[WinstonChurchill]

Concerning the Constitution of the United States of America.

It is not scripture, and we cannot assume that it is inerrant.

However, over two hundred years of experience has shown that it is a very good and very workable document on which to base a nation of people who are, for the most part, men and women of good faith who believe in individual liberty.

It was intended by its framers to be just that.

It was ratified by our forefathers who were alive and had the right to vote — the people of the several states — with that “original intent.” Thus, we should remember that when we speak of the “framers” of the Constitution, we include within the meaning of the word “framers” not only those gifted individuals who participated in the Constitutional Convention, but also the people of the United States who ratified their final product in “up or down” votes in the several states.

Upon that ratification by the people, and under its own terms, the Constitution became the organic law of the land — that upon which all other law is based, and that with which no other law may be inconsistent.

The framers included two methods of changing the Constitution within the document itself.

It was never intended by any of the framers, individually or as a group, or by those voters who ratified it as it was written and presented to them, that the Constitution should be changed in any manner other than the two methods provided for amending it.

[To borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, I add, for those of you in Rio Linda, that “amending it,” means the same thing as “changing it.”]

It was intended that the people of the United States, acting through their elected representatives, should be able to change the Constitution in whatever manner the people might desire at any time in the future, so long as they changed it using one of the two methods provided for changing it.

The people of the United States did that shortly after the Constitution went into effect. Through their elected representatives, they duly and lawfully proposed the Bill of Rights, which consisted of 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution.

When the people of the several states, acting through their elected representatives, had finished their voting, 10 of the 12 amendments were approved, and 2 were not approved. The 10 that were approved became the Bill of Rights as we know it today.

The people of the United States have likewise changed the Constitution a number of other times since then, and have rejected many proposed changes a number of times since then.

The framers of the Constitution did intend that, at any given moment in time, all laws of the land should be made, enforced, and interpreted in a fashion consistent with the plain language of the Constitution, in whatever state of amendment it might be at such point in time.

It was never intended that any individual, or small group of individuals, should be able to make wholesale changes in the Constitution by order, fiat, or decree.

It is generally accepted, following the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison (U.S. Sup. Ct., 1803), [and especially after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment] that the federal courts do have the power to review laws, regulations, and actions by government and its agents to determine if such are permitted or proscribed under the Constitution, in whatever state of amendment it exists at the time relevant to the case before the court.

If any person, group, or entity had the power to change the Constitution by order, fiat, or decree, then the Constitution could be made to say, and mean, literally anything that such person, group, or entity wished for it to say, and this change could be imposed upon the people without their approval, and in clear violation of the Constitution.

This state of affairs was never contemplated or intended by the framers of the Constitution, and nothing written in the document indicates that the document may be changed by the order, fiat, or decree of any person, group, or entity.

Indeed, the presence in the document itself of two methods for amending the Constitution, and no more, implies that those are the only two ways in which it may be amended.

Thus, under its own terms, the Constitution of the United States absolutely may not be amended by the order, fiat, or decree of any person, group, or entity. That is simply a fact. That fact applies to everyone. It applies to the Congress and to the President, and even to courts and judges.

The Constitution of the United States may only be amended by the two methods provided in the Constitution itself.

Thus, we must honor the “original intent” of the framers, because if we do not, then we make the Constitution a “wax nose” that can be twisted into any form desired by whomever, or whatever, is in control of the political organs of the country.

If the Constitution doesn’t mean what it has always meant, but can be decreed to mean something new and different, then it doesn’t mean anything at all.

If any person or group wishes to see the Constitution changed in some respect, then that person or group must work within the two prescribed methods for making changes in the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States is a very good and very workable document for creating, building, and running a country. But it is only that. It is not a “living document.” It cannot change itself. And neither you, nor your friends, nor your political party can change it either, unless you follow the rules contained within it, and get a lot of people to agree with your proposed change, and to vote, through their elected representatives, to change it as you wish and propose.

That is how a democratic republic, such as the one created by the Constitution, is supposed to work, and that is how we must all require and demand that it work.

And again, I assert that the United States Constitution, or any democratic republic, can only be workable to govern a nation of people who are, for the most part, men and women of good faith who believe in individual liberty. It can only work for a nation of people who accept the following ideas: (1) that the process is fair so long as it allows all sides to be brought to the attention of the public for consideration or rejection; (2) that no side is going to always get exactly what it wants; and, (3) that each of us is subject to losing an election, just as we may win an election.

There have always been, and will always be, quacks and people on the fringe. It is said that during the American Revolution, only a third of the people supported the revolution, that another third opposed it and supported the British Crown, and that the other third was either undecided or indifferent.

On the whole, I think most Americans today would agree that the American Revolution was a good thing, and that the world is better for it having occurred and having turned out the way it did. There are probably some quacks who would argue the point, though.

Similarly, today, the quackery we see on the left is often maddening to those of us who ask the liberals and Bush-bashers for actual evidence to support their claims, but hear only more insults from the haters. The liberals, the tree-huggers, the Earth-worshippers, and the pro-abortion baby killers (who oppose the death penalty for brutal murderers who deserve death if anyone does) want what they want and they want it now! And they don’t care how they have to trash the Constitution to get it. That is a childish and shortsighted way of thinking and of being.

You can choose to act like grown-ups.

If you think you have a good idea for a change, then put it out there, and push for it politically — but follow the rules. Don’t tear up and throw away today the very Constitution that assures your God-given right and my God-given right to freedom of speech just for some faddish cause célèbre.

If, in the fullness of time, you can’t get the people to vote for your idea, then you lose. Maybe your idea wasn’t that good after all, or maybe its time simply hasn’t come yet.

© 2008

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