thought that he had discovered a textual loophole he might have just been naïve.  Such a change to fundamental interpretation of the Constitution would need to go back to The Federalist Papers, Constitutional Convention discussions, and original founder intent and I doubt he would find such intent there.  Philosophical arguments carry more weight in academia than in a courtroom.</p>
