Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
Burlington
High
School
Burlington,
Kansas
Teacher:
Devra
Parker
To
Change
or
Not
to
Change
By
Kayla
Harlan
12th
grade
The year is 2090. The technological advances are everywhere. Grass length is being regulated by computer, computerized cars are driven to where the voice tells them and robot cops are policing every inch of land. With all of these changes, one would think that there would be nothing untouched by technology. Oh, contraire, my friend. There is one document that has not been touched. Recognize this?
“We the People of the United States, in Order to for a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”
The Constitution is a document that will never be changed. No matter how great our technology advances, how much the people change, or how much we alter the Earth, it will remain stagnant. Roger Pilon says that “most of what the federal government does today is unconstitutional.” I believe that this is a very true statement. One subject that deals with this is torture. Many people believe that torture is against the Constitution, and we should not be able to use torture to get information out of terrorists. Many say that it is against the Geneva Convention and against the Constitution. Those same people would say differently if the scenario was changed, however. I am sure that if anyone locked up his loved one and would not tell him where he or she was, he would use methods of torture to find out. What I am trying to say is that in the war, no matter who says it is constitutionally wrong to use torture, it is probably being used. This should not happen. The Constitution was written at a time, and by people, who were very educated and wanted to make this document work. They thought long and hard about every word they included, and made sure that in situations that would come long after their time, it would still be able to be ratified.
A question that Roger Pilon states in his speech is, “How did we move from a Constitution that limited government to one that is read today to authorize effectively unlimited government?.” When addressing this question, one must think about the government today and how effectively it has been making it’s decisions. I mean, do not get me wrong. I know that times are changing, and the Constitution was written a long time ago. We have so many advances in this day and age that I believe the framers of the Constitution would have never even begun to take into consideration when writing the document. The problem is, though, what do we do to correlate the way today’s society acts with the document? I think many people try and change the document, or the way they read and interpret it, to fit today’s society. What I believe is that we should not be trying to change the document; we should be trying to build our society around it. We should not be finding loop holes in every article and amendment; we should be trying to make society fit into the standards that the Constitution has set for us. I mean, if we do not set limits in stone for the government, who is to say that the government will not become totally ruthless and out of hand? What is going to happen when someone finds a loop hole somewhere, and billions of our taxpayer’s dollars begin to go to places that are unnecessary, like building a new White House or something outrageous like that?
Roger Pilon also states that “the Constitution is said to be ‘outgrown’”. This goes right along with the facts that just because we as a world, nation, society, or whatever we would like to call it, are growing, it does not mean that we will outgrow the Constitution. It is so well written and acknowledges all of our rights…that I do not see why anyone would want to outgrow it. We should feel privileged to have such a document, and we should respect the founding fathers for taking the time to write and revise this to make it the best document they could. We should take pride in our government and be glad that we do not have Kim Jong-Il as our leader. It is ridiculous to even think about “outgrowing” the Constitution. We outgrow clothes, not a sacred document that is the basis of our government. I mean, look at the Bible. No one has outgrown it, and it has been around for an immensely longer time than the Constitution. Sure, people have found loopholes, and that is what creates the different types of Bibles and churches. But, that is belief. If we continue to find ways to cheat the Constitution, we will never have a set justice. Nothing will ever be right or wrong. We will always be finding new ways to prove that something is now wrong or was never right.
The year is 2090, and a celebration is being held. Thousands of grateful Americans are standing around an old, faded, tattered document. They are looking at their history and being thankful for the people who started this great document. They are also praising the people who made sure it stayed, in all its greatness, the unaltered document to base our government upon.
Answers To Questions Prompted By The Required Reading
Q1- Explain what Roger Pilon means when he speaks of a bifurcated Bill of Rights. What Roger Pilon means when he speaks of a bifurcated Bill of Rights is to have a bill of rights that is divided into two sections, “fundamental”, and “non-fundamental” rights.
