I\u2019m tired of seeing people wave little copies of the Constitution and pretending they\u2019re doing something significant.<\/p>\n
The Constitution is not a talisman or a magic wand. It doesn\u2019t have mystical powers. It\u2019s more about procedure than policy. That\u2019s one of the main reasons I\u2019m disgusted with Tea Party activists and Glenn Beck clones who think that all we have to do is \u201creturn to the Constitution\u201d and all our national problems will go away.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m especially nauseated by Latter-day Saints who have based their entire political philosophy on a dubious prophecy about the Constitution hanging by a thread, a statement that appears in no official revelation from the Prophet Joseph Smith and whose meaning is cloudy at best.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s address that last idea first. The whole \u201changing by a thread\u201d thing has a certain group of people in Utah flailing about and spouting survivalist gibberish with a rancid tone of sanctimonious piety. If they truly believe in living prophets, I really wish they\u2019d pay attention to what those prophets are saying and, almost as important, what they\u2019re not saying. When was the last time Thomas Monson or Dieter Uchtdorf preached a sermon filled with panic and fear? What has Thomas Monson told us about constitutional threads? Every speech I\u2019ve heard is optimistic and filled with faith. I think those who swear allegiance to obscure prophetic relics to justify political crusades are far more interested in dead prophets than living ones.<\/p>\n
So why does the whole constitutional fervor from the far right bother me so much? Do I hate the Constitution? Am I a \u201cliving Constitution\u201d kind of guy?<\/p>\n
Nope and nope.<\/p>\n
The men who participated in the Constitutional Convention firmly believed they were guided by the hand of Providence in their efforts and I believe that, too. I agree with the statement that these were \u201cwise men whom [God] raised up unto this very purpose.\u201d However, I do not believe that inspiration means perfection. As a great constitutional scholar, whose opinion I highly value, Dallin H. Oaks, once wrote:<\/p>\n
Reverence for the United States Constitution is so great that sometimes individuals speak as if its every word and phrase had the same standing as scripture. Personally, I have never considered it necessary to defend every line of the Constitution as scriptural. For example, I find nothing scriptural in the compromise on slavery or the minimum age or years of citizenship for congressmen, senators, or the president. President J. Reuben Clark, who referred to the Constitution as \u201cpart of my religion,\u201d also said that it was not part of his belief or the doctrine of the Church that the Constitution was a \u201cfully grown document.\u201d \u201cOn the contrary,\u201d he said, \u201cWe believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world.\u201d
\n– Elder Dallin H. Oaks, \u201cThe Divinely Inspired Constitution,\u201d Ensign Magazine, February 1992<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis counsel informs my answer to those who ask me whether I am an \u201coriginalist\u201d or a \u201cliving constitutionalist.\u201d I am most certainly not the latter. I disagree with progressives who torture the language of the Constitution into supporting any policy position they happen to favor, which has the ultimate result of rendering the plain language of the document meaningless. Another wise observer noted:<\/p>\n
Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don\u2019t have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed. How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be \u201cliving\u201d? Depending on \u201cevolving standards,\u201d maybe my two pair could beat your flush.<\/p>\n
– Walter E. Williams, \u201cThe Law or \u2018Good Ideas?\u2019\u201d March, 2005<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At the same time, I do not believe that one must contend that the Constitution can only be interpreted by the original intent of those present at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.<\/p>\n
Consider the original language of the Constitution in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3:<\/p>\n
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is the section that Dallin Oaks referred to as the \u201ccompromise on slavery.\u201d It makes it crystal clear that the original intent of the founders was that slavery was tolerated, and that a slave was considered as only three-fifths of a human being, not eligible to vote.
\nI welcome the fact that this passage has been superseded by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which abolished slavery and established the idea of one man, one vote. Of course, the idea of one woman, one vote would have to wait until 1920 and the 19th Amendment. A \u201ctrue\u201d originalist would favor allowing states the right to disenfranchise female voters. I do not.<\/p>\nStill, just \u201creturning to the Constitution\u201d doesn\u2019t really prescribe a remedy to any of the challenges we face. It\u2019s a roadmap for creating policy, but it is not policy itself. In fact, the Constitution is designed to make government woefully inefficient in order to avoid concentrating power in any one source. When you see lawmakers bickering wildly over what ought to be done, you\u2019re seeing the Constitution in action. If you want to see speedy and efficient results, then get yourself a despot and be done with it.<\/p>\n
Those who worship the Constitution also seem to forget that it is not the order of things in heaven. I have faith that Jesus will return to the earth as King of Kings, not the Chief Executive of a constitutional government that will require Him to report on the state of the Union to a bicameral legislature endowed with the power to remove Him from office should he commit high crimes and misdemeanors.<\/p>\n
As President Obama\u2019s failed administration continues to spiral downward, I am not cheered by the lack of solutions coming from those on the right.<\/p>\n
A pocket Constitution waving in the air is not a solution to anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019mtired of seeing people wave little copies of the Constitution and pretending they\u2019re doing something significant.The Constitution is not a talisman or a magic wand. It doesn\u2019t have mystical powers. It\u2019s more about procedure than policy. That\u2019s one of the main reasons I\u2019m disgusted with Tea Party activists and Glenn Beck clones who think that ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4987,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions\/4987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}