Washington Poop does not value the Constitution
- Thread starter JoeRider
- Start date
hvp05
Methodically disorganized
It is a misrepresentation to say he said the "Constitution 'has no binding power on anything'" because clearly he was talking about the reading of the Constitution [in Congress].
As for the second part, that is lame. To say, basically, "It's confusing because it's old," is sad. Unfortunately, he is right that interpretations vary widely. When so many people are either too lazy to study the history or intentionally take the document's provisions out of context, that is bound to happen.
As for this guy, I don't think I would trust him to interpret a restaurant menu properly. Relativists irritate me.
As for the second part, that is lame. To say, basically, "It's confusing because it's old," is sad. Unfortunately, he is right that interpretations vary widely. When so many people are either too lazy to study the history or intentionally take the document's provisions out of context, that is bound to happen.
As for this guy, I don't think I would trust him to interpret a restaurant menu properly. Relativists irritate me.
Baz
This. ------------------>
You are, yes.
philibusters
Active Member
That was my interpretation. The person asked him if the new rule in the House regarding having to cite the Constitution is a gimmick and he basically said "yes it is a gimmick because it has no binding power". What exactly he meant is unclear, but I did feel it was pretty clear he was talking about the new House rule not the Constitution.
Without seeing the rest of the interview its hard to get a feel for what his reasoning was.
As for his second comment that the Constitution is complex because it is old I don't really agree. Its confusing because its a legal text in broad language that has to cover a lot of situations. That is what Constitutions are. If the Constitution was written yesterday there would still be a lot of close calls.
Mongo53
New Member
The 112th Congress's purpose in reading the Constitution is arguably symbolic, but powerful Symbolism for the People and the Members themselves. IMO, you can't ask for a better reminder that Congress is bound by the Constitution and should be held accountable by the people if they do NOT follow it.
AFA, broad interpretation, it is written pretty clearly and does NOT require much research to understand the context even if it is dated by 233 years. On the more sticky matters it may require some more understanding of the intent of the words written and you could NOT ask for a better explanation of the intent than the Federalist Papers, a single book that is a collection of letters and editorials. Hardly requires in depth scholarly study to understand.
The vastly different interpretations come from those that interpret it disingenuously, for their own purposes, as a means to an end.
AFA, broad interpretation, it is written pretty clearly and does NOT require much research to understand the context even if it is dated by 233 years. On the more sticky matters it may require some more understanding of the intent of the words written and you could NOT ask for a better explanation of the intent than the Federalist Papers, a single book that is a collection of letters and editorials. Hardly requires in depth scholarly study to understand.
The vastly different interpretations come from those that interpret it disingenuously, for their own purposes, as a means to an end.
philibusters
Active Member
That may be true in a broad sense. It doesn't take much study to understand what each provision of the Constitution was trying to accomplish--after all that is just a general concept. However, figuring out how to apply the Constitution which is a short document in nature (compare that to the Tax Code which is 26,000 pages and you'll see that that the amount of cases clearly covered by the words on the Constitution are only a small % of the cases that must be decided.
For example, probably most people agree that Julian Assange violated the law with Wikileaks. On the other hand, tell me why the First Amendment which says "Congress shall make NO law abridging the freedom of speech", which is very absolute language does not protect him.
A lot of arguments could be made that the First Amendment is not applicable--but is it obvious which one is applicable. If I poll 10 teapartyers are they all going to give me the same action.
Another First Amendment case dealt with Federal Campaign Finance Reform. The court said that was protected by the freedom of speech. Is it obvious that an action, especially an action that is not primarily symbolic can be covered by the freedom of speech. If I polled 10 teapartyers would there be any agreement as to to what actions were covered by freedom of speech. Does buying a pack of gum considered speech, going to a gun show, how about watching fox news or buying the NYT.
Its not how to understand the concepts of the Constitution, I agree, with probably as little as 30 or 40 hours of study you could get a good feel for what the framers were hoping for. But the framers could NOT foresee all the cases that would arise and if they could they would to literally have had to make the Constitution over a million pages long and very very technical to cover them. Thus you have to apply the Constitution to situations not directly covered in the Constitution and that is where things get hard.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Totally agree. The Federalist Papers can be found at:
The Federalist Papers - THOMAS (Library of Congress)
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
I think the intent is to create a more perfect union. If it does not do that, then all is lost. That does not sound like individual rights to me.
