Constitution Worship

[Darth Wong]

I think you're sidestepping the real point, which is that people have begun to think that the Constitution defines morality, and vice versa.

[Lord Insanity]

The Constitution defines morality?
OK, I totally missed the boat on that one. That is total bullshit.

[Jeremy]

For anyone that doesn't know, the U.S. Constitution is the highest law in the federal government.

The Constitution is currently inferior to "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States".

So says Article 6 of my pocket size Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence.

[Simplicius]

The Constitution is currently inferior to "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States".

So says Article 6 of my pocket size Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence.

Ah, no. "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing on the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Of course, there are plenty of mouth-breathers out there who don't realize that treaties the US makes have equal legal weight to the Constitution and all other (constitutional) domestic law, but that only comes back to the point of this thread: that there exists an erroneous assumption that the Constitution is anything other than a document of law.

[Isolder74]

only if ratified by Congress.

[Darth Wong]

The point is that it's nothing more than a legal and procedural document: a term which carries much less gravitas than the way Americans typically perceive it.

Even liberals like Jon Stewart routinely reference "The Constitution and the values of our Founding Fathers" in debates about national policy. Even when people point out that they were a bunch of racist slave-owning troglodytes, they just shrug and continue assuming that anyone who "ignores the values of our Founding Fathers" must be doing something wrong.

[Duckie]

The point is that it's nothing more than a legal and procedural document: a term which carries much less gravitas than the way Americans typically perceive it.

Even liberals like Jon Stewart routinely reference "The Constitution and the values of our Founding Fathers" in debates about national policy. Even when people point out that they were a bunch of racist slave-owning troglodytes, they just shrug and continue assuming that anyone who "ignores the values of our Founding Fathers" must be doing something wrong.

I think "Constitution and values of our Founding Fathers" is a codeword for "Good ideas the founding fathers might have had, or which we'd like to ascribe to them", rather than what they actually thought. The founding fathers are blank slates politicians print their own ideals on, like how justices all claim to interpret the constitution but every single one of them has a coherent ideology because it's impossible not to have a political ideology.

[CarsonPalmer]

The point is that it's nothing more than a legal and procedural document: a term which carries much less gravitas than the way Americans typically perceive it.

Even liberals like Jon Stewart routinely reference "The Constitution and the values of our Founding Fathers" in debates about national policy. Even when people point out that they were a bunch of racist slave-owning troglodytes, they just shrug and continue assuming that anyone who "ignores the values of our Founding Fathers" must be doing something wrong.

It can indeed get absurd. On another board, a while ago, I wound up in a huge argument over whether or not Barack Obama's calling the Constitution a flawed document meant that he was unamerican. I tried to point out that the entire amendment process meant that the document is flawed, and that the framers regarded it as flawed, but was promptly told that amendments were only for "clarification".

[Darth Yoshi]

That's silly. If the Constitution requires clarification, then that means it isn't doing its job of providing legal framework. Ergo, it's flawed.

[Jeremy]

The Constitution is currently inferior to "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States".

So says Article 6 of my pocket size Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence.

Ah, no. "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing on the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Of course, there are plenty of mouth-breathers out there who don't realize that treaties the US makes have equal legal weight to the Constitution and all other (constitutional) domestic law, but that only comes back to the point of this thread: that there exists an erroneous assumption that the Constitution is anything other than a document of law.

I am currently suffering from nasal congestion -- I blame this completely on your voodoo.

I thought the whole point for the attempted (failed) Bricker Amendment was to eliminate the possibility of a treaty that could "rewrite" the Constitution since there are no limits to what a treaty may contain.

[Simplicius]

I thought the whole point for the attempted (failed) Bricker Amendment was to eliminate the possibility of a treaty that could "rewrite" the Constitution since there are no limits to what a treaty may contain.

That was the point, though the strong support of the amendment by non-interventionists and Southern Democrats (who were afraid that a treaty could permit a federal civil-rights law) suggests that their concerns were largely overblown.

As it presently stands, according to my ConLaw textbook, Justice Black held in Reid v. Covert (354 U.S. 1 [1957]) that "no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution," and further that nothing in Article VI, sec. 2 "intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution." Subsequent cases in the late 1950s affirmed that, meaning that present SCOTUS interpretation prevents treaties from overruling provisions of the Constitution. However, if a treaty is made that does not conflict with any specific constitutional provision, and that treaty requires that Congress pass a law to enforce its provisions, then Congress may do so over state objections, as the treaty power has been delegated by the states and the people to the Federal government.

[Surlethe]

Interesting article: GM fell prey to its goals. I draw a parallel between GM's problem (as detailed in the article) - a goal to serve a purpose becoming the purpose in and of itself - with the rise of Constitution worship. To get through year-to-year legislating, etc., people use the Constitution as a proxy for the rule of law until the Constitution is synonymous with the rule of law.

[Darth Wong]

Interesting article: GM fell prey to its goals. I draw a parallel between GM's problem (as detailed in the article) - a goal to serve a purpose becoming the purpose in and of itself - with the rise of Constitution worship. To get through year-to-year legislating, etc., people use the Constitution as a proxy for the rule of law until the Constitution is synonymous with the rule of law.

In a larger sense (and this is something I've commented on many times), people treat entire moral systems this way: they forget that a moral system itself has a goal, and can be judged for how well it performs against that goal. Instead, they judge a moral system against itself, which is why so many people think their moral system is perfect: instead of having a goal, it has become the goal.

[Galvatron]

Would this not serve as a perfect example?