A 21st Century Constitutional Nightmare

I consider the United States Constitution one of the most enlightened documents in human history. It was the first of its kind, a document that defined not only the operational parameters of a government, but the most sacred values of the people to whom that government was responsible.

In it, we have established those values as a standard by which all other laws in our country should be measured; when our government works properly, laws which do not match the values of the constitution are rejected. This "landmark" of civic values helps us hold true to our noblest virtues, guarding against the tendency of civilizations to go adrift when our attention wanders.

It is the best, strongest fortress we have to safeguard not only the stability of our society, but our very liberties themselves.

So I was more than a little miffed to see a piece by Sanford Levinson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer claiming the Constitution must be adapted to a "21st Century reality."

Seemingly in a state of advanced angst over the lack of progress in instituting a government health care system, and still bitter over Al Gore's 2000 loss at the hands of the electoral college system, Levinson seems to indicate that our Constitution is obsolete and outdated, and in dire need of replacement.

The awful truth, unarticulated by any major American political figure today, is that much of the fault for our present discontents lies in the U.S. Constitution, a distinctly 18th century document that inflicts significant damage upon our 21st century reality.

This is utter nonsense.

I think what Levinson means is that the Constitution "inflicts significant damage" upon our desire to cast off the noble virtues and transcendent values of our forefathers and become a law unto ourselves.

Our Constitution contains within it the process for making any necessary amendments for valid situations not foreseen at the Founding. The amendment process has--when used--worked just fine for over 200 years. There is no need for any "major overhaul" of the Constitution that the amendment process cannot handle--in fact, there is no need for a major overhaul at all.

What's more, there is seldom a need for amendment at all. While I and many other support a constitutional amendment that protects the definition of marriage, this does not constitute a "major overhaul" and would not even be necessary, if we could rely on judges to stick to the constitution instead of "legislating from the bench," or in other words, making law instead of adjudicating by law. Or in still other words, if judges would allow the Constitution to be the standard, and not substitute their own "wisdom" for the way they think things should be.

But to carry this one step further, I'm not sure why a liberal like Levinson is even concerned with the Constitution in the first place. After all, liberals have been ignoring the Constitution--except when it can be used to create a license for immoral behavior, or turned upside-down to quash religious liberty--since the days when FDR acted like it didn't exist and he created our modern socialist welfare state.

Why the sudden interest in the Constitution after decades of pretending it didn't exist? Is it that, now that liberals have succeeded in "reeducating" many people to believe that the "enumerated powers" doctrine of the Constitution is a myth, and have so many people believing that wealth-redistribution and government regulation of all facets of life is good and normal, they want to enshrine such beliefs inside the Constitution so that they can bash conservatives over the head with it anytime they want to return to the country's foundations?

One of Levinson's key displeasures with the Constitution is it isn't "democratic" enough. Well, maybe because that's because we don't have a democracy in the United States, but a republic. The two are fundamentally different.

A democracy is a form of government where the people rule directly by majority. When the Founders set up the United States government, the specifically and intentionally did NOT choose a democracy.

Consider what some of the Founders had to say about democracies:

It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience had proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. - Alexander Hamilton

Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. - John Adams

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. - James Madison

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. - Fisher Ames, author of the House Language for the First Amendment

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. - John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy...is one of the greatest of evils. - Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

In democracy...there are commonly tumults and disorders...Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. - Noah Webster

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. - John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

A republic, however, is characterized by a system where the people elect representatives who make law. This is a much more stable form of government. It can be infuriating at times, but tends to negate the rash whims that often overtake society. When functioning properly, it also holds a higher allegiance to established law and constitutional priority than the fleeting passions of the mob.

It is probably this stability that so vexes Levinson. Admittedly, it can be frustrating to see an important piece of legislation stuck in the sometimes seemingly endless bowels of bureaucratic wrangling that Washington can be.

But again, that was by design. The Founders intended lawmaking to face certain challenges and hurdles. Their establishment of a republic over a democracy is one manifestation of this, but also the system of checks and balances they built into our government, and the doctrine of federalism itself. The Founders intended the States to share power with the central government, not pick up the scraps that fall from the central government's table as we see today with the Tenth Amendment a forgotten relic.

The Founders recognized that man is a fallen, inherently-sinful creature, and they built safeguards into our government to put brakes on this human tendency. These "guard rails" help minimize the damage one man or a group of men can do when they throw caution and morality to the wind.

The liberal mindset, however, fails to recognize this Biblically-based view of man, instead believing that humans are "evolving" not only physically but morally. The believe, in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson and many since, that man has "evolved" beyond the need for these "childish" boundaries established by the Founders. They believe humans are now advanced enough to govern rightly without them.

One need only look back at the last century's 100 million+ dead at the hands of this worldview, and the ruin wrought by the welfare state, to recognize the utter fallacy of this philosophy. Yet the prophets of this "religion of man" refuse to look at the evidence, instead clinging to their faith that "if we just spend enough money" we can establish heaven on earth.

No, rather than ignore our Constitution as we have done for 60 years, or gut it beyond recognition as Levinson advocates, we need to renew our respect for it and adherence to it.

If we don't, our days as a free people are numbered. We musn't sell our birthright for the promise of licentiousness that we'll soon find comes with a heavy set of chains.