Is the U.S. Constitution a living doctrine?

I am opposed to the United States Supreme Court, or any other court, overturning popular legislation that has been in effect for a long time.

On the other hand, I am in favor of interpreting the often vague language of the Constitution in ways that accommodate changes in public opinion.

I am confident that those who wrote and signed the Constitution would have been "aghast about" much, if not most of the economic, civil rights, and environmental legislation passed during the twentieth century. If their opinions about those matters caused the Supreme Court to overrule that legislation, the Constitution would have been significantly changed, or rejected entirely for something else.

The Constitution does not restrict democracy. It is a guide book for how a democratic government can be organized and run. The United States Constitution has lasted as long as it has because it is flexible.

My philosophy about the United States Constitution is that it is not the Absolute Truth. Nevertheless, it would be unwise to call a Second Constitutional Convention as long as the electorate is as polarized as it is now. If the Constitution does not clearly say something I think we should assume that it is silent on the matter, and leave it up to the voters.

 

The wording is only vague to those seeking to violate it.

The framers owned slaves, considered them to be chattel, the same as cattle. The framers considered women to be second class citizens, unfit to vote or to own property. The framers did not write the constitution or the bill of rights with any minority or non-citizen in mind. It wasn't until almost a century passed that slavery was outlawed, and it was 150 years before women were give those rights of every other citizen.

These changed because the Constitution was amended according to the rules laid out in the document, not because of the courts or the public opinion polls. To think that we should adopt current public opinion into law is borderline insane. It is difficult to amend the Constitution for that very reason.

 

What is "cruel and unusual punishment?" What are "excessive fines?"

The Fourteenth Amendment says, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

This was cited by the Supreme Court in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which ruled against segregated public schools. Nevertheless, the same Congress that voted for the Fourteenth Amendment also voted to preserve segregation in DC public schools.

The Fourteenth Amendment was also cited in the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing homosexual marriage. Those who wrote and voted for the Fourteenth Amendment would have been "aghast about" such a ruling.

The Preamble of the United States says, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

As far as I am concerned, this clearly authorizes programs like Social Security and Medicare - which are overwhelmingly popular with the voters - but reactionaries think differently.

 

With a line like that I think you are going to waste on XNXX. I wish you wrote campaign speeches and campaign literature for Republican politicians. I will even give you a good recommendation when you apply for a job doing that.

 

What government handout program was established the very second the U.S. Constitution was enacted?

If you can answer that question, then I will concede, that you might be right, until then you and several million others are plain fucking wrong.

 

Again you expose your vulgarity, your bad breeding and your poor education.

My point, which was over your head, was that the United States Constitution is often vaguely worded, and open to various interpretations. The Constitution has remained in effect as long as it has because it has been interpreted in ways that reflect changes in popular opinion.

 

If we wanted you to be the arbiter of questions on the constitution, you would have be nominated for the SCOTUS, since that did not happen, your voice is an opinion.

 

Which aspects of "current public opinion" do you think would be "borderline insane" to adopt into law?

 

Obviously, and so is yours.

 

DL, you rarely have a point, you're only a leftist mouthpiece.

The U.S. Constitution is not vaguely written, it was written in an era in which is of toady, hell, you have no idea what the purpose is of the 14 amendment, so dont pretend to understand what the General Welfare clause was intended for.

Now, as for 'making a point' where in the fuck is the answer to my very legitimate question that I civilly asked you?

 

ABSOLUTELY NOT . . . . The Constitution is supposed to be a rock-solid foundation, the embodiment of our most fundamental principles-that's the whole idea of having a constitution.

What you are about to read is a definitive definition of a Constitutional Republic, which is the very form of government that was set up by the founders of this very country;

A Constitutional Republic is a state where the officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens.

A Constitutional Republic is the current form of government in the United States. However in recent years, many people have criticized the federal government for moving away from a Constitutional Republic, as defined by the Constitution, and towards a pure democracy.[1]

TeamLaw.org defines a Constitutional Republic as follows:

A Republic, by definition, has two principle elements. First, it is controlled by Law; therefore, it does not control Law. Second, it recognizes the private independent sovereign nature of each person (man or woman) of competent age and capacity; therefore, a Republic must be representative in its nature.

A Republic recognizes Law is unchangeable, or at least that it can only be changed by a higher source than government. In a Republic the concept of “collective sovereignty” cannot exist, except with recognition that the State or nation, as a body of sovereigns, can speak through one elected voice; though that one voice can never lawfully interfere with the private rights of the individual sovereigns. “A Constitutional Republic” is a government created and controlled, at least, by the Law of a Constitution. The Constitution of the United States of America was, in Law, a foundation based on the Bible, the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. Those documents recognize man’s sovereignty, the divine nature of man’s creation and man’s divine right to Life, Liberty, the means of acquiring and possessing Property, and the pursuit of happiness

The purpose of a Constitutional Republic is to place limits on the tyranny of the majority. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still be democratic while incurring scarcely any risk of tyranny.

In short, you are under the misguided interpretation that this country is a democracy, and set up as a democracy, I hear most leftist politicians repeating the same misguided conception as well, and you are all wrong.

 

If this is your idea of civility, it goes to show how low class you are.

 

And YOUR reputation, with regards to writing someone a recommendation, would ensure that person never gets thru the front door.

 

What about the power of the citizens to pass into law expensive domestic spending programs?

 

You are as disgusting as your avatar.

 

And again, Madison wrote:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. … If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one. …

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. … The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. … There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

– James Madison

 

I doubt you know who Alexis de Tocqueville was. I am sure you have not read the book that made him famous. I of course have.

Try to guess what the title of de Tocqueville's book was.

*long wait*

The title of de Tocqueville's book is Democracy in America.

If I am wrong about the United States being a democracy, so was Alexis de Tocqueville.

Of course I am not wrong. This is what Thomas Jefferson said about the form of government in the United States:

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Letter to Isaac H. Tiffany
Thomas Jefferson

Monticello

August 26, 1816

The full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us. The idea (taken, indeed, from the little specimen formerly existing in the English constitution, but now lost) has been carried by us, more or less, into all our legislative and executive departments; but it has not yet, by any of us, been pushed into all the ramifications of the system, so far as to leave no authority existing not responsible to the people; whose rights, however, to the exercise of fruits of their own industry, can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods. The introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government; and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political writings of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us. My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise.

 

There is no such power, it was only ''assumed'' to have the power.

Socialism is not the power of a federal fucking government, according the U.S. Constitution.

 

The 10th Amendment, not vague in any sense of the word:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

 

Why should I care what Madison wrote? I did not vote for him. He would not be elected today expressing that opinion.