Pliable like Play-Doh®? Elasticized? Stretchable? No, liberals prefer to use the term, “Living Constitution.” Irrespective of the singular success of the American Constitution in the history of the world and in spite of the intent of the Founders when writing the Constitution, the popular liberal mantra for most of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is that the Constitution is a “living document” that must be modified or bent to address the modern age and problems never foreseen by the Founders. By living document, the Constitutional liberals believe that its meaning and intent should be an instrument for enlightened social change to meet the needs of the hour.
Now most liberals have difficulty understanding the difference between life and non-life. For the liberal, an unborn baby is merely a “fetus” or “potentiality for life.” Yet, for the inanimate paper and ink document we call the Constitution, the liberals now wish to infuse it with life from which we are to infer that it must continually grow and change. What they mean is that it ought to be elastic or malleable but prefer the euphemistic “living Constitution” which sounds ever so much more dignified, even sacred.
In an April 23rd press conference, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wholeheartedly agreed with the concept of a living Constitution. Speaking of the loss of privacy through the use of an extensive surveillance camera system in New York City and the possible use of drones fitted with cameras, Bloomberg said:
The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry…But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”
Now Mayor Bloomberg may have skipped his Constitutional government class the day when Article V was taught. If he had been there he would have learned that Article V outlines the procedures to amend the Constitution. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States). But Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t want to mess with that long and laborious process. Let’s just interpret the Constitution the way we want. Times are ‘a changing” and problems are pressing. Furthermore, liberals know what’s best even if the people don’t. That’s because “We live in a complex world where you are going to have to…”
We do agree that judicial interpretation of laws and the Constitution is the courts’ proper role. However, because of decades of significant judicial activism by liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature, thoughtful judicial interpretation of the law is thrown aside in favor of passion and expediency that are employed to make law. Thus, human nature, through its passions, appetites, and desires of the moment, is released from the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition.
However, this was not the intent of the Founders. Sherwood Eddy wrote that Jefferson “…stood for a strict interpretation of the conservative Constitution to prevent ever-threatened encroachments upon the rights of the people, the legislature, and the states.” Russell Kirk confirms Eddy’s view of Jefferson’s opinion of the Constitution, “Thomas Jefferson, rationalist though he was, declared that in matters of political power, one must not trust the alleged goodness of man, but (in Jefferson’s words) ‘bind him down with the chains of the Constitution’.”
We have established that the Founders preferred a strict interpretation of the Constitution and made it difficult to change based on the whims of the moment. Why did the Founders opt for a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and why do liberals so emphatically disagree?
Jefferson’s remark regarding the Constitution gives us a hint. Ultimately, the disagreement stems from the differences in understanding of the fundamental nature of man. The Founders understood the truth of the fallen, corrupt nature of man and designed the Constitution with separation of powers and other devices to control or mitigate that corrupt nature. The liberals believe that man is inherently good, not fallen and in need of redemption. They also believe man is perfectible, a process whereby he will become progressively better and better. Therefore, as man is perfected and society changes over time, we must update our Constitution accordingly.
As citizens turn from the Christian worldview as held by the Founders, they are unable to guide themselves internally with regard to ethical and moral issues and slide into moral relativism in which there is no right or wrong. Benjamin Franklin recognized the folly of this course when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Perhaps Major Bloomberg sees Americans as no longer being virtuous and capable of guiding themselves internally and therefore are in need of more masters and more laws to address the failings of their human nature.
Mayor Bloomberg and the liberals of this world do not stop with diminishing your privacy. Ever the good liberal, Bloomberg is famous for a number of other restrictions of freedom we had back in the “olden days.” Regarding the loss of freedom, his intent could not be clearer when he said, “I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.” This statement was in response to a question about his fight to control sugary drink portion sizes in New York City and his intentions to go forth in spite of the court’s rejection of his plan. In other words, when Joe Citizen can no longer make good decisions, the Mayor and his fellow elites will make them for him.
The modern humanist-liberal-progressive imbues (reads into or interprets) the Constitution with new rights, laws, and doctrines as well as restricting those old-fashioned rights the Founders thought important so that the modernists can conform man and society to the changes required by a modern world. Thereafter, modernists assure us that the greatest good for the greatest number will be dispensed, all under wisdom of the elites of a socialistic system and blessed by a Play-Doh® Constitution.
However, the modernists travel the same slippery path as those of the French Revolution when they base their societal changes on the ethereal, imaginary, or invented “rights of man” as well as imposing more and more laws to address the failings of human nature. In spite of the French Revolution’s high-minded chorus of “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!”, the French reality was “monarchy, anarchy, dictatorship” all occurring in a little over a decade.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
Cheryl K. Chumley, “N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Constitution ‘must change’ to give government more power,” The Washington Times, April 23, 2013 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/23/ny-mayor-michael-bloomberg-constitution-must-chang/ (accessed April 27, 2013).
James E. Person, Jr., Russell Kirk, A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind, (Latham, Maryland: Madison Books, 1999), p. 105, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 136.
Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 124, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods…, p. 136.
Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 29, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods…, p. 136.
William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 247.
Cheryl K. Chumley, “NYC Mayor Bloomberg: Government Has Right To ‘Infringe On Your Freedom’,” The Washington Times, March 25, 2013, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/25/nyc-mayor-bloomberg-government-has-right-infringe-/ (accessed April 27, 2013).
