As for the Constitution: It is a simple document. It comprises a few pages, little of the language is arcane, and the most complex math it ever contained has been struck down by amendments.*
*In the original Constitution, it was decided that a slave would be counted as two-thirds of a person for the purposes of a census. You can now safely ignore anything in the Constitution that relates to slavery.
It was written by lawyers (mostly), true, but those lawyers were some of the most intelligent men on the planet at the time, and some would stand well against the entire history of intelligent people. They were also radicals and revolutionaries who knew what they wanted and that anything they created would have to compare with everything else on Earth, before or since. They were creating a system modeled on an idea most of the world’s political leaders had thought failed, and they knew that their lives depended on getting it right this time.
Anyway, read the American Constitution. Reading the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) would be useful in following most American political discussions. I’ll summarize them here, briefly:
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[li]This is a kind of Ten Things I Want in a Government': Government shall stay out of religion, not mess with free speech, and allow the people to peacefully protest and send letters to the Government asking for changes.[/li][li]This amendment is vague and seemingly self-contradictory. Some people (myself included) think it provides individuals the right to own guns and other weapons. Others, whom I respectfully disagree with, think it only allows state militias to own weapons. In any case, it relates to gun ownership.[/li][li]This is somewhat of a historical curio, and it reflects a major bitch the colonists had with the British military. It briefly states that the military shall not put soldiers in citizens' houses without the consent of the citizens involved. During the time the Constitution was being written, the British had a nasty habit of shoving troops in the homes of the locals, who would be forced to put up with uncouth redcoats.[/li][li]This amendment comes as close as anything does to establishing a right to privacy. It states that the Government can only search you, your home, and your property if they have a search warrant that specifically states what they will search and what they're looking for. Furthermore, those warrants can only be obtained if the Government can show probable cause that it you've done something wrong: mere suspicion doesn't cut it.[/li] (As for the right to privacy: The Constitution, being largely a procedural document, doesn't mention it. The Bill of Rights assumes it, but doesn't mention it specifically. It's largely assumed by the American legal system, however, and has been the basis for several successful attacks on various laws. Law can be like Jewish law: Only part of it is written down, and the rest is in the interpretations.) [li]This amendment describes various things to do with the legal system, mostly. The first section states that a grand jury must indict anyone who has been accused of a capital, or otherwise infamous, crime, except if the person's in the military when we're at war or it's a national emergency. (What is an infamous crime? Is that a specific concept, or simply a blanket statement? (See what I mean about interpretation?)) It goes on to say that nobody can be tried twice for the same crime. (The exact wording is put in jeapordy of life or limb’, which is where the term double jeopardy' comes from. And no, don't try to use the crappy movie of the same name to understand this. The movie gets it wrong.) The third part says that nobody can be made to testify against himself (as every criminal who's said "I'm standing on the fifth" knows), or be deprived of anything without due process (which means the Government can't just take something from you), and that nobody can be deprived of property without being paid a fair value (this comes up in cases of eminent domain’, where the Government pays some bloke for his land so a superhighway can be built).[/li][li]This is more about the rights of the accused. It says that anyone accused of a crime has the right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred. The accused also has a right to know what the charges against him are, and to be able to see the people accusing him. Furthermore, he has right to legal counsel (a lawyer, in other words) and to be able to gather witnesses in his defense. All and all, a pretty information-packed sentence.[/li][li]This is the third amendment related to the legal system. It says that if any case is about a value of twenty dollars or more, the accused has a right to a trial by jury, and that no court can re-examine that trial except under the rules of English Common Law. I don’t know if the value is still set at twenty dollars, but it takes an amendment to change an amendment, and I don’t know of any amendment altering the value mentioned in this one. (BTW, would the `dollars’ mentioned in the Constitution be Spanish dollars, or were they foreseeing an American currency called the dollar?)[/li][li]This is the last one about the legal system (promise!). This one prohibits excessive bail and cruel or unusual punishments. Some states used the basic logic here to ban capital punishment, and captial punishment was once banned at the national level, but it’s currently in use in some states today. Whenever capital punishment is debated, this amendment is invoked, directly or indirectly.[/li][li]This amendment is cited as confusing, but it really isn’t. It says “Just because we didn’t mention a right here doesn’t mean the citizens don’t have it.” It’s too often ignored, and I think a lot of the laws today would be drummed off the books if it were looked at more closely by more judges. Again, you must turn to recent interpretation for answers.[/li][li]This amendment says that all of the powers not given to the Government explicitly are given to the states or the people. This amendment is also frequently overlooked.[/li][/list]
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