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Publishing Company Puts Warning Label on Constitution
Wilder Publication is under fire for putting warning labels on copies of historical US documents, including the Constitution. The label warns "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." From the article: "The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they 'might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.'"
You mean like http://www.emailvirals.com/data/media/1/bible-warning-label.jpg ?
This is a very worrying trend, parents should not "wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work" because otherwise that leaves things into interpretation and prevents people from forming their own opinion.
The constitution wasn't written with symbolism and to make it be hard to read. No. The constitution and other works of that time period dealing with politics were made for the every day voter and the vocabulary, though slightly archaic is a whole lot easier than that of, say, Shakespeare and lacks the annoying, long, wordiness of later authors like Dickens making it very accessible.
What is next? The banning of all primary source materials in school textbooks because they are old?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What's amusing about the flap is that I'd be willing to bet that at least some, if not many, of the people upset by this have no problem at all with warning labels on biology textbooks.
Rights for slaves were outlined in documents after the civil war, and rights for women were outlined at the Seneca Falls convention. Wilder is trying to put a "warning" on all of those documents, the documents that still hold true and found our country (I'll be it, corruptly) to this very day.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
The US Constitution itself is a politically correct document. Look how it dances around the issue of slavery: "Person held to Service or Labour" and "three fifths of all other Persons" are the really egregious ones. Everyone knew who these "other Persons" were, but nobody wanted to say it. It wasn't until 1865, almost 80 years later, that the word "slavery" appeared in the 13th amendment, when it was safely in the past tense -- and then in 1870, when the mealy-mouthed Southern gentry, who had been willing to fight a war on behalf of slavery but could never talk about it when Yankees were about, were back in Congress, the 15th gently whispers about "previous condition of servitude."
So for those who think PC is some new an unique blight on our language, sorry, it's pretty much part of our national DNA.
There are other instances which still cause trouble today. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" means that it's illegal for the government to give money to churches just as much as "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" means that it's illegal for for the government to ban them. And "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" is explanatory, not prescriptive; "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is the part that has the force of law, and all they really needed to write. But there's been enough wiggle room in the phrasing for the enemies of liberty to exploit for the last 220+ years.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
There is no doubt that the Bible relates a number of very scary concepts (The story of Lot, restricting warfare to damages no greater than inflicted upon your tribe (that eye for an eye thing), or even its revision by Jesus, i.e. Love for one's enemies and do good to those that hate you).
But the real question is why many people equate the Constitution to a Holy book. The Constitution does discuss slavery as if it were a reasonable institution, and that can be hard for children to deal with.
Does this require a warning label? I don't think so, but giving it one doesn't bother me given some of its historical contents.
WARNING: This book is allegory, any relationship to beings or places, real or imaginary is purely co-incidental.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The problem with interpretation is that it's subjective and changes over time. Also, human language is vague.
When you hear people claim they're for strict interpretation, that's a somewhat dishonest shorthand for favoring someone who reads the constitution to suit their specific needs and prejudices.
The 3/5 compromise was for voting purposes, but it has been changed with the 14th amendment, which should be included in any publication of the constitution, along with the other amendments.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
To oversimplify, there are two senses of so-called "Living Document."
The conservative view: it is a living document in the sense that as times change, it can be changed by amendment. The rules aren't set in stone; we just have to sit down and carefully think out what we want, make sure it is what we want, vote on it, and make the necessary changes.
The liberal view: it is a living document in that it says whatever we want it to say, whenever we want it to say it. If it doesn't say what we want it to say, well, then that part is 'old and outdated' or 'doesn't reflect the times' and we can ignore it.
The first view makes change slowly; there is no instant gratification. We have a damn hard constitution to change compared to other nations -- Ireland, for example, requires only a simple majority vote, 50.1% -- but it serves to protect somewhat against passing fads and the very real tyranny of the majority. (It doesn't always work, e.g., prohibition, but it works most of the time.) It also means that injustice can take time to be eliminated. Finally, there are definitely gaps in the Constitution; ours is one of the briefest written. It's a version 1.1 Constitution (1.0 being the Magna Carta in Western society), where other nations have had 200 years to see what works and what doesn't. The 9th & 10th amendment reserve those 'gaps' to the states & people. If there's been no legislation there, it should be legal conduct. Conversely, one does well to remember that the ambit of 'health, welfare, and police power' is quite a area in which the states can act.
The second view though is just downright dangerous. It basically throws the rule of law right out the window. It isn't about saying "Man means man, woman, and child" in the Constitution, it's about saying entire sections are contrary to their plain language. Jurisprudence took a major nosedive in The New Deal and hasn't recovered since. For an example of a Living Constitution, read George Orwell's Animal Farm
Ultimately, for me, I trust a Justice like Hugo Black to do his job -- even if he is more extreme than my views -- more than I do someone like Justice John Paul Stevens, who plays fast and loose with the Constitution at times.
Final thoughts... We are not a homogeneous people by any means. We're probably the most diverse populace on earth in terms of ethnicity, culture, values, etc. Does it make any sense at all that the exact same principles should apply to everyone? Only in the most basic sense, to guarantee our rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Californians are not Texans are not Alaskans are not New Yorkers. Each state has laws to fit its populace and the Constitution should not be bent willy-nilly to try to make them the same. If we wanted the exact same, we'd change the laws ourselves.
(Also, please don't get into the trap of arguing, "Oh woe is me, politicians are corrupt, the government is corrupt, I shall never get my way!" That's just plain horse shit. That's the same people who either vote and bitch that the system is broken because they lose, or worse, don't vote "because my vote doesn't matter" and then continue to bitch anyway. If you've got a better system, let's hear it -- it still beats everything else out there.)