Describe what happened in 1938, according to his testimony. In the footnote 4 of United States vs. Carolene Products, they decided that a “fundamental” right, like speech or voting, was implicated, the Court would apply “strict scrutiny” and doubtlessly find it unconstitutional. By distinction, if a law occupied “non-fundamental” rights like property or contract, the court would uphold the law as long as there was “rational basis” for it.
Q2- Give three examples of what is described in the testimony as fundamental rights and three examples of nonfundamental rights. Three fundamental rights are speech, voting, and press. Three non-fundamental rights would be property, contract, or relations.
Which of these rights do you, after reading portions of Dr. Pilon's testimony, believe should be subjected to strict scrutiny? I believe that fundamental rights should be subjected to strict scrutiny.
Q3- Define:
Enumerated powers- The powers specifically named and delegated to the federal government or prohibited to be exercised by the states under the U.S. Constitution.
Living constitution- A doctrine of constitutional philosophy that says that a constitution is organic and must be read in a broad and liberal manner so as to adapt to the changing times.
Politicizing the constitution- How the politicians interpret the Constitution so that it will fit their needs.
Q4- Why does Roger Pilon claim a living constitution is worse than no constitution at all? Roger Pilon claims this because it conserves the cleanness of constitutional legitimacy while unleashing the political forces that a constitution is meant to restrain.
Q5- Explain what is meant by moral legitimacy, political legitimacy and legal legitimacy. Give your own example of each. Moral legitimacy is whether or not people accept the law or fact using their moral believes as guidelines. An example of an issue that could be morally legitimate or illegitimate could be abortion. Legal legitimacy is whether or not people accept the law or fact using their legal knowledge as guidelines. An example of an issue that could deal with legal legitimacy would be the legality of evidence found in a person’s house without a search warrant. Political legitimacy is whether or not people accept the law or fact using their political believes. An example of this could be Liberal vs. Conservative.
Q6- Dr. Pilon spends some time enumerating five implications of an illegitimate constitution. Name the five implications and state why one seems to be the most serious in your personal opinion. Five implications of an illegitimate Constitution are the loss of legitimacy, the chaos that follows law more generally; disrespect for the Constitution entails disrespect for the rule of law itself; when constitutional integrity declines we lose the discipline a constitution is designed to impose on government; and the economic implications of effectively unlimited government. The most serious implication in my opinion is the loss of legitimacy. I believe that this is the most important because is no one can believe something is legitimate, whether it be because of their moral, legal, or political views; it will never be respected as a law.
Q7- When he says "those true to its conception as a means of founding, maintaining and promoting a great nation in the public good.” is Mr. Frankfurter talking about the wisdom of enumerated powers or the constitution's preordained destiny as a living document? I believe that he is not talking of the Constitutions preordained destiny as a living document.
Q8- Do you agree, with Felix Frankfurter, that the Founding Fathers refused to write limitations and qualifications into the U.S. Constitution? No, I do not agree with Felix Frankfurter that the Founding Fathers refused to write limitations and qualifications into the U.S. Constitution.
Q9- Compare the manner in which the U.S. Constitution was changed after the Civil War with the way changes were made to the Constitution during the New Deal era. The Constitution was changed in the Civil War era the right way, through the ratification process. They abolished slavery and the balance between the federal and state governments. The changes made during the New Deal era were not done the right way, with court packing, and trying to re-write the constitution.
Q10- U.S. Constitution prevents legislators from making the needs of Americans their priority. This paragraph claims that the expressed purpose of the U. S. Constitution is to authorize, institute, empower, and limit the federal government. (fill in the blank)
Q11- FDR made a political speech for the times; the eve of WW II. References were made in his speech that may be relevant to our position in the world today. Comment on the similarities. Some of the similarities that he mentioned are the changing society, people wanting a Utopia overnight, and the lesser amount of people that actually understand how the government works.
Q12- Comment on whether you think the "new idea" come to "dominate thought about government" is still the dominate idea or has the past 70 years turned it into an old idea that needs to be reformed? Make these comments brief as this question is the crux of the paper you will be preparing for submittal. I believe that the “new idea” has stuck through the 70 years, and is still the idea that it started out to be.