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From
Townhall.com… Contempt of Constitution - By David Stokes
Do all those who seem to be so enamored of a so-called “Living
Constitution” really want the document to live—or are they actually
trying to kill it off as a relevant part of our national life?
It is hard to actually believe that something as seemingly and
prototypically American as a public reading of the U.S. Constitution by
people recently sworn to uphold it could be at all controversial. For
that matter, it is even harder to believe that such an exercise should
become the subject for ridicule on the part of some whose very
practiced free speech is ultimately protected by what Madison and
company crafted and adopted back in 1787. That the venerable document
remains the oldest written Constitution in use by any nation on the
planet, is but one testament to its significance and enduring relevance.
But to hear the media buzz in the aftermath of the reading by members
of the House of Representatives from both political parties, it is
clear that some on the left simply don’t get it. And stepping forward
as the spokesperson for the mockers is Rachel Maddow, host of her own
weeknight show on MSNBC.
Seizing on the fact that the reading this past Thursday left out the
parts of the Constitution that were later repudiated and revised,
Maddow insisted that they should have been left in to highlight that
there are flaws in the supreme law of our land, what she called “dumb
and evil stuff.” She seems to miss the point that the Constitution
itself includes provisions for fixing obvious errors.
Maddow reminded her listeners the other night that “the constitution is
not the ten commandments,” though one wonders how seriously Rachel
actually takes Mosaic Law, as well. She is a bright and articulate
broadcaster, well educated, that process even including a doctorate
from Oxford University (Rhodes scholar), but in the case of the
Constitution her liberal bias generates more heat than her intellect
can handle. She argues that when it comes to the Constitution of the
United States:
You can handle that truth in one of two ways. You could acknowledge
that the Constitution has had really crazy stuff in it from time to
time, use that as a teaching moment. The Constitution is a living
document that has changed over time in ways both bad and good as the
country has gotten older. Or you can be a Constitutional fundamentalist
and ignore the fact that there has been bad stuff in it over time.
This is the debate equivalent of “heads, I win—tails, you lose.” And it
reveals a thinly-veiled sense of contempt for the Constitution.
The idea that the Constitution has changed over the years “in ways both
good and bad” is itself flawed. As evidence of the “bad,” she
predictably cites the 18th Amendment, the one initiating Prohibition in
the nation. Sadly, and with apparent obliviousness, she tasked Ted
Williams, the Andy Warhol Man-Of-The-Hour-With-The-Golden-Voice to read
it on her show as part of his current media tour. Never mind that the
image of a man whose life has been hitherto destroyed by alcohol and
other substances, most of which remain “prohibited” thankfully, reading
words about a well-meaning effort to assuage the scourge of substance
abuse, was awkward to say the least.
The salient point is that the 18th amendment, which had wide political
support in the first decades of the 20th century was eventually
repealed. Yet, she puts it front and center as proof that the
Constitution can’t be taken all that seriously.
Really?
The history of the Prohibition movement is that it was largely driven
by the political movement in this country known as Progressivism. In
fact, it was one of its most prominent and unifying ideas, closely
related to the burgeoning women’s suffrage movement. Arguably, a case
can be made that the first impact women made on the American political
landscape while en route to the right to vote was in the battle against
booze. The history of the Prohibition movement cannot be told without
recounting the role of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
So it is ironic that the part of the Constitution Rachel Maddow et al
uses to “prove” its fallible irrelevance today was actually crucial to
the thinking of a very liberal movement it its day. In fact, feminists
today owe a debt of gratitude to the brave women who sought, via a war
on liquor, to change their world.
And if Prohibition seems now in hindsight to be absurd and unworkable
(as it indeed turned out to be), it should be considered that the
current “Progressive” wars on things such as smoking and obesity as
part of the national healthcare discussion are not all that far removed
from the mindset that brought us Prohibition. The 18th amendment was
repealed, but it is still referred to by many as a “noble experiment.”
And its failure highlights the flaws of all big government efforts to
micro-manage personal lives.
The presence of an 18th amendment in the Constitution is not evidence
of “bad stuff.” Rather, it is evidence of what can happen when the
people decide to deliberate about an idea over decades, only to find
that all their best hopes and efforts don’t turn out to be practical.
And the 21st amendment to the Constitution, the one repealing the 18th
amendment, is evidence that our system works very well.
But the Rachel Maddow’s of the world have no patience for process.
Their talk of a Living Constitution does not involve the idea of
lengthy national debate and structured deliberation. Quite the
contrary, were Prohibition the law of the land today, they would ignore
the remedy of a new Constitutional amendment and opt instead for
various legal maneuvers rendering the wording in the Constitution
itself moot.
In other words, in pursuit of a Living Constitution, what they really
seek is its effective death as a document to be taken seriously.
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