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Among the Intellectualoids
A Reply to Time Magazine
The U.S. Constitution is not an “obstacle” to a better America — it is the sure path to it.
The July 4 issue of Time magazine carried an image of the U.S. Constitution on its cover, along with the headline: “Does It Still Matter?” The photo of the Constitution showed it was being shredded into narrow strips — which describes what Time managing editor Richard Stengel attempts to do in his accompanying article.
There was a time, decades ago, when Time magazine had great influence, but in the age of the Internet, cable TV, battling blogs, Facebook, Twitter and instant e-books, there is delicious irony in an ink-on-paper news weekly suggesting that the U.S. Constitution is obsolete in the modern America. Oh, Mr. Stengel, the Constitution is not anywhere as obsolete as Time magazine. As for Time, the question might be asked: Does it still matter?
But let us pretend, for the sake of argument, that Time might influence some Americans’ views on the subject, and examine the case put forward by Stengel. He sets out to suggest that the document written by the Framers in the 18th century is hopelessly out-of-date to govern a modern, progressive America. And he does it in a way that almost begs hysterical laughter at the first sentence.
Honestly, I did not make this up — Stengel wrote it, and I quote:
Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga.
The framers did not know about Lady Gaga? Or sexting? Then how could they possibly have devised a system of government and a statement of our natural rights that would be worth anything today?
After inviting ridicule with his silly opening, Stengel moves on to pose what he thinks are a series of questions that could show how irrelevant the Constitution is to modern conditions:
What would the framers say about whether the drones over Libya constitute a violation of Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress the power to declare war? Well, since George Washington didn’t even dream that a man could fly, much less use a global positioning satellite to aim a missile, it’s hard to say what he would think.
No, it’s not. Obviously, Washington couldn’t foresee modern weaponry, but as our Commanding General he had seen weapons evolve and would have known future wars would bring new ways of battle. But all that’s beside the point. He would have opposed undeclared wars initiated only on the will of the Chief Executive just as he outspokenly opposed foreign alliances and U.S. involvement in foreign wars. Washington and the Framers would have certainly seen American participation in NATO’s war in Libya as unconstitutional.
What would the framers say about whether a tax on people who did not buy health insurance is an abuse of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause? Well, since James Madison did not know what health insurance was and doctors back then still used leeches, it’s difficult to know what he would say.
Stengel again revels in irrelevancies, like leeches (to show how backward those people really were then) but so what?
Madison argued that the Commerce Clause was necessary to manage trade and commercial relations between and among the various States (so that one state could not impose a tax on goods crossing its border from another state, for example). The Commerce Clause was never intended to manage or dictate decisions of individual citizens as to whether or not they would engage in commerce. Not buying health insurance is a decision to refrain from engaging in commerce, so it’s ludicrous to argue that Congress can penalize a citizen for not buying something. This very issue will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in considering the Obamacare mandate — and if the Court should uphold the mandate, the justices would indeed shred the Constitution and there would be no limit on Congress’s power to compel individual decisions by citizens. If the Federal government can tell you what to buy, and what not to buy, then what’s left of liberty?
Stengel goes on to examine — all in the context of his liberal, all-powerful-state bias — four contemporary issues: the war in Libya, the debt-limit debate, Obamacare and immigration. But he gets to the heart of his progressive argument in the wind-up of the article, portraying the Constitution as some kind of roadblock on the statist’s highway to Utopia, where the all-powerful central government will decide what’s good, what’s allowed, and what’s forbidden for all Americans.
We can pat ourselves on the back about the past 223 years, but we cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to the U.S.’s moving into the future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, and evolving sense of civil and political rights.
The Constitution as “obstacle” has become a staple of leftist political thinking, for it establishes limits on the reach of government power, and it explicitly recognizes God-given rights that the state cannot abridge. These are obstacles to the progressive’s vision of the modern democracy, where new rights “evolve” in liberal courts, where an unelected bureaucracy of “experts” regulates behavior, and where the states become administrative agencies of the all-powerful Federal government, rather than what they really are: the sovereign governments that united to create a limited central government.
