News Flash: The Constitution is Dead

Entertain the MOB (football and beer) and you can do anything you want including destroy the greatest culture on the face of the whole earth...via Richard

Frankly, I don't know about this living document thing and I haven't read the book being referenced. I will say this, in terms of documentation control, any document that can be amended and those amendments tracked is a called a living document. Looking at the betrayal of our constitution, it isn't that the constitution can be amended that's the problem. It's that the 3 branches see fit to ignore the need for amendments and have convinced most Americans that they aren't needed that is the problem.

Ps. The document itself has to explain how changes are made.

This "living" Constitution theory garbage was being taught in my law school back in '85.

Martha, I'm not 100% sure, but I think Richard was being sarcastic.

@Richard Robinson ... Our Constitution is being violated every day by the courts and a certain segment of our Fed Govt ... Are you ok w/that? I hope you understand what the Constitution is and what it means to the freedom of each of us and to our country. So when you look in the mirror, all you see is football and beer. A lot of people have given their lives and limbs for the Constitution and your right to watch football and drink beer.

Psychiatry's View on Education "…through schools of the world we shall disseminate a new conception of government – one that will embrace all of the collective activities of men; one that will postulate the need for scientific control and operation of economic activities in the interests of all people."
Harold Rugg, student of psychology and a disciple of John Dewey

However, Americans need not be Soviet spies or Islamo-fascist terrorists to be domestic enemies of the U.S. Constitution. "As Kevin Gutzman, constitutional expert and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, has said, those who would give us a 'living' Constitution are actually giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power." Legislating from the bench by judges (or Supreme Court justices) substitues a tyrannical rule of men for the Rule of Law. Anyone who would do that is an enemy of the Constitution.

Enemies of the U.S. Constitution (foreign and domestic) should be fought (or at very least, resisted) by any means necessary. That sounds harsh, and it can be when we're talking about American Al Qaeda in Yemen (for instance). But in the case of judges and Supreme Court justices, it requires U.S. citizens to do this: vote for presidential candidates that promise to nominate jurists who reject the "living" (dead) Constitution philosophy and whose public record appears to be in accord with that approach; and for senate candidates whom you trust will not block such nominees. Do not vote people into office who, when asked about the constitutionality of the legislation they're pushing, respond "Are you kidding?" (like Nancy Pelosi said in re. to Obamacare).

Most U.S. citizens --veterans included, I'm afraid-- are reluctant to admit that there's such a thing as a domestic enemy of the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, in Hollywood and academia and elsewhere, there's been a narrative written over the last several decades that's infected the minds of generations of Americans, which painted members of the Communist Party U.S.A. (both willing agents of the Leninist/Stalinist regime and the "useful idiots") as innocent victims of persecution and members of the H.U.A.C. as fascist thugs. However, post-Soviet-collapse research into Moscow's formerly secret archives proved that Hiss and the Rosenbergs and the many sh*tbirds who betrayed the CIA, FBI and USN in the 1980s were indeed agents of that Evil Empire. So why would anyone not understand that the United States has domestic enemies? Those two bastards we just blew up in Yemen are recent examples of the sort of people who would hide behind our Constitutional protections at the same time they're trying to tear down the whole country.

When I was commissioned as a naval officer I swore an oath: "I, Stephen E. McLaughlin, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." As I see it, that is effective for LIFE (not just my time in uniform). I hope that all other veterans have the same understanding.

Sorry about my poor proofing:

All of your arguments that a document does nothing and inspires no one apply to all forms of reason and that only leaves force.

>By assuming that a document - ANY document - has any power at all, you make a
>fatal mistake - giving human life and qualities to a piece of modified tree pulp.

Agreed--I'm not an expert on Spooner but, from what I've read, he was well aware of this fact--and long before Larken Rose, who also also makes this case most convincingly.

>A document does nothing. It inspires no one. It directs no person. It is a piece of paper.
>People give inspiration and direction. And if people do not like what the constitution
>has to offer, then they will not do what is necessary to follow those words written on it.

Again, agreed, but to say that a document inspires no one is a bit like saying that speech is only
pressure waves in the atmosphere! There are only two means available to influence people (change their behavior)--force and reason. A document is written communication and, like verbal communication, it falls into the category of reason. Both ink on a piece of modified tree pulp and atmospheric pressure waves in the atmosphere have no physical power; this is true.

> People give inspiration and direction.

Yes--though communication, including written words.

Based on the arguments in your reply, I conclude that the only form of human influence that you perceive to have any power at all is force. All of your arguments that a document does nothing and inspires no apply to all forms of reason and that only leaves force.

I agree that the merit and viability of a stateless society that is based on the non-aggression principle is another topic and, despite my preference for that end goal, my main motivation in posting here is to debate Spooner's assertion and your related philosophical statements. Not being a scholar of Spooner, I could be wrong about him. Thank you so much for your reply, Michael. Like Ron Paul, I have great respect for your work, but that doesn't mean I'd "vote" for you! (Nor would I support anyone who promotes a master to rule me.)

I don't see how Spooner was anything but 100% correct! How does a document fail? A document fails when it does not influence people to deliver its intended consequences. I believe that the Constitution is powerless to influence people in the manner intended by the Founders to prevent the government as we have had, just as Spooner submitted. It's a dead letter. I wish you the best in resurrecting it, but my efforts are focused on a stateless society, based on the non-aggression principle, to be achieved by the future generations to follow us.

Here's a good quote from Chuck Colson about those dead white men who laid the foundations of a Republic. "Conservatism is not an ideology; it’s not doctrine or dogma. It is a way of seeing life. It draws on the wisdom of the past to view events of the present. We all stand on the shoulders of the great people who have gone before us. That is why G. K. Chesterton described our experiment as 'democracy of the dead' because we care about the foundation laid by our forefathers.'”

See Colson's entire excellent article "Wolf, Burke and Us - Returning to Conservative Principles" at "http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/18012" which looks at some issues of taxation from a conservative and Christian viewpoint.