I’ll just state the obvious, which is that the Constitution has already abysmally failed once. The Constitution in its current form survives not because of it was some sort of fountain of equality and liberty, but because the Union army burned Atlanta right to the fucking ground. It took force to keep the Constitution alive, it took force to impose the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that brought us into the modern age (though it took another 100 years to finally make clear that all states had to normalize these values).
No doubt, there are elements of the Constitution that are brilliant and worthy of preservation. But treating it as some sort of sacrosanct document is a pastime I have no interest in.
A rtreat from the rule of law and a return to the rule of man? Really?? Suppose a justice thinks a law is bad but he is certain it is allowed by the constitution?
Aren’t you Roman Catholic? Surely you are used to the idea that what is moral (or believed moral) and what is desired are different ideas.
In other words, rule by common law, which is much of the body of constitutional law anyway. Considering how badly written the Bill of Rights is, it’s tempting to consider abandoning the primacy of the Bill of Rights to be an improvement. Certainly we already “interpret” the Bill of Rights in ways far beyond its supposed “plain text.” And the Heller decision appears to be have been about politics or desire—*maybe *moral thought—rather than textualism.
Not a retreat. But a better set of laws more applicable to modern society. Let the founding fathers down from the pedestal and let them rest already. Haven’t they done enough?
I have to ask here, do you feel that way about the entire Constitution? So, we should take a more fluid view of, say, freedom of speech or of religion based on pubic opinion? If the pubic, say, turns against, oh, say Muslims, we should reinterpret the Constitution to make that happen as long as the general public feel it’s ‘the moral one’? Same with speech? Let’s say, oh, maybe some fundies types feel that poor should be banned, and maybe a lot of other speech that isn’t in line with their populist thinking?
That’s the trouble with having a Constitution that bends and can be reinterpreted to mean whatever ‘the moral one’ is of the day. It would be fucking useless. Instead, our Constitution can be changed, but it’s not an easy process. However, if public sentiment changes enough that parts of it are deemed to be anachronistic, well, we can change it to reflect that instead of having it reinterpreted every decade or so to mean something different than it was meant…or exactly the opposite of what was meant, as the folks who want to reinterpret the 2nd want it too.
It also ignores the reality that the Constitution can be changed. It’s not any ‘sort of sacrosanct document’ except to the ignorant or misinformed. And the Civil War doesn’t demonstrate that it’s ‘abysmally failed once’. It wasn’t the Constitution that failed. As to responding to his post, I seriously doubt it was from fear that no one responded.
The 2nd Amendment is no more ‘central’ to the Constitution than any of the other Amendments are. Hell, I’d say that the 1st is more central in reality. It’s certainly not ‘quasi-sacred’. The main issue has been the anti-gun movement attempting to circumvent the Constitution and do what Chronos is advocating…basically, reinterpret it out of existence. That effort is at the root of the rancor between pro and anti-gun factions, and has probably been the biggest stumbling block to making inroads on gun control. As has been demonstrated in the courts, you CAN put limits on Constitutional rights, such as the limits we put on free speech or assembly. You simply can’t put limits that undermine the right that is being protected. Instead, if you want to do that you need to amend the Constitution through the process we have. Notice, the anti-gun movement hasn’t really tried to do that? Yet that’s our process for changing an amendment.
I really do think that we no longer need a broad based right to keep and bear arms and that the Constitution should be amended to reflect that. But it needs to be done correctly, not through sneaking underhanded reinterpretation of the amendment to make it say something it was never meant to…to, in fact, make it say the opposite to what it was originally meant too. Because that undermines our entire system far worse than allowing the public a right to keep and bear arms.
But those changes have to come about through a defined process, which reflects popular will. Its form at any given time may not be sacrosanct, but the fact that it took an overwhelming degree of popular support to be the Constitution it is now (and has been at any point in history, and will be at any point in the future) is sacrosanct.
Now I’m confused. When you originally posted that “For what it’s worth, the interpretation I favor is the moral one: The Constitution and other laws should be interpreted in whatever way is most good and just”, what exactly did you mean? “Should be interpreted” by whom? You and I? We don’t really “interpret” laws, or if we do it has no operative value. Judges interpret the law.
It’s separate from the point you’re making, but I have to bring it up regardless: I really wish people wouldn’t talk in terms of “civilized” and “uncivilized” countries or people. For some reason, this word seems to get thrown around in debates about guns, by people who would otherwise never utter the word. I don’t think it’s appropriate here and I don’t think it’s appropriate anywhere.
Mexico has more gun violence than America, I think, but Mexico is not “uncivilized.” You go there and if you are respectful and kind to 99% of the people there, they will be respectful and kind to you. There may be parts of the country that are lawless or in which the rule of law is either stretched too thin, or corrupt. This doesn’t mean that Mexico is not a “civilized country.” It is eminently civilized. I don’t believe there’s any human society on earth that isn’t civilized.
By an objective measure, the Constitution of 1791 failed in 1861, and did so because it failed to resolve the matter of slavery through Constitutional means. That matter was resolved through brute military force. Furthermore, the anti-slavery Amendments that followed were achieved at a time when the Union stripped Southern states of their political power. Even so, the South managed to find ways to establish an apartheid society, mainly through the use of white Christian nationalist terrorism. The Constitution didn’t change during the time of Jim Crow; attitudes did, and the Court jurists finally decided on their own accord to change with them. But there was nothing in the Constitution that “succeeded”. You could argue that the Constitution was flexible enough to enable this sort of change, but the problem you have is that a new generation of judges could decide that making American great again means swinging back in the opposite direction. That’s not really a strong Constitution, then - at least not as it pertains to the protection of fundamental rights and liberties. More fundamentally, it’s testament to the fact that the Constitution relies on thinking that is more than two centuries old and perhaps needs some updating.
When dining on soldier, I prefer to have at least half. A quarter soldier just leaves one hungry an hour later. Plus, you never know which quarter you’re going to get!
The US was still a very young nation at this point. And using Constitutional change wasn’t even tried…instead, the standard rebellion was seen as the way. And there is the fact that it was never settled whether States could in fact secede from the Union. I’d say the Civil War settled that.
And we have evidence that the Constitution can be changed without a civil war, and in fact that an amendment can be brought in and later modified to nullify the parts that society no longer finds useful. We don’t need to have a civil war to modify the Constitution.
The Union never stripped the Southern states of their political power. It would have been quite unconstitutional for them to do so. The Southern states voluntarily stripped themselves of political power, and them having done so, the Union was perfectly within its rights to take advantage of that fact.
Yes, of course I’m talking about judges. Wasn’t that the context? Some judges interpret according to (what they think) the original intent was, some judges interpret according to (what they think) the plain text means, some judges interpret according to (what they think) is most moral.
There had been multiple amendments passed already before the Civil War.
And the Constitution itself was quite clear that it, and federal laws, were supreme within their purview over anything the states could do. That quite clearly means that unilateral secession isn’t possible.