About the Author
James P. Gannon is a retired former Wall Street Journal reporter and newspaper editor. He lives in Virginia.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (75) | Leave a comment
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Timothy L. Pennell| 7.25.11 @ 7:13AM
If you believe in NOTHING, you'll fall for ANYTHING.
That should be the Progressive Mantra.
The BIBLE? That's ridiculous. You wanna believe that there's this guy, with a long white beard, who created everything?
Good and Evil?
These are just words in Story Books. Words to scare little children.
The Constitution.
Who ya gonna listen to? A buncha dead White Slave Owners, who murdered the Native People, Raped the Land, and created the one Country responsible for more of the Ills of the world, than all of the others, combined?
Or, are you gonna listen to ME?
To each, according to his needs. From each, according to his abilities.
What's GOD, compared to that?
What? Who are those guys behind me, in the BROWN SHIRTS?
If you do as you're TOLD, you needn't worry about them.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 7:31AM
The Constitution is outdated, however it will be a very long time until the knowledge of its anachronism sinks in.
What needs to be done is split America into its different regions-- otherwise the devolution you seek cannot be attained.
BTW, I never said the Confederacy had no right to secede; the real issue was not slavery-- it was the South's desire to gain the Western lands.
DaveD| 7.25.11 @ 8:13AM
The Constitution is not outdated, it has just been ignored to death. And good grief, splitting America into different regions - isn't that what the concept of Federalism is all about? The system would still function in 21st century America if we would give it a chance.
simon templar| 7.25.11 @ 9:12AM
He is not talking about federalism. He talking about the US ceasing to exist and the death of our constitution.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:23AM
I'm not writing that you shouldn't go through the motions of devolution, am only writing I wont fall for it; no one who knows what is going on could fail to see what you are saying is for public consumption.
simon templar| 7.25.11 @ 9:11AM
Well, there you have it. You want the United States to cease to exist and its constitution to become irrevelant. Thanks. I suspected this all along. Traitor. Communist. Elitist. You are the anachronism. Freedom lovers have been fighting your type since the beginning of western civilization.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:19AM
Devolution is insignificant. You are all playing games because you want rightist government not much smaller than leftist- but of course you can't admit it.
Unless you break America up into more manageable sections you wont go far with devolution; merely dribs & drabs of it.
mark James| 7.25.11 @ 11:08AM
Sorry Allen but you are very wrong. As with most lefties you wish to define us and claim we are conspiratorial with desires for an all powerful government of right wingers.
In reality and you will eventually come to understand this if you ignore leftist rhetoric and study what we say and do. Our actual desire is to severely limit the central government regardless of who runs it. Thais in fact how regionalization by adjoining states could exist.
Ground Control| 7.25.11 @ 11:34AM
"You are all playing games because you want rightist government not much smaller than leftist- but of course you can't admit it."
This is a false statement. We the People want LIMITED government, and we want a federalist type of distribution of power, using the Jeffersonian model where most political power is executed at the local level, with power being more and more limited as it is delegated to State and then to the US Governments.
Clint| 7.25.11 @ 12:44PM
Apparently, ObamaBoy Brooks is a Deconstructionist Agendist, who is attempting to tear down American Culture, Traditions, Affiliations & Our Free Market Economy.
simon templar| 7.25.11 @ 2:44PM
You just crossed the line Alan into non-reality and complete disingenuous falsehood. You know damn well conservatives have and are fighting for smaller, limited government, greater individualism and individual liberty, free markets, and a United States. You are the one playing games and talking nonsense.
Dai Alanye | 7.25.11 @ 2:44PM
Brooks is remarkably silly. Most people understand that the U S is already broken up into more manageable section--called states, counties and townships.
