ha ha.
the nice thing about the form of a living constitution embodied in a person is that that person changes every once in a while.
age withers her. she dies. and then she is replaced.
whereas the founders raise their arthritic fingers from the eighteenth century and command that you must submit to a bizarre second amendment, and that you must respect a structure which continues to prevent a government from acting, and that you must accept that money rather than the popular will defines authority. etc.
unanticipated consequences, no doubt.
the more time passes, the more its constitution will prevent the usa from evolving to suit its circumstances. it was not capable of adapting itself to avoid a civil war, after all. what hope for protecting children from guns.
at some point folks will say: this document needs amendment.
but not yet. instead, the founders are treated as if they discovered the philosopher's stone and folks march past a yellowing document covered in signatures and treat it as if its words were delivered from the mountaintop.
look to those old stone stela and note how their injunctions fade over time.
"If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser."
so it is with eighteenth century philosophy incorporated into a nation's constitution. actually, seventeenth, if you admit locke as the primary influence.
look upon my works, ye mighty, and evolve.
folks still look at symptoms and not the disease.
| 