A perfect document?

[Gob]

Interesting BBC article on the US constitution;

But increasingly, I am beginning to see the imperfections of the document at the heart of the "more perfect union". A constitution is a legal contract. It is a statement of the terms and conditions under which a society agrees to govern itself. The constitution of the United States may be elegantly written and succinct, a superb example of Enlightenment philosophy in pragmatic form, but it is a contract, no more, no less.

Like any contract it can be amended or re-interpreted or broken as the times demand. In these contentious times - given how many lawyers there are in America, certified by the bar association or tutored at home by talk radio, the constitution is looking decidedly frayed and unsupple. It turns out that even in this most elegantly terse document there are gaps for interpretation broad enough to drive a legal tank through.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12482351

[dgs49]

Nah, not many people believe that the original U.S. Constitution was a perfect document. The same guys (pretty much) had fcuked it up the first time around with the Articles of Confederation, so they knew that there would have to be future tweaks regardless.

Fortunately, they made provisions in the document for how those changes should be done. Something about bringing it up in Congress then having the state legislatures say Yay or Nay.

The skullduggery lies not in good faith "interpretation" of the document, but in changing by "interpretation" what you know that the state legislatures would never agree to, if they had the chance.

We troglodytes would be quite satisfied if the existing, unchanged provisions were interpreted pretty much as they were intended when the document was written. Then, honest people of good faith could set about changing what needed to be changed, according to the provisions in the constitution for doing so.

Radical, isn't it?

[Andrew D]

Why should the provisions be interpreted as they were originally intended? Why should "cruel and unusual" mean to us in 2011 what it meant to people (who are now long dead) in 1789? Why should "unreasonable" mean to us in 2011 what it meant to people in 1791?

The Constitution says that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." But "conservative" jurists do exactly that all the time. Indeed, violating that constitutional provision is the very core of "conservative" interpretation of the Bill of Rights.

When are the "troglodytes" going to start complaining about that?

Oh, wait. Violating the Ninth Amendment accords with right-wing ideology. That makes it okay.

[dgs49]

Pretty lame, Andrew.

Would you care to articulate one of the rights alluded to in the Ninth Amendment that has been challenged recently by "conservative jurists"? The right to an abortion, perhaps? To commit sodomy? To publish material that is offensive to the general community?

And don't forget to illustrate how you know that it existed, by general consensus, in 1789.

Aye cannardly wayte.

[Big RR]

Perhaps the right to birth control and privacy within the marriage bedroom; after all, no right to privacy exists according to some of those who would interpret the constitution and limit the rights to those enumerated.

[dgs49]

The problem with the "Right to (of) Privacy," as articulated by Libs on the Supreme Court, is that it is undefinable, and hence unlimited.

Many people who, fifty years ago, would have asserted that we have a "Constitutional Right of Privacy" (under the Ninth Amendment) had no problem whatsoever with anti-sodomy laws, or the right of the state to prohibit abortion, or to regulate the distribution of birth control pills. Then we find out that all of this comes under the heading of "privacy," and the Government has no right to restrain these activities.

Do I have a Constitutional Right to grow plants in my backyard, cut them down, dry them out and smoke them? Seems pretty "private" to me. Doesn't that come under the Right of Privacy?

[Big RR]

But that's the point, isn't it? That people 50 years ago might not have seen government prohibition on the distribution of birth control pills as an invasion of privacy is immaterial; the BC methods were new and untested and possibly even misunderstood in a way that they were not when Griswald was decided. Indeed, why not go back to the late 18th/early 19th century when such pills were not even imagined? But the idea of keeping the government out of our every day private lives was pretty well understood and has not changed. BC pills were not part of everyday life in 1789 or even the 40s/50s, but they became so in the 60s when the case was decided. The principle is not changed, only some of the circumstances surrounding it.

As for your question, I'd answer yes, and look forward to the day when it is seen as part of everyday life to be free from government intervention.

[rubato]

The document isn't bad, it's not perfect but its not bad either. The genius is in putting into place a mechanism which contains the method of its own continual improvement.

As long as we let it.

yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

The document isn't bad, it's not perfect but its not bad either. The genius is in putting into place a mechanism which contains the method of its own continual improvement.

As long as we let it.

yrs,
rubato

Given today partisan politics, I don't want any of these politicos having any hand in changing the Constitution. Just don't trust the whole lot of them.