The secret to making them work better is to stop the Federal interfering, whether through giving them orders or by offering them Fed monies.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 5:45PM
" Most people understand that the U S is already broken up into more manageable section--called states, counties and townships"
States are NOT manageable.
Aces and Eights| 7.25.11 @ 7:01PM
And the Feds ARE?!!! Absurd. Ridiculous. Ludicrous.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 5:43PM
"you wish to define us and claim we are conspiratorial with desires for an all powerful government of right wingers."
No, but you want to put the funds into defense, stadiums, etc.
Ground Control| 7.25.11 @ 8:28PM
Tax money in to defense, yes. PRIVATE money in to stadiums. You have an unfortunate tendency to put words in to other people's mouths, just as your political heroes have an unfortunate tendency to steal and spend other people's money. You should be less impolite and perhaps try making logical arguments, instead of fabricating straw men to knock down.
David W| 7.25.11 @ 9:20AM
Yes, the Constitution is an outdated as using leeches and maggots...... Oh wait, I've read that doctors use leeches to help increase circulation to limbs in danger of being amputated (due to the anti-coagulants in leeches saliva) and that maggots are one of the best ways to remove rotting flesh and thus helping to prevent gangrene.
So, if leeches are still useful, then I would imagine that the Constitution is still useful and is not outdated... unless you want Obama to be able to run for three terms insted of the constitutionality mandated two. One only has to look at dictators like Chavez and Castro to see how important a real, still applicable, constitution can be. As long as there are socialists, communists, fascists, bolsheviks, jacobins, and members of the Committee of Public Safety (French Revolution) like Obama, the DNC, ACORN, and you are out there we have to be alert.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:27AM
I don't say there is an alternative at this time to an outdated Constitution, any more than there is an alternative, IMO, to outdated religion.
Ground Control| 7.25.11 @ 11:35AM
I think it is Mr. Brooks who is outdated and anachronistic.
TrueBlue| 7.25.11 @ 1:04PM
Well, given that religion is the basis for pretty much all moral codes for living and acting in society, I wouldn't say religion is outdated either. It just has the same problem as the Constitution, people have been ignoring them both for the last 50+ years, to their own moral devolution.
Aces and Eights| 7.25.11 @ 1:11PM
Are we not MEN?! We are DEVO!
Bill| 7.25.11 @ 1:34PM
When a problem comes along, you must whip it!
Clint| 7.25.11 @ 2:29PM
Put On Your Energy Dome & Whip It Good.
C. S. P. Schofield| 7.25.11 @ 9:43AM
The real issue was the desire of a self nominated cultural and intellectual elite (the Southern Plantation owners) to be treated like an Aristocracy, and to divide the lower classes against each-other by promoting race hatred. Funny how things haven't changed much.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:54AM
"Funny how things haven't changed much."
Not everyone wants change, not even necessarily those who say they do.
simon templar| 7.25.11 @ 2:48PM
Alan, I think you should see a doctor. You are not even your usual self and are talking complete nonsense instead of just misguided, half truths and liberal dogma.
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.25.11 @ 8:32AM
Timothy,
well spoken!
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:18AM
Devolution is insignificant. You are all playing games because you want rightist government not much smaller than leftist- but of course you can't admit it.
Unless you break America up into more manageable sections you wont go far with devolution; merely dribs & drabs of it.
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 9:59AM
Shouldn't have posted the above twice, but it is my main point. BTW, you are supposed to be take the positions you do, some lefties who come here can't get that;
but if you-- again-- are serious about cutting taxes (which you are) but not all that serious about cutting spending I wont take it as anything other than pro forma, for public consumption, unless you provide evidence otherwise.
It would appear to be maneuvering on your part-- nothing more.
DaveD| 7.25.11 @ 11:08AM
"Devolution," is that latest talking point from the DNC?
And no, emphatically no, I and most of those who post here do NOT want big right-leaning government as a replacement for big left-leaning government. I'm for abolishing 1/2 or more of the crap that goes on in Washington D.C.
