I was a guest on a radio show the other day where, rather than discussing police issues, the hosts wanted to banter about political topics. Only slightly out of my element having never before discussed/debated non-law enforcement political issues on a broadcast medium, one of the first statements a co-host made was targeted right between my eyes. The hosts had been to my website and were aware of my political leanings.
The co-host, let’s call him Matt (mostly because his name is Matt), actually said something to the effect, “It’s time to scrap the Constitution, or at least change it; after all it is a living document, and the Founders couldn’t have anticipated what’s happened after all these years.”
Well, saying that to me, he may as well have clubbed a baby seal in front of a PETA member; I remained composed, but was taken completely off guard. And he was so cavalier when he’d said it, with absolutely no appreciation for the genius the document was and remains.
The genius in the Constitution is not in some individual technical element, but in the universal principles it espouses and while some technical elements may change (and a method exists for making amendments), principles don’t. Of course the Constitution’s unequivocal and primary principle is individual liberty. Self-government was the experiment our Founders initiated in the world—not a collectivist state servitude.
Those who want to “scrap” the Constitution, or feel it is a living document to be frivolously changed due to temporary whim, are likely those who would have opposed creating the document in the first place. I would argue they need to reassess what America means to them. If not for the Constitution, there would be no America.
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