The Constitution - Who Needs It?

Today I read an excellent article on what I believe slowpitch was referring to a few days ago - legislative and judicial ideas from a pre-1973 era.

The article is from two contributors to the PowerLine blog. The article comments on the fairly new and frightening concepts of a living Constitution and the very new and very disturbing idea that the Supreme Court can base cases on international law, and not the Constitution.

The Constitution is not a "living" document: one that is "outdated" and that needs to be reinterpreted alongside a new "21st century understanding." Nor is the Supreme Court an entity that should be basing it's decisions on anything but the Constitution! These two changes in the judicial system in the past 40 years exemplifies a frightening change in our political structure - an idea that the Constitution is not what it is - the first, only, and most important political and governmental document of all time! It's creation and ratification ushered in the existence of a country whose abilities and exploits have never been matched in the history of the Earth.

Although its ratification was not a necessarily easy or quick process, just compare the US constitution to the EU's version - it's 265 pages long and it still doesn't come close to creating a governmental structure remotely close to that which allowed the United States to rise as a world leader.

If the nation's founders could see where their document had brought the US they would be amazed. And if those same founders could see how the Supreme Court has prostituted themselves with the ideas of a "living" document and the precedents of international law, they would be equally horrified.