Put simply: We have today more government than we can afford. If we reduce government to what we can afford, we will still remain with more government than we need.
TrueBlue| 7.25.11 @ 1:06PM
Wouldn't that mean that we're promoting cutting spending too? Brooks seems to be missing that bit I think...
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 5:37PM
You are far more interested in cutting taxes than cutting spending.
DaveD| 7.25.11 @ 5:58PM
Sea who? You? How would you know?
JP| 7.25.11 @ 7:23AM
The Constitution has been an obstacle to the Progressive Agenda for more than 100 years. As a matter of fact, many a Progressive from the late Prof Ely to Margret Sanger complained bitterly about things like the Bill of Rights.
JFGalt| 7.26.11 @ 8:25AM
Bingo!
It is an obstacle to their agenda not to the country. It is the only thing that holds back their agenda from destroying the country as the progressives want. Why don't the progressive states secede from the rest of the country and live their lives the way they want - oh they can't - they've bankrupted their states and only survive on the tax money provided by the rest of the country through federal handouts. And with their logic - since that has failed - let's impose it on everyone else since we know better and have only failed because we didn't thrown enough of other peoples money into our ideas. Don't you just love elitist thinking!
Howard| 7.25.11 @ 7:59AM
Excellent point. Stengel is an arrogant elitist who loves "experts" and judges, as long as they are liberal. In fact I'm sure he was "Mr. Constitution" during Watergate and Iran/Contra. By shredding the Constitution he and his ilk can achieve leftist goals by going over the heads of those pesky conservative. I think we have something to say about that.
Petronius| 7.25.11 @ 8:06AM
"After all, Time Magazine isn't for blockheads."
Edward Albee; Zoo Story
This quote first uttered when Time Magazine was not staffed by blockheads. If Henry Luce were alive today, he'd tell us.
crookedwren| 7.25.11 @ 12:38PM
Henry Luce hired the best -- Whittaker Chambers amongst them.
And, yes, Time's influence is diminished as a result.
But young people see an image of the US Constitution being shredded. The most wily of the Left understand the subliminal message to our indoctrinated youth.
Time should be ashamed, but shame is something they believe is only for those on the Right.
crookedwren| 7.25.11 @ 12:39PM
Oops. Accidentally erased a phrase -- Time's influence is diminished as a result of the Luce's absence.
Walking Horse| 7.25.11 @ 8:46AM
Stengel's mendacious article demonstrates that he, like many other progressives, are blinkered shills for authoritarian governance.
He, like many other folks, mistake the subject matter addressed by the Constitution. The Founders were far too intelligent and shrewd to base a government upon the social fads and technological limitations of their day.
The Constitution provides an architectural specification for a constitutional republic that employs the principles of federalism, separation of powers, and strictly enumerated powers conditionally delegated to the government by The People. Underlying this specification is the Founders unromantic and unapologetic understanding of human nature.
If human beings were capable of redeeming themselves as the progressives preach, and if their behavior in groups was rational, there would be little need for government at all. If the 20th century teaches nothing else, it is humanity's capacity for evil and stupidity, both individually and in herds.
The Founders knew a whole lot more about human history and human nature than Stengel, and it shows, vividly.
Gary B| 7.25.11 @ 10:22AM
Walking Horse,
That's it. The Founding Fathers were intelligent, but, more importantly, they were wise. They understood both sides of human nature and drafted a document that addresses the challenge.
Arguing that they couldn't envision the details of our modern world is laughable, deserving of a shot in the face from a seltzer bottle. (Remember seltzer bottles? Weren't they funny?)
CopyKatnj| 7.25.11 @ 12:26PM
Well stated.
