knobmaker's Journal: The Constitution

Grow up a bit: the world, and all things in it, are complex. The Constitution is nothing unique, in that regard: it is a complex and difficult peice of brilliant lawmaking, and it requires the perpetual efforts of scholars to understand how to apply it today.

No. The fantastically convoluted body of case law which lawyers and judges have tortured and twisted into existence from the bedrock of the Constitution does not reflect any great ambiguity in that document. It reflects the ideological agenda of those who have circumvented the Constitution over the centuries, and made their shaky interpretations stick in the highest court.

The 2nd Amendment uses the term militia in a dependent clause. The dependent clause was still a dependent clause in the 18th century. To claim that the 2nd reflects a right of the state to regulate arms, when every other Amendment in the Bill of Rights asserts an individual liberty, is to ignore not only the clear language of the Amendment, but also the many writings of the founders which clarify their intent. Only a lawyer or a judge or someone whose fear of guns has unbalanced his judgement would claim that the federal government has not breached the 2nd. That they have done so is not the fault of those who framed the Amendment. It's the fault of those who for their own purposes decided to ignore the Amendment-- and got away with it.

On a side note, consider this: if you're so happy to take the text of the Constitution/Bill of Rights perfectly literally, why aren't you happy to take all the laws of the day? Especially, the laws written/supported by those very authors of the Constitution? What about the laws against Sodomy? And the restriction against Women voters which is implied by the literal use of "All MEN are created equal"?

Because, of course, there is a fundamental difference between the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress, the states, and local governmental units. The Constitution is the touchstone by which the legality of those laws is judged. The Bill of Rights is designed to prevent a tyranny of the Majority; that is why it is so much more difficult to pass a Constitutional Amendment than a new law.

As to the matter of women voting, have you forgotten that women received the vote via a Constitutional Amendment?

And here we have a perfect example of how the Constitution has been largely ignored in the latter half of the 20th Century. When moralists attempted to impose their vision of an alcohol-free country on their fellow Americans, they understood that they must pass a Constitutional Amendment to do so, since the Constitution did not give the federal government this power. When a similar pack of moral totalitarians decided to restrict access to various drugs of which they did not approve, they did so by simply ignoring the fact that the Constitution affords the federal government no such power. That they intended duplicity is a matter of historical fact, since the first restrictions of these unpopular drugs were made in the form of prohibitive taxation schemes.

No, the Constitution is not "difficult" or "complex." It's like a great city bombed into a warren of ruins, through which only certain trained pathfinders can move. But the original map was clear, and in my opinion, restoration is more vital than endlessly burrowing through the rubble.