This is the question progressives everywhere are asking and nodding to each other in agreement ... on their intellectual superiority for even asking the question.
Of course, they would like to believe it does not, and that they can just replace it with whatever they want. But nothing gives them any authority to do so except their nebulous reference to "Democracy".
Did you see the cover story of Time Magazine last week? Constitution in the background, and the words "Does it Still Matter?" over it?
Aaron Worthington at Patterico did a pretty good job taking the article to task.
But seriously, you gotta ask these people ... if it doesn't matter, then what are we basing our system on currently? Who decides what matters? How is that decided? Did we not come up with a document over 200 years ago that addressed these questions?
If it does not matter, are we just making it up as we go along? And if we are, who is "we"? Candidates talk a good game and then do whatever the hell they want once in office, because if it doesn't matter, what's to stop them? What if they just decide not to hold elections and have their successors apointed when they die? Why not? I mean, if the Constitution doesn't "still matter".
Hell yes it still matters! And it's high time We the People and the Politicians start paying real attention to it.
5 comments:
I think what bothers me is that the only people who still use the word "Constitution" at all...tend to be overwhelmingly conservative.
Wasn't there a time in the US when we could always count on something called the "loyal opposition?" This meant that when one party was "in power," the other would be busy holding their feet to the fire, making sure they didn't commit dishonest acts in office, or violate our Constitution. The other side was always ready to pounce on politicians from the in-power side.
Now, it's....
Conservative: "The Constitution doesn't say you can do that. In fact, it specifically says you can't."
Liberal: "What's a 'constitution'? Oh, RIGHT! That parchment thing signed by the dead slave owning white guys. Erm, uhm...commerce clause! Next question."
Conservatives: ".........."
thanks for the praise on my piece.
Cylarz
you are hitting on a good point.
There used to be a strong tradition of liberal strict constructionism. For instance Hugo Black as a rule of thumb was as devoted to following the constitution as written as Scalia is today, only he usually came to different conclusions. If Black was just putting on an act of trying to be faithful to the original written constitution, he did so for decades.
And in fact we tend to think that the framers were far less... for lack of a better word... liberal than they really were. For instance liberals are very quick to assert that the founders would not have support interracial marriage, an odd assertion given the high probability that Thaddeus Stevens, the Father of the 14th Amendment, was himself in a long-term relationship with a black woman (and he was white as you might guess). The parade of horribles liberals trot out whenever we talk about following the constitution as written is largely imaginary.
otoh, liberals know how to invoke the constituion and pretend it matters to them. What did they complain about for 8 years under Bush? That he was behaving unconstitutionally in how he dealt with the War on Terror (and other matters). That makes it hypocritical to then advocate for a living interpretation of the constitution* but there you go.
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* And it is hypocritical to argue for a living constitution, because Bush could have easily invoked the very same theory to justify torture. Stengel highlights that the framers didn't know about Lady Gaga as if that matters a damn.
But what is more significant is that the framers had little contact with terrorism or the islamofascism that inspires it. So if the constitution can grow and change to meet the supposed challenge of the Gaga, why not also bin Laden (may he rest in flames)?
Ooh, sorry Aaron. I didn't notice that it was a guest post by you. I have updated accordingly to make sure you are cretited. And I'm afraid I tend to understate praise (something I got from my dad, I guess) ...
Your piece was excellent, not just "pretty good". We used it in our local 9/12 Tea Party meeting last friday with our Constitution Study group ("Principles of Liberty") -- to draw attention to what "the other side" is saying and why they are wrong. But more importantly, to underscore the primary focus of our group, and that is education.
We need more people out there who have read the Constitution and understand it in the context in which it was written -- why it says what it says, and what it means.
This makes it harder to pass off people like Stengel as "experts" that the uneducated masses will just swallow without question. The media has been able to do this for too long.
Hopefully, people are waking up to the "you got your experts and I got mine" game. There's no substitute for wading through it yourself.
Oh, and Cylarz ...
Conservative: "The Constitution doesn't say you can do that. In fact, it specifically says you can't."
Liberal: "What's a 'constitution'? Oh, RIGHT! That parchment thing signed by the dead slave owning white guys. Erm, uhm...commerce clause! Next question."
Conservatives: ".........."
That was awesomely on point. Good distillation of reality these days.
"We need more people out there who have read the Constitution and understand it in the context in which it was written -- why it says what it says, and what it means."
I think this is happening to a degree. At least I hope it is. I have noticed liberals are now giving the reponse Cylarz' encapsulated above (essentially that it's not important.) Not too long ago in our history the Constitution was a go-to resource for them to find new "rights" and "meanings" e.g. right to privacy (Roe V Wade), abuse of the commerce clause, separation of church and state... to establish their policy by fiat on an uneducated public.
It would seem they are not achieving those kinds of victories on an unsuspecting public anymore. More of us are educating ourselves on the "original intent" of the Framers so their (lib's) easiest out is to declare (at least in effect) the Constitution irrelevant.
Well, I'm with you. It's not. It framed the government of the greatest country in the history of the world. Maybe we should give it due attention and respect and do everything we can to make sure it remains intact and functioning the way it was initially intended.
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