Ground Control| 7.25.11 @ 1:28PM
It should be noted that "separation of powers" is not a doctrine unto itself that is blindly adhered to out of tradition or history. Separation of powers is a deliberate means to LIMIT the powers of government by insuring that such multiple powers as governments have, and have had since governments were created, are not vested in a single person or small group of persons. Power widely distributed is inherently limited, whereas power concentrated, as it was in the Roman Republic and afterward the Roman Empire, tends to be absolute and corrupting. The Founders, well educated in History, knew this and deliberately sought to prevent a repeat of the Roman concentrating of power and its inherent corruption. The truth the Leftists refuse to face is that it is the concentrating of power in Washington in open violation of the Founders' Supreme Law, that is at the core or our economic and political difficulties.
Pecos Pete| 7.25.11 @ 9:07AM
What's a Time Magazine? Who reads it? Folks from Move-on.org, well maybe not as I am not sure they can read.
It must be a terrible pain for liberals/progressives/communists/socialists/statists, etc. to have to live in a land ruled by a constitution. A land where freedom is still a viable option for a majority of the populace.
Occam's Tool| 7.25.11 @ 8:24PM
My local public radio station occasionally sends me out requests to subscribe. Part of what they offer as an INCENTIVE is a free subscription to Time. I ignore 'em, usually, but the last time I requested a subscription to NR for subscribing. Nothing heard from since.
simon templar| 7.25.11 @ 9:21AM
Let me remind you. The claims, aims, and propaganda of these modern Liberals was once considered treason. In fact, it is. This is blatant anti-America, anti-Republican, anti-US, anti-constitution speech and propaganda. We have become so desentisized to it and politically correct and "tolerant" we barely recognize it as it is. These articles and statements by Time are a deliberate attack on the foundations of this Republic and should be treated as such. Can you see this?
Gary B| 7.25.11 @ 10:23AM
Yes, I can and I agree 100%.
cuban pete| 7.25.11 @ 9:28AM
I suppose as long as doctors and dentists have waiting rooms Time will have readers. Although the teeth whitening brochures are more interesting.
Ground Control| 7.25.11 @ 1:32PM
If only a Dentist had the guts to place "The American Rifleman", "Guns and Ammo", and the "American Spectator" in his waiting room! Along with the latest from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. This might be a better World.
POST American| 7.25.11 @ 9:39AM
---Great piece!
Of course, the undeniably greatest force
for subversion and corruption of not only
our Constitution, but our entire culture and
economy ----has, ON RECORD, been the ever
deadly, ever sinister, ultra rich, TAX FREE
Milner/Rockefeller/Ford et al foundation(s)
(all really one).
These have to be relentlessly, unequivocally
and unflinchingly exposed, confronted, called out, audited,
prosecuted and DIS-mantled once and for all.
----------------DEADLY, DEADLY SINISTER
And BTW, all you rectum worshippers who've
'made a living' serving this horror, TAKE HEED,
eternity, and what it surely holds, is coming.
--------------Dying time IS truth time ---FOR REAL.
Bill| 7.25.11 @ 1:30PM
Don't forget the Tavistock Institute!
Alan Brooks| 7.25.11 @ 5:39PM
Oh and the Bilderbergers... musn't leave them out.
Hebe| 7.25.11 @ 10:02AM
I'm not writing that you shouldn't go through the motions of devolution, am only writing I wont fall for it.
http://www.summer-products.com
http://www.jerseys-hats-store.com
solidground| 7.25.11 @ 10:13AM
Mr. Stengel does Big Brother proud. I suspect he is on the Dear Leader's payroll.
Gary B| 7.25.11 @ 10:27AM
solidground,
This is how you get invited to DC cocktail parties. You trash productive America then make your grand entrance with high fives all around.
It's engrained DC culture. The sad fact is that there are plenty of Republicans in the room, too. Primay season is the solution for that.
