Sunday, August 03, 2003
TRIVIALIZING OUR OWN CONSTITUTION
The wisdom of the Framers reveals itself every time some hot-button issue provokes a special interest lobby into a half-cocked and ill-considered plan to amend the Constitution. Were it not for the very high bar of getting two thirds of the States to go along with a proposed amendment the nation might have amendments dealing with gambling addiction, discrimination against the obese and the " right " to various goods and services we would like to enjoy but pay for by taxing somebody else.
In addition to religious right demands for a Constitutional amendment banning " Gay Marriage", Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. ( D-IL) has proposed no fewer than eight Constitutional amendments including the " right " to " balanced economic growth " and " a sustainable environment". Representative Jackson also in the past has expressed ( in an interview to GQ magazine) a desire to enact major revisions to the Bill of Rights, excising or limiting the scope of the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 10th amendments.
"Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois, brought down the house with a vociferous condemnation of federalism. He said that the nation’s greatest problem is “a separate and unequal system” of “50 separate and unequal states and 3,067 separate and unequal counties [that] must be rooted out root and branch.” “The enemy here is the Tenth Amendment, the unenumerated rights” which permits inequalities to exist. Jackson said the only solution is a much stronger central government for “one America,”
I have to commend Congressman Jackson on one point; his position is a at least a consistent and intellectually honest one. Jackson seeks to sweep away all of the Constitutional barriers to unlimited Federal power but he at least respects those barriers as real and genuine legal obstacles to his dangerously statist program. I cannot say as much for those of my conservative bretheren who claim to revere the Constitution and then propose amendments that mangle bedrock Constitutional liberties or principles to make some momentary political statement on Flag-burning, Gay-marriage or some other triviality.
Thank you Mr. Madison for saving us from ourselves. ¶ 10:10 PM
The wisdom of the Framers reveals itself every time some hot-button issue provokes a special interest lobby into a half-cocked and ill-considered plan to amend the Constitution. Were it not for the very high bar of getting two thirds of the States to go along with a proposed amendment the nation might have amendments dealing with gambling addiction, discrimination against the obese and the " right " to various goods and services we would like to enjoy but pay for by taxing somebody else.
In addition to religious right demands for a Constitutional amendment banning " Gay Marriage", Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. ( D-IL) has proposed no fewer than eight Constitutional amendments including the " right " to " balanced economic growth " and " a sustainable environment". Representative Jackson also in the past has expressed ( in an interview to GQ magazine) a desire to enact major revisions to the Bill of Rights, excising or limiting the scope of the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 10th amendments.
"Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois, brought down the house with a vociferous condemnation of federalism. He said that the nation’s greatest problem is “a separate and unequal system” of “50 separate and unequal states and 3,067 separate and unequal counties [that] must be rooted out root and branch.” “The enemy here is the Tenth Amendment, the unenumerated rights” which permits inequalities to exist. Jackson said the only solution is a much stronger central government for “one America,”
I have to commend Congressman Jackson on one point; his position is a at least a consistent and intellectually honest one. Jackson seeks to sweep away all of the Constitutional barriers to unlimited Federal power but he at least respects those barriers as real and genuine legal obstacles to his dangerously statist program. I cannot say as much for those of my conservative bretheren who claim to revere the Constitution and then propose amendments that mangle bedrock Constitutional liberties or principles to make some momentary political statement on Flag-burning, Gay-marriage or some other triviality.
Thank you Mr. Madison for saving us from ourselves. ¶ 10:10 PM
