Today, on the second day of the 112th Congress, the Constitution will be read on the floor in its entirety. In addition, the new Republican leadership in the House will be instituting a new rule requiring that each new piece of legislation cite the provision which grants Congress the authority to enact such a law.
Today, it is not uncommon to witness people on opposite sides of the political spectrum expressing far out views of this founding document.
Many liberals, or political progressives, view the Constitution as anachronistic. It is over 200 years old and its writers could never have anticipated the needs of people today. Therefore the Constitution needs to be treated as a “living document” and thus interpreted widely and wildly to enable government to “solve” any problem, real or imagined.
This point of view has dominated the permanent political class for the last 50 years or more and has resulted in a Federal Government that sees no real limitation to the power it can grant itself through legislation or judicial fiat.
In reaction to this governmental overreach, there has been a popular uprising that is re-emphasizing the limits imposed on the Federal Government by the Constitution. The Constitution grants certain powers to the Federal Government and no more. The rest is reserved to the states and to the people. As for the future needs of the people requiring a “living and breathing” document, we have an amendment process which is the only legitimate way to grant the federal government additional power. This plain understanding of the Constitution must once again be enforced, they argue, or the liberties guaranteed under this document will be forfeit.
However, among those who hold the latter point of view, we hear this foundational document referred to as “sacred.” They hold that, in some way, this document is divinely inspired, seemingly handed down from on high.
It isn’t.
January 6, 2011 at 8:45 pm
If you believe your history, the Constiution was a product of Enlightenment and the colonists distrust of eachother, as well as a distrust of centralized government.
January 6, 2011 at 10:34 pm
the Constiution was a product of Enlightenment
Not really. Certainly not the rationalist enlightenment of the French, and I would even suggest that the Scots weren't quite as important as has been made out.
and the colonists distrust of eachother,
This is a gross oversimplification. The Constitution was a reflection on human reality – read Federalist 51 and Madison's words about men and angels.
as well as a distrust of centralized government
Except that the Constitution increased the power of the federal government, at least compared to what existed under the Articles of Confederation. Now it also placed well-defined limits, and that is what today's conservatives stand and fight for.
January 8, 2011 at 12:52 am
You are men sacred to me for I the Lord am sacred. God tells the Israelites this every time God hands down a decree in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is true God and true man, a perfect human being. Therefore, any law that expresses the sacred in the human being is sacred. From the Baltimore Catechism we are told to know, love and serve God. The Declaration of Independence declares that these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by OUR CREATOR with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of Happiness is the single cell endowed with sovereign personhood, free will, conscience, a human soul growing into a human body, the inheritance spoken of in the Gospels. Our Constitution is predicated upon the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is predicated upon the Ten Commandments. Freedom of religion is all men being equally free to know, love and serve God. Freedom of speech to speak to God, write about God and peaceably assemble to worship God and to petition the government if these freedom are abrogated. The whole constitution is about God through the sovereign person who constitutes the state through the sovereignty endowed by our CREATOR and declared in our Declaration of Independence. Human beings may not be owned as slaves, may not be murdered and may not do any harm to his neighbor. If the Ten Commandments are divinely inspired, than the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, too, are divinely inspired.
The Constitution has no penumbras and no separation of church and state. When the atheist went before the Supreme Court, in Engel v. Vitale, the court said: “She can go her own way” Freedom of Religion. The Media Circus bannered “PRAYER BAN”. The mob mentality demanded that all religious symbols or sentiment be denied. The Supreme Court said that ALL people’s religious expression be allowed. The Supreme Court cannot ban a First Amendment civil right. The Supreme Court never barred expression of Faith in God, the media did. (and they have less power than any living creature because they are not right.) The atheist perjured herself denying the God-given endowed by our Creator, civil rights she claimed as her own.
Denying the freedom of Religion to man rung the death knell for America, for once God was removed from the public square, abortion, the lie about the endowed self-evident truths of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and about OUR CREATOR, perjury in the court, murder of virgins in the womb could not be stopped. Pornography, the lie about human sexuality, as free speech went forward. Homosexual behavior, the lie about the laws of nature and nature’s God and perjury in a court of law as well as insult to the parents who bore him, is going forward. Prostitution, a lie about the sacredness of the human being and perjury in court is now employment. Virginity, Innocence, and especially charity are no longer held in trust for our posterity. All civil rights, endowed by OUR CREATOR are held in trust for all mankind born and unborn, all generations to come, our constitutional posterity, until the age of majority when these persons become the trustees of the next generation’s endowed civil rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.