Southern_Comment| 7.25.11 @ 11:53AM
It's ingrained in the Liberal culture, not DC's culture. I grew up there and there was a definite patriotism about the city and it's outlying areas. Washingtonians should not be given a negative stereotype because Obama and his flying monkeys are there.
rob| 7.25.11 @ 3:22PM
You nailed it Southern. I grew up there as well and even some of the liberal areas around DC are patriotic. It's the 535, their staffs and the K Street moochers that populate these parties. The writer of this piece of trash would not be so welcome at parties in "fly-over" country
Anthony| 7.25.11 @ 10:24AM
Stengel is a lefty moron whose ignorance of the governmental wisdom of the Constitution is profound. Let me guess, he has a law degree from Harvard?
His sophomoric attempt to taint the Constitution as outdated because the framers didn't forsee Lady Gaga, (and if they did, they would have aimed some buckshot at her ass) is typical of post-modern lefty thinking.
They routinely do this. They pulled this same crap with Columbus on the celebration of his 500th anniversary, with the hand-wringing of all that the settlement of the New World did to indigenous America. Yep, the left loved judging 13th century mores by 21st century post-modern thinking.
The framers did not have to know about Lady Gaga, cell phones, fax machines, or rags like Time Magazine, although they existed in the Framer's time.
Rather, the genius of the Constitution's framework of a representative government, lies with power disbursed among three branches of government, all with the central theme that government is there to serve at the behest of the governed, not the other way around!!! The Constitution is a marvel, due to its simplistic yet revolutionary governing concept. Only the left could corrupt such a magnificant document with its post-modern idiocy!!!
Obviously, this is a concept of freecdom is foreign to the global "one world" types, who seek total global domination by the ruling class.
The good news is Mr. Stengel and his ilk, along with the rest of the anti-Constitutionalists, are soon to become extinct. How they survived the Dodo bird, amazes me still.
Good riddence Stengel, oh, and take Lady Gaga with you, as you find your post-modern paradise.
J.C.Eaton| 7.25.11 @ 11:38AM
Looking at life through Mr. Stengel's eyes, would be, for me, breathtakingly frightening. Far more frightening than any bad dream or scary movie. We wake up from those dreams and the movies end. This guy, ostensibly writes for a magazine that once had a thoughtful[more or less] and influental[more or less] audience. What would his world look like. Is a trivia question like Lady Gaga what passes for importance in the early 21st century of America? Guess so, he puts it on a level with civil rights,interstate commerce, and religious freedom. I don't think the worry here is that he will be influential, I think the worry should be that of his parents: the boy is s--t nuts.
Gary| 7.25.11 @ 11:40AM
Does this twerp Stengel like freedom of the press in the constitution?? This really shows what the lefties want, unrestrained government that will dictate how we live. Thank God we have the constitution to give us some protection although it is being shredded by lefties in the courts.
Cincinnaticl6| 7.25.11 @ 12:53PM
Time's position is easy to understand. The Constitution is written and the framers deliberately made it difficult to amend. That is why our government has lasted since 1789, and has not disappeared like so many others.
Time's position as to the Constitution seems similar to people who like moral relativism and who can't fathom the absolutes of various religious dogmas.
Life would be so much easier if you could "go with the flow, bend with the wind, etc".
Absolutes and things written down on paper are definitely hindrances.
Bill| 7.25.11 @ 1:24PM
Our Founding Fathers knew about the atom, first imagined by Democritus; they knew about debt collateralizing, many of them being farmers and entrepreneurs; they knew about Harvey and the germ theory of disease.
So I guess it was the not knowing about Lady Gaga and sexting that makes the U.S. Constitution out of date.
Bill| 7.25.11 @ 1:27PM
I should have said Leeuwenhoek, not Harvey. Please excuse the error.
Occam's Tool| 7.25.11 @ 8:25PM
Bill, they also knew about Harvey.
michigander_sandusky| 7.25.11 @ 2:28PM
I subscribe to Time and absolutely hate it! The Stengel article made my blood boil and I almost cancelled my subscription. However, on further reflection I decided to maintain my subscription to keep up on what Progressives/Statists are thinking and because my cockatiel loves the shiny paper on the bottom of his cage.