Constitution of the United States - A History
philibusters
Active Member
I think you missed my point. Which is that the general concepts of the Constitution are not hard to understand, but applying to real life situations is a complex matter.
ImnoMensa
New Member
I don't have a problem with reading the Constitution for the Congress, but the rule I would like to see and have enforced is a rule that every Representative and Senator would have to read each and every bill they vote on,--and sign an affadavit to that fact, before they vote on it.
A sworn statement with penalties of perjury if found to be untrue.
A sworn statement with penalties of perjury if found to be untrue.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
I think the problem is over thinking the original intent. I think about 50% of the stuff that the SC must rule on should have never gotten there in the first place.
BOP
Well-Known Member
It was a poor choice on his part to say that the Constitution was confusing. I'm not convinced that he meant that so much as he meant what you said, which is that interpretations vary widely, and they've evolved (or devolved, as the case may be) over the last couple hundred years. Unfortunately, there is no such document that is going to be interpreted exactly the same way every time be all individuals. Not even the religious holy books, which you would think would be more universal than they are.
philibusters
Active Member
I gave you two First Amendment examples to discuss. If original intent is simple--explain to me how to apply the First Amendment in those two cases.
Determining what original intent is also is not easy. You think of a world where its clear, the founders meant this, that is original intent. In reality, most amendments are passed by two thirds of both houses of Congress plus 3 fourths of the states. That means there was bi-partisan support in congress and who knows what the state legislatures or state conventions were thinking. I didn't bring it up in the Second Amendment thread cause it was relevant to the any of the points being discussed, but when I was checking out the wikipedia entry on the Second Amendment, it said different states passed different grammaritical versions the second amendment for example. Where the commas are on the Second Amendment could factor how you read it.
The original Constitution was drafted by a Constitutional Convention then it had to get passed in 9 out of 13 states. No record of the proceedings in the Constitutional convention so you can't get much original intent out of records of that convention so you can look at the debate of the states where the sides were arguing over what the text of the Constitution meant. The Federalist Papers are nice but for the most part they are only two peoples view (Hamilton and Madison, though John Jay wrote a few papers) and one of those two people, James Madison later flipped flop and said the framers never intended the centralized power that took hold after the government went into effect, though he seemed to say that such centralized power was permitted in the Federalist papers.
So there will always be debates over what original intent was and realistically, the framers didn't intend anything in regards to 99% of the cases that make it up to the Supreme Court. One of the two first amendment issues I mentioned earlier was election laws dealing with Corporations. At the time of the Constitution there was maybe a few corporations in the entire country. They simply did not exist like they do today and the laws governing corporations were very different. Thus the drafters and people who voted to ratify the first amendment in 1791 or whatever year it was had no thought whatsoever if the First Amendment grants corporations first amendment rights in addition to natural citizens. Things like technology change, society changes, new issues are always arising. What you learn if you ever study the law, is that very rarely do easy cases ever make it to the Supreme Court. Almost all the cases that get to the Supreme Court are hard complex questions.
Tilted
..
(1) What does the U.S. Constitution say about the government imprisoning me for placing a bumper sticker on my car which reads "OBAMA IS DESTROYING THIS COUNTRY"?
(2) What does the U.S. Constitution say about the government imprisoning me for placing classified information relating to U.S. troop movements in Afghanistan on a website?
I'm not interested in what people think about the government imprisoning me for those respective actions, I'm interested in what the U.S. Constitution says about the government imprisoning me for them - particularly what it might say with regard to the one that that is different than what it says with regard to the other.
(2) What does the U.S. Constitution say about the government imprisoning me for placing classified information relating to U.S. troop movements in Afghanistan on a website?
I'm not interested in what people think about the government imprisoning me for those respective actions, I'm interested in what the U.S. Constitution says about the government imprisoning me for them - particularly what it might say with regard to the one that that is different than what it says with regard to the other.
It's got electrolytes.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Well I guess during a war, #2 is a form of attack on the military and this country and I think the Constitution requires you to be shot. Failing to do that is reducing the Constitution to just a piece of paper.
philibusters
Active Member
But can you get that just from the text of the first Amendment
Vince
......
Idiocracy? This country is looking more like it everyday.
