R i g h t a r d i a: Steve Kangas short FAQ: What do liberals believe about the constitution?

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”.--GWB

Liberals note that constitutions and their amendments are passed just like other laws: after extensive debate and by a vote of the people's elected representatives.

The only difference is that constitutional amendments are much harder to pass than laws, because they require a two-third's majority in Congress and a three-fourth's majority of the States.

Liberals also point out that the constitution and laws of Congress both have the same purpose: to protect individual rights, establish personal responsibilities, and describe the operations of government.

However, the constitution does all of this at a much more fundamental level. In other words, the constitution describes the general principles of how our society is to be run, and the law fills in the details.

Many people would like to see their favorite moral beliefs enshrined in the constitution rather than law, but usually the constitution is an inappropriate place for that.

A constitution that included too many specific statutes would be inflexible (due to the supermajority requirement) and would quickly grow obsolete.

Liberals believe that when the U.S. constitution was first ratified in 1788, it was a document serving the interests of rich white male landholders.

Blacks were forbidden to vote until 1870; women until 1920; tax debtors until 1964; young people until 1971. Likewise, much of the Bill of Rights was not defended or enforced until recently.

In early times the U.S. media was often censored for "seditious" material, and it wasn't until the early 20th century that the first case involving freedom of the press came before the Supreme Court.

Since 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the foremost defender of the Bill of Rights for minorities, the poor, and other groups who cannot afford justice and the preservation of their rights.

It has taken centuries, but the U.S. constitution is gradually evolving into a true people's document.

Conservatives call themselves "constitutionalists," because they perceive that strong property rights in the constitution are the best way to protect their wealth and property from the greedy voting majority.

But it is interesting to note that their proposed anti-tax, pro-property amendments would favor the special interests of those who already own the most wealth: rich white male business owners.

Compare this to their bitter criticism of the ACLU for defending the Bill of Rights for minorities and poor people, and it becomes clear that many people simply use the constitution as a political football to protect their special interests at the expense of others.

Kangas appear to be aware of Charles Beard's theory about the Founders. His book, Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), an interpretation of how the economic interests of the members of the Constitutional Convention affected their votes.

Contrary to beliefs of many conservatives and many undereducated Americans, the US constitution was not a perfect document. In fact, the Bill of Rights was an after thought.

As Kangas has pointed out, changing the US constitution is difficult.

What would the GOP like to change? First of all, the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship. Republicans believe that people emigrating from Mexico will vote Democratic. One Republican politician suggested we need to "empty the clip" to fix immigration.

The GOP would also like the governor of the state to appoint the two senators which smacks of cronyisim and elitism.

That is actually the way senators were "elected" until 1913, but by 1912, as many as twenty-nine states elected senators either as nominees of their party's primary or in a general election.

The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution finally resolved the question and mandated that senators would be directly elected.

Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips said this about the right to vote:

The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote.

It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today.

But one of those was you had to be a property (real estate) owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community.

If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.

When the Constitution was written, only white male property owners (about 10 to 16 percent of the nation's population) had the right to vote.

Property ownership and tax requirements eliminated by 1850. Almost all adult white males could vote. The 19th Amendment guaranteed women's suffrage in 1920.

If Judson Phillip's idea of property ownership as a prerequisite to voting were adopted, one in three Americans wouldn't be able to vote.

source: Steve Kangas Short FAQ and Wikipedia