>>
>Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>>The constitution, on the other hand, is still treated as if it were sacred
>>-- but as much by secular thinkers as by religious ones, if not more so.
>
Doug referred us to:
><http://members.tripod.com/~runwin/glorious.html>
(Some claptrap from the prez of Brighanm Young U,)
There are any number of Constitution-haters here, Doug among them; I don't find this productive. There are a number of raelly serious problems with the US Constitution--the Senate, which gives a theoretically non-amendable two seats to eavery state, however large or small, and (as we now see) the electoral college. One might have reasonable doubts about the whole damn silly structure of federalism. There are other problems. But. BUT!
The fact of the matter is that whatever reverential attitudes people may publically express, the Constitution means what the courts say it means, and what they say it means it pretty flexible and open to political pressure. As we recently saw. If the political pressure existed to get rid of the the two-seat Senate or the damned electoral college, the courtsw ould find away if these things couldn't be amended away.
So, while I don't dispute that the Constitution produces problems, it's idealistic in the bad sense to say that it is the root of our problems. Besides, it has good things: representative limited government, civil and political rights, etc. It no longer has the evil compromose with slavery that licensed William Lloyd Garrison's calling it a pact with Hell. Anyway, the Constitution is here to stay: we might as well revere it, interpret it our way, and use it to promote our ideals, just like everyone else does. Frederick Douglass can be our model. When the plain text and the courts said it licensed slavery, he said it didn't. You know what? He helped make it true that it didn't. Let's us go and do likewise.
--jks
_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com