Gorsuch and Our Living Contitution
I breathe a bit easier with Gorsuch as a Supreme Court Justice primarily because he understands how a nation built on a foundation of law must work.
Many social liberals hold that our Constitution, the very foundation of our nation, should be a "living" constitution to be interpreted by the courts in the context of the current social liberal world view. If a view is popular today, it must be the one and only correct view to the exclusion of all other others.
Not so.
Our Founding Fathers were foresighted enough to give us a Constitution that could stand the test of time. It was and continues to be a constitution that defends the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of EVERY citizen, not just the liberal ones or the conservative ones, but everyone. It makes, as Lincoln put it, some of the people happy all the time, all of the people some of the time but never all the people all the time.
It is indeed, a living constitution. It's framers were also foresighted enough to know that as our society changes, the Constitution must be malleable enough to reflect fundamental changes. It was never their intent that the courts use the Constitution to make law through court rulings but to ENFORCE the law as defined by the constitution. Gorsuch will do just that.
So how is it that our Constitution is a living constitution? Well, by the provisions outlined in the Constitution for changing it. Since 1786, some 11,500 proposal have been made to amend it. We have done so 27 times. The first ten enumerated the rights of individual citizens. We abolished the instruction of slavery, prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race or color, prohibited the denial of the right of US citizens, eighteen years of age or older, to vote on account of age and prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on sex, among others.
We also learned the folly bending to popular social pressures when, in 1917, an amendment prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol.
Does the Constitution presently need amendment? I think so on three accounts: (1) clarifying the 2nd amendment regarding the right to bear arms considering that the "militia" today is the National Guard, (2) defining what one's sex is regarding prohibitions presently based on "sex" and (3) declaration of marriage to not have legal status.
Many social liberals hold that our Constitution, the very foundation of our nation, should be a "living" constitution to be interpreted by the courts in the context of the current social liberal world view. If a view is popular today, it must be the one and only correct view to the exclusion of all other others.
Not so.
Our Founding Fathers were foresighted enough to give us a Constitution that could stand the test of time. It was and continues to be a constitution that defends the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of EVERY citizen, not just the liberal ones or the conservative ones, but everyone. It makes, as Lincoln put it, some of the people happy all the time, all of the people some of the time but never all the people all the time.
It is indeed, a living constitution. It's framers were also foresighted enough to know that as our society changes, the Constitution must be malleable enough to reflect fundamental changes. It was never their intent that the courts use the Constitution to make law through court rulings but to ENFORCE the law as defined by the constitution. Gorsuch will do just that.
So how is it that our Constitution is a living constitution? Well, by the provisions outlined in the Constitution for changing it. Since 1786, some 11,500 proposal have been made to amend it. We have done so 27 times. The first ten enumerated the rights of individual citizens. We abolished the instruction of slavery, prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race or color, prohibited the denial of the right of US citizens, eighteen years of age or older, to vote on account of age and prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on sex, among others.
We also learned the folly bending to popular social pressures when, in 1917, an amendment prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol.
Does the Constitution presently need amendment? I think so on three accounts: (1) clarifying the 2nd amendment regarding the right to bear arms considering that the "militia" today is the National Guard, (2) defining what one's sex is regarding prohibitions presently based on "sex" and (3) declaration of marriage to not have legal status.
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