by Michael Maharrey
The visiting team trails 21-14 as the final seconds tick off the clock. It’s fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line. The quarterback takes his place under center as a deafening roar rises up from the partisan home crowd. The quarterback takes the snap, turns and smacks the ball into the running back’s gut. The back plunges forward, legs churning for the end zone. He looks left, darts right and leaps toward the goal line. A mighty collision as a 240 pound linebacker meets him mid-air. The impact throws the ball carrier backward and he tumbles to the ground, a half yard short of the end zone. After a moment of silence, the home fans erupt in jubilation as the horn sounds ending the game.
But wait. A sudden movement draws the crowd’s attention toward the referee. He runs along the goal line, both arms raised high, signaling a touchdown. The fans groan in displeasure. Home players stand stunned. The coach goes apoplectic on the sideline. The running back clearly crashed to the turf well short of a touchdown.
Several minutes pass as officials huddle closely together in consultation. Then the referee keys his mic and offers an explanation.
“Even though the runner was down short of the end zone, we feel he was close enough to warrant granting him the touchdown. We believe it is in the best interest of the fans, and of the league in general, for this game to continue into overtime. The rules reserve a certain interpretive latitude to officials. The running back’s effort certainly deserves a reward. The touchdown stands.â€
A ridiculous scenario, you say? The referee can’t arbitrarily ignore the rules of the game, even if it is for the better, you argue?
Indeed.
Yet progressives assert equally ridiculous notions when it come to applying the rules specified by the Constitution governing the United States.
In a Sept. 21 Washington Post column, Richard Cohen asserts:
This fatuous infatuation with the Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment, is clearly the work of witches, wiccans and wackos. It has nothing to do with America’s real problems and, if taken too seriously, would cause an economic and political calamity. The Constitution is a wonderful document, quite miraculous actually, but only because it has been wisely adapted to changing times. To adhere to the very word of its every clause hardly is respectful to the Founding Fathers. They were revolutionaries who embraced change. That’s how we got here.
The Constitution provides a framework, the rulebook if you will, for government. Each clause, each principle, was carefully crafted for a specific reason. The entire document was meant to constrain and control federal power. When we begin to ignore and rewrite various checks and balances written into the Constitution by the framers, we tear at the very fabric of the Republic. And we run the risk of unleashing power that will soon wash away the freedoms and liberties the founders so cherished.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.â€
A football game would degenerate into chaos without adherence to the rulebook. If referees could arbitrarily award touchdowns, the game would cease to have any real meaning. Can you imagine the ridicule that would befall an official calling the NFL rulebook a living breathing document?
Ignoring the precepts of the Constitution creates the same type of chaos in government. The safeguards that our founders so carefully formulated to protect individual liberty erode away. Arbitrary power becomes the defining instrument of government.
Progressives say the Constitution must be reinterpreted and molded to fit the times. The same holds true for the rules of football, and the game has certainly change and evolved over the years. But referees don’t simply ignore the rules. Changes in the game flow out of changes to the rulebook. Committees meet. Discussions occur. Then votes are cast. Only after following a carefully prescribed procedure do substantive changes in the game take place.
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Likewise, procedures exist to change the Constitution – the amendment process.
But progressives like Cohen would rather not be bothered with such tedious procedures. They see things that need doing, so they just go ahead and do them, ignoring the rule book and make things up as they go along.
Progressives may desire the best for the country. But they are as arrogant as they are good intentioned. They believe that they hold the best solutions, therefore, they should not have to adhere to the rules. They view the Constitution not as a protection for the people, but as an obstacle to overcome on the way to bigger and better things. Progressives know best and shouldn’t be bothered with trivialities such as taking the Constitution “too seriouslyâ€.
The Constitution spells things out in plain language. With a little study, we can easily determine the intent of the framers. But progressives find new meanings, twisting words into unrecognizable precepts and simply ignoring others.
We would be wise to heed the words of Samuel Adams.
“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!â€
Great article! Thanks!
The crap that passes for logical argument today just amazes me. The list of such drivel is endless but the 'living constitution' argument promoted by so many pseudo-intellectuals is at the top of my personal list of maddeningly-dumb ideas. As Arthur C. Clarke said, my favorite definition of an 'intellectual' is someone who has been educated beyond his intelligence.
Here's another take on this important issue of Sticking to the Rules:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/w…
The argument I use against living constitution is that the interpretation is not a part of the democratic process that created it so to interpret it in any other way than it was intended violates the democratic process that established it. Then I ask "Surely, you can't be against the will of the people in deciding how their government should operate"?
Not only is the constitution the rules but the law. Our government can exist without the people in power because the constitution or the supreme law of the land still exist. The rules on how states, people, and other things under its authority still exist. The important thing to realize is that we are under the constitution's authority and not under the government's authority because it is the constitution's laws that is supreme and not anything that is created by the people in power.
Its an important distinction because politicians, judges, and anything affiliated with the government gets their authority from the law and nothing else. The law decides what they can do just like the law decides what we can do which destroys any personal authority any person in power has over us since we are all equal under the law. When the constitution is the supreme authority we are subject to it and not subject to any person in power.
nice perspective, I am definitely going to have to use that one!
