Silver Lifetime
Bronze Lifetime
- Messages
- 1,953
- Reactions
- 4,911
This goes right back the "Original Intent". The framers did intend for the document to be "living" under the original usage of the term. Hell, even under most common usage today (in other contexts) this still holds true; a living document is one that is intended to be regularly updated and amended to bring it into contemporary relevance. Nothing more. The fact that the Constitution has specific requirements that must be met in order to enact those changes is irrelevant to the plain meaning of the term.I get the entirety of what you're saying, but from the get-go, the Constitution is not a "living document" by the current use of the term. The Constitution having the ability to be amended does NOT make it a living document, according to the standard use of the phrase. The Framers were quite specific that to amend the Constitution, a Constitutional Convention must be called, and the proposed amendment must be ratified within a certain amount of time, and by not less than 3/4 of the several States. The Leftists' idea of a "living document" is not consistent with the Framers' written intentions. The Leftists feel that the Constitution can be changed by passing a law(s) in Congress, by changing the definition of words, or even by a decision of the SCOTUS (see Roe v. Wade for an excellent example where the SCOTUS blew it and "created a right" where none existed). What they SHOULD HAVE done, 50 years ago, was to remand the case to the several States. That is precisely why the Framers gave us the 10th Amendment.
And with specific respect to the constitution, the term has been corrupted into a new meaning so that that original intent could be subverted and ignored. The document is still intended to be "living", but the left needs it to be so without the prerequisite methods for enacting those updates. Hence their need to pervert the common and normal meaning of the term to mean "the Constitution can mean whatever we say it does, and damn the original intent". If they can just change the definition of terms on a whim then "the people" can mean "only service personnel" and "free speech" can mean "approved speech" etc. etc.
But as mentioned in my prior post, this new interpretation of the concept turns not just the Constitution, but our entire concept of legal jurisprudence on its head. We need to point that out every time this new concept of "living document" is brought up by a leftist and set the record straight; "Yes, it is a living document that can change, no, there is an already established path to enact that. If you want the meaning to change then do it properly, through the methods laid out in the document itself." Make them defend their choice to not do that, make them admit they can't because they do not have the majority of people needed to do that.