Aces and Eights| 7.25.11 @ 2:38PM
I'm happy for your cockatiel! However, there are some newspapers (the San Francisco Chronicle, for example) that are SO bad that fish refuse to wrapped in it.
john bunny| 7.25.11 @ 2:44PM
I have a murky memory from my early 60s freshman polisci class that the prof lectured us on an early 50s campaign promoted by the NYT and its devotees to create a new Constitution and get rid of the 1787 clunker. Dumping the electoral college was a big issue, but the idea was to get a new Const. that would reflect the modern America of Big Business and Kaiser and A.P. Sloan et al. Instead of the cultural era of Gaga, think Eddie Fisher and Milton Berle. Herblock did cartoons of an old guy in square shoes and a tricorn hat sniffing at a guy in a grey flannel suit and a briefcase, and saying "Don't change a thing we wrote."
marshcope| 7.25.11 @ 2:54PM
Don't forget that ultramodern invention of the 1790s that shook up the world and brought equality of justice to Law and Order--The Guillotine
gary siebel| 7.25.11 @ 6:44PM
Droll indeed.
However, in your claim that the Constitution "explicitly recognizes God-given rights" you reveal that your ignorance is just as much an abyss as his.
I wont even bother asking you to cite the precise location in the Constitution that provides basis for your misunderstanding because that would be like Alice asking the rabbit to explain something that simply does not exist.
Occam's Tool| 7.25.11 @ 8:31PM
Freedom of Choice by Devo is more appropriate here:
freedom of choice
is what you got
freedom of choice!
in ancient rome
there was a poem
about a dog
who found two bones
he picked at one
he licked the other
he went in circles
he dropped dead
freedom of choice
is what you got
freedom from choice
is what you want
(repeat)
Maria| 7.26.11 @ 4:52AM
Mr. Stengel should have been a hay farmer, because he was vainly pulling at straws trying make his case that the Constitution is obsolete. The past cannot be redefined with the present. I feel sorry for him; the blinders on his eyes have weakened his vision and turned his perspective into mush.
fwb| 7.26.11 @ 12:36PM
"explicitly recognizes God-given rights that the state cannot abridge"
Anyone who can read English and anyone who has studied the issues (US v Cruikshank, 1876) recognizes that the Bill of Rights ENUMERATES PREEXISTING Rights, and Rights ONLY come from God. Anything that comes from the State is a privilege or immunity.
The BoR grants nothing but then one must fully comprehend English to understand this.
FYI: We have NEVER had a fully functioning Constitution. The first Congress was 2/3 federalists who violated the Constitution with their alien and sedition acts. Since that illustrious beginning, those we have elected to power have screwed us every time. It is time to put the Constitution back into place and for We the People, the REAL bosses, to take back our country. The whiners can sit down and shut up.
pablo| 7.27.11 @ 4:33AM
Mostly its a kick at the low level of writing skills occuping a big chunk of lib journalism. Not much brain power mean's cliche rich word hackers inching across valuble empty space leaving one wondering who would read such drivel?
Cross Stitch | 7.27.11 @ 5:47AM
Cross Stitch Kristik
Timely Renewed | 8.11.11 @ 3:07AM
Mr. Stengel reflects a leftist disdain for the Constitution which goes back to Woodrow Wilson. The answer is to redress these underlying distortions of the Constitution which have allowed the federal government to expand far beyond its original constitutional powers. We can achieve this by amending the Constitution to restore the original constitutional structure which limited the federal government's ability to expand to such a ridiculous size and power.
However, this is difficult to achieve when Congress holds a monopoly on initiating constitutional amendments. The solution is an "amendment amendment" which gives the States the ability to initiate constitutional amendments without the cumbersome convention now required by Article V. This will allow grassroots constitutionalists to press a program of amendments carefully drafted to achieve the restoration of the original constitutional structure as well as such useful improvements as a balanced budget amendment without having to go through Washington at all. Only this will permanently constrain federal overreach of the sort rejected by the people last November. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com.