I would ask Nancy to prom.
Why? I don’t know if colonies of monarchical governments are better than democratic governments. Philippines was conquered by Spain for 333 years and left to be managed by friars that acted as caretakers and thus abused the Filipinos. It must be questioned how long the caretakers are assigned to the colonized country to make judgements regarding time preference.
Of course one could argue that forcing democracy into a colonized country is what is happening to Iraq and Afghanistan now and therefore more disastrous than mere assimilation into a monarchical state.
So I guess it would be better, after all, for America to remain a British colony.
Eliminate the commerce clause and the general welfare clause from the Constitution.
What’s the point of changing the Constitution? It’s not like anything different would do a better job of restricting the government.
I’d surely have had the American expeditionary force during WW1 stuck by a meteorite. Or better still, Wilson dropped dead in 1916. The grief would have kept the States form going to war. A decent, old school, peace would have been brokered in Europe and perhaps the Three Empires would have survived longer and, who know, perhaps even to our days.
Maybe, maybe not. That’s just what I’d do. It would be interesting to see if it would have had any different result.
I wish I could go back in time to murder Benjamin Disraeli.
Prevent Heinrich Bruning’s resignation as German chancellor in 1932 and convince Hindenburg to keep signing this man’s proposals.
Hitler would still have raged and screamed, but the world would have seen the miraculous effects of “procyclical” economic policies. While Hoover and Roosevelt used the depression to turn the US into one big progressive experiment, Bruning did the following to cure Germany’s economy:
- Raise taxes to repay debt, cut benefits and entitlements
- Work towards a decrease in wage rates
- Attempt to establish free trade with Austria (not sure if his rationale was that free trade would increase productivity, though)
… and, one of my favorties:
- Try to nationalize the endlessly subsidized estates of East Germany and give them to the unemployed for productive use
It’s not all perfectly Austrian, but it allowed for consolidation and attempted to stop a massive waste of resources. In all likelihood, given a year or two, Bruning would’ve become a national hero due to a quick, debtless recovery and the failure of fascist economics would’ve been the laughingstock of the free world. Maybe. 
I’d let Al Gore be born instead of Jesus*. Who needs salvation when you have the internet?
- This assumes Jesus as understood existed
I would have prevented the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayerling_Incident
I would either have stopped the Constitution from being ratified, or, failing that, I would’ve made it so the State Legislatures of New York and IL voted for electors in the 1860 election and then the Counter-Revolution would never have happened.
I would have put a clause into the constitution that requires judicial review of new laws BEFORE they go into effect.
The Rev
This thread is kind of vague unless the one thing to change is a human action rather than an entire system of ideological transformations that would be necessary for the implications offered here(ie change constitution requires a lot of people) so becomes difficult to characterise.
As for the action i would support: give young Adam Smith/other prominent economist of the era a copy of Man, Economy,State and Human Action. Or heck even give it to some Renaissance age/classical Greek age philosopher. Just think of all the philosophical masturbation that has gone around the Greek philosophers for hundreds of years had been over the ideas of our heroes instead.
Leaving aside the fact that nobody abides by the constitution anyways, this would be by the very judges the Feds appoint? o_O
I rescind my previous idea. Joe’s is brilliant!
Also, I’m not sure Hayek could win in a debate against Keynes (even Bertrand Russell was afraid to argue with Keynes; his rhetoric was that good).
why?
certainly would have made the Austrian school more prominent. Maybe would have even prevented the World Wars. Not sure though, probably would have at least changed how it all started.
I’d have the South win in the American Civil War. At least then there’d be a precedent of secession that could check the rapaciousness of the central government.
I would rather go back further into history and talk about an insignificant war that barely anyone talks about in the western hemisphere. If the Yellow Turban Army won against the Han Dynasty for the “Mandate of Heaven” China would have been radically different . Probably the first war for equal rights if Zhang Jiao kept his word.