I believe Locke's idea of constitution was a law above the people in power so that people would not be deciding how other people should live.
Also, this could be what Jeffereson meant in the 1798 nullification act when he said 'it is not a law' because it wasn't in the constitution or in pursuance of it. He might have meant that quite literally.
Great Article
You know the NFL modifies the rule book every season, right? with the goal of making the game better and safer for all.
Analogy fail.
what an idiotic comment. You obviously did not read the full article – or maybe you don't care.
Either way, you ignored this part of the article:
"Changes in the game flow out of changes to the rulebook. Committees meet. Discussions occur. Then votes are cast. Only after following a carefully prescribed procedure do substantive changes in the game take place. Likewise, procedures exist to change the Constitution – the amendment process."
What really sucks is that the NBA has two rules. One for the players and the other for the superstars. Its the reason why it started to suck and I stopped watching. It made the game uneven and unfair as the judges/referees applied the rules against some players while letting others get away with murder. It turned the law/rules into something that is oppressive against the people/players. Again, this is why no one watches the NBA anymore.
PK
I did the same thing with NBA. It drove me crazy to see MJ and Magic travel, palm and double dribble with impugnity while other, less popular, players were called for these infractions. As a result, I quit watching.
The game is no fun and pointless when the rules are ignored and it's even less fun when the rules are only applied against certain people while 'elites' are allowed to do whatever they please. Does that sound familiar?
The don't actually modify on the field. They follow the rules on how to modify the rules and apply those rules to everyone.
Hi, Whitey
In an effort to save you from further embarrassment, here's a link to a Mark Twain quote that I hand out for free to people like you:
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_is_better_to_k…
Where the hell was this passion and Constitutional sentimentality when the patriot act was passed?
from most conservatives, I think it didn't exist. TAC, though, has been here since 2006—protesting that and everything else from the Bush and Obama administrations. But, there is a core of constitutionalists that protested that – along with everything now. It is a great time to reach out and explain to those on the right how turning a blind eye to one constitutional violation leads to more and more…….and more.
Guest
Where in the hell was all this passion when Ron Paul was running for President? He's the only candidate I've ever seen in my lifetime who actually understands and tries to follow the Constitution. Despite this, he was laughed at during the debates for bringing up obvious points about geopolitics, America and the Constitution (and he opposed the so-called Patriot Act). Naturally, he had no chance with the masses that constitute today's electorate.
However, while TPTB were laughing at him, he was also setting records for fund raising from the "little people" on the internet. That, I suspect, is where the passion is found and that, I suspect is what you're seeing here at TAC.
A relatively small group of people feel VERY passionately that the Constitution is being ignored and that it is ruining America. Many of these people have found that the internet is the only place they can find useful information and like-minded people since the MSM is filled with mindless drivel 24/7.
Thank God for places like TAC. It's one of the few things that keeps me (nearly) sane as I read/listen to the self-serving, lying and moronic drivel from MSM sources and watch as America slowly sinks into oblivion. I can't help but feel it's much like the Titanic sinking while the band is playing.
The masses, though, still don't seem to get it. People need to get it through their heads that blindly voting D or R is a fool's game. Stop supporting the people who are killing America! The policies of both D and R have led us to the point where the financial future of America is in question. I fear there isn't much time to turn it around before something very bad happens to all of us.
That is because you guys brought up some pretty f'n retarded scenarios such as US citizens being abducted off the streets in masses. You accusations had very little to do with reality like Bush planned 911. Who fuck is going to listen to that? Also, it always had the tone of being taking up the terrorist side against America which kind of turned me off.
The patriot act does violate the constitution but very few people on the left could keep it in perspective and couldn't seem to avoid comparing it to the holocaust.
Are you aware that the patriot act still exist and is being abused much more under the Obama administration than the Bush one? Where did all the liberals go is the question I want to know?
I would suggest that before we all complete our discussion of living Constitutions, the democratic process and the rest, that we might consider the discussion of these topics and more (to include the voluntary and non-voluntary, the rich and poor, law and "lawlessness"–by which is meant that changing of the law for the better(or worse, some would argue)) in Plato's Statesman (Stephan. 293 to 302) Indeed, Plato, through his ccharacters of the Eleatic Stranger and the Young Socrates, ask questions that any libertarian would ask, such as "why have the law in the first place if it isn't really going to work?" to the question of what would the Framers say if they returned today. Indeed, some of this discussion has use of the sports similie.
Also, if any of you think or assert that Plato was a socialist or liberal, well, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas asked and answered the same questions–indeed such assertions that Plato was a socialist or liberal or whatever are usually from those who have read the Cliff Notes on The Republic
I pointed out elsewhere that Aristotle had a reply, of sorts, to Acton's assertion that Power Corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely by noting the truth of Bias' remark that the "office shows the man"–that power used by a good man improves him, while power used by a bad one makes him worse–but the current modern rage is that all persons in authority are bad–well, good, then the most of you must have had some really nasty teachers and coaches for the most part, as that power went to their head? ReallY? This one difference between Aristotle and Acton show how far apart the Tenth Amendment Center folks are from the likes of Jefferson, Washington and Madison.