Do you really think them thar injuns are going to attack?
That was never the point of the second amendment. Did your US History classes really fail you so badly?
Also remember where it says "all men" it meant not women and not blacks.
It no longer means that, by virtue of the amendments that changed its meaning.
That's how amendments work, you see. They modify the meaning of the original text, such that the original text should now be taken in the context of the amendments which apply to it.
That's correct. The Cherokee that lived in South Carolina paid taxes, counted as whole free persons, obeyed the laws, and even appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court when their tribal lands were being confiscated by the State.
Unfortunately the U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of the Cherokee, that they could keep their homes, but a certain asshole president ignored the court's ruling and used the army to force the Cherokee to move to the western territories. If anybody should have been impeached, it should have been him - Andrew Jackson (D).
But because it was Indians, nobody cared enough to defend them, not even their own representatives. Kinda like how people turned a blind eye when innocent Americans were thrown-into concentration camps & their property confiscated by President FDR.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
No Progressive would ever be elected again, which is of course why they spent the last century on a project to push it down the memory hole.
The progressives wrote it, why would they not like it?
First they pushed for government schools and then undermined the curriculum to remove all study of the Constitution beyond the Preamble.
You are right that when I was in school, we only had to memorize the Preamble and the first 10 Amendments. But we were tested over every single line in it, and it was read in parts the equivalent of no less than 10 times in class, and we were expected to read it as many times at home as necessary to understand every clause (well, it was a redacted one, so we didn't need to learn the redacted parts as closely, but still were tested on those as part of the Amendment that affected it).
Beyond that the texts tell the kids what it 'says' without studying the actual text.
We had a booklet that contained the Constitution and nothing else. Unlike regular text books, that pamphlet was ours to keep forever. It's the only "textbook" I recall being given away in school that didn't need to be returned.
So, everything you say is exactly the opposite of my experience in public school. Perhaps the problem is that you went to shit schools. That could also explain some other parts of your argument...
Learn to love Alaska
Wrong.
It did not include indentured servants, quite explicitly. The intention and reality of the 3/5 compromise was applied overwhelmingly to blacks.
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
Perhaps we should start requiring all new bills to be hand written in calligraphy. That would force some conciseness.
Not to "expand its powers", no, but to spend its money. If Congress decides it is in the general welfare to buy us all ponies, it is within it Constitutional authority "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" to do so. But if Congress decides it is in the general welfare to make us all take riding lessons upon pain of imprisonment, it does not have that power.
It could, however, probably figure out a way to use its power of taxation or interstate commerce regulation to encourage people to take riding lessons, by offering tax breaks to riding teachers, say, or by requiring cargo to be taken across state lines only on pony-back.
That's why we pick our Congress democratically (at least, in theory, corruption and the two-party stranglehold not withstanding); if you think Congress buying us ponies is a waste of money, or if you think it's ridiculous that interstate commerce must go by pony, you get to try to vote them out.
Hey, I wish our system of government could get us to something like Huxley's Island , but I don't think so. (Huxley did write more than one book, you know.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Are you just saying that you think certain things are 'unconstitutional' and thus 'not law' in a valid sense, even though we all live by it anyway? Things like Welfare which aren't enumerated and thus 'not law'?
Yes, I am saying that, but not "just" that. "Welfare programs", per se, are administered by the States and thus it is not really part of the discussion, although the Federal mandates that established it probably aren't worth the paper they are printed on. More to the point are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These are clearly not part of the powers that were delegated the Federal government. And the same applies to the recent "Health Care Reform" disaster. (I put that in quotes because even if it were constitutional, it really did little to actually "reform" what needed reforming.)
But yes, you have that basically right: although the Federal government overstepped its bounds in creating those institutions, they were accepted by the states at the time, even though (many people argue today) they never should have been. Because even if they are not legal or constitutional, by now they are pretty hard to get rid of. So they are "illegal" in the sense that Congress had no legal power to give birth to them, yet they are established parts of our society. What a mess. And THAT is what you get when you ignore Constitutional bounds. And by the way: even the best estimates say that all of those institutions are soon going to be bankrupt.
Here is the biggest issue: The Constitution created a Federal government, as a compact between the 13 states. "Federal" is a word that refers to a "federation", which is a group of equals. This is in stark contrast to a "National" government, which would have been a supreme government ruling over the states. This is an important distinction. The United States is not a "nation" in the strict sense of the word. The United States is a "federation" of states (it's even in the NAME!). This is stated by the founding fathers in so many words, many times in historical documents.
The states formed the Federal government to do things that it made sense for a federation of states to do: manage a common system of currency, resolve trade disputes between the states, provide for a common defense, and so on. In all, there were 17 (some say 18) specific powers given to the Federal government, which are listed ("enumerated") in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
This brings us to a quote by Madison I posted elsewhere in this thread: "...the government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison "
By "confined to specified objects", he is referring to the powers delegated to the Federal government by Article 1, Section 8. All other powers (as clarified in the 10th Amendment) are reserved to the states, or to the people. Note that Madison specifically says here that the states have more power than the Federal government. This is also inherent in the word "delegated" which so often appears: a higher authority "delegates" responsibility to a subordinate. In this case, the states "delegated" 17 (or 18) powers to the Federal government. ALL other power belongs to the states, or the people. So when Jefferson wrote:
"... whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force"
The "general government" is the Federal government... the one that is common between the states. Assuming "undelegated powers", then, means doing anything outside the 17 (18) powers that were delegated to the Federal government by Article 1, Section 8. And what he states there is that if they DO try to assume powers that were not given to them, then any resulting law is "unauthoritative, void, and of no force". It has no lawful authority behind it. I