Tuesday, November 01, 2005

"Living" Constitution

It is a hard thing to amend and modify the Constitution. The founders made it that way, to ensure that a large portion of the population is sure that they want that change. The Constitution was even quite controversial in its ratification. It was a compromise to get, not just a majority, but a super-majority.

Because of this, I find it hard to believe that the framers were concerned about leaving things in the Constitution vauge enough for a future court to interpret new meaning into the document, like "right to privacy." If they went through such pains to get it ratified initially, new rights and application of rights should also go through the agonizing process of debate and ratification in order to be added.

Currently, the Supreme court puts new meaning into the Constitution by abstracting concrete and specific rights, and generalizing them to apply to other concrete situations. This adds new rights and takes away other rights to their whim and reasons. But in effect, this is the equivalent of a revolution. Rather than take up arms, demand a change, and work something out amongst the survivors, they are wiggling their pens in the name of progress to make a new Constitution; one that has not been ratified by a super-majority.

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