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In the end even the supreme court changes what it means over time. Its very political in how you see it. The basics tho are pretty clear. It gives certain power to federal and clearly states that States have powers not named.Basically the founders knew that in a country this big with so many states that there would be differences in views. That is the problem EU is having now. They have 27 countries that do not agree on much so very loose; for want of a better word; in union.
The Constitution is indeed an open document in that it does not directly address everything and instead sets broad guidelines which are open to interpretation based on the set of circumstances that implicate them. Simply put the Constitution is not a set of statutes. That is the point of giving Congress powers instead of trying to draft all the laws and putting them into the Constitution en masse.
The fact is the founders anticipated that the ambiguities in the constitution, many of them were lawyers after all and they all pretty much agreed that they would create a framework for government and legislation not try to directly micromanage the Congresses of the future who would be dealing with issues they knew they might not be able to contemplate. These ambiguities are the reason for article 3 section 2 and federal courts, thus why cases involving statutes and the constitution are frequently referred to as federal questions.
Again the idea that the Constitution has only one fixed possible meaning in regards to every situation is fantasy adhered to only by people who don't do well with ambiguity. Thus the reason we have federal courts in the first place, namely that we need some group of people to address these ambiguities and to pick set meanings when arguments arise.
Right but my point is, the responsibility of the federal courts and the Supreme Court is to determine what the Constitution actually means, not to prescribe new meaning to it.
Right but my point is, the responsibility of the federal courts and the Supreme Court is to determine what the Constitution actually means, not to prescribe new meaning to it.
They do, with that said they are just choosing one of numerous possible argument when they do and we go by it for the time, but just because courts say it doesn't mean its the one infallible correct answer and everything else is this horrible taboo. Even the supreme court is not adverse to overturning itself from time to time and the idea that you cannot choose different viewpoints of the Constitution overtime is just a convenient way of ignoring its ambiguity because ambiguity can be difficult.
Yes, the Constitution is properly a living document through amendments. It is not properly a living document through legislation from the bench.
We have three branches of government for a reason, the USSC is one of those branches and their job is to be the judicial part when it comes to the Constitution.
Was there ever an amendment or a part of constitution that denied black their constitutional rights? Did it say " we, the white people"? No. Although it was understood that "the people" effectively meant white males, the constitution doesn't spell it out, and explicitly denies voting rights to blacks and women, does it?
The Constitution's interpretation didn't change. The Constitution was amended to grant it's protections to ALL citizens.
As I said before, blacks were not considered citizens. The Constitution protected only citizens. Then came along the 14th amendment and granted all people born here, black or not, citizenship.
If anything, our interpretation of what citizenship was changed, not the Constitution.
We have three branches of government for a reason, the USSC is one of those branches and their job is to be the judicial part when it comes to the Constitution.
You would think it would be 9-0 votes each time, if the constitution wasn't so hard to follow...
Not even the 9 judges can agree if something is within constitutional limits.
I am afraid you don't understand that "to determine what the Constitution actually means" and "prescribe new meaning to it" mean exactly the same. New interpretation is a new meaning.
You're wrong. To interpret the meaning of something does not mean to give a new and different meaning to it. When the courts suss out the meaning of an article or amendment, they do so based on existing evidence.
Judges must take an oath to uphold the Constitution, why would they be required to do this if their job was to rewrite it, as you assert?
Anyone's personal interpretation of the Constitution is irrelevant. Supreme Court members disagree, themselves. That's how democracy works. If there's something you don't agree with, sue in federal court.
Hahahaha .... this is why we have so many violations of the constitution. There are two fatal flaws in it ... the first one could never have been anticipated ... it was written in such plain English that any marginally educated person with reasonable grasp of the language would easily understand. I mean, really, how could the framers ever think that the public would become so dumbed down as to believe a written document is alive, and that "shall not" would be confused with "can do, if we have a good enough excuse"?
The other major flaw should have been anticipated. Given that the constitution is designed to limit the powers of the federal government ... allowing the federal government to decide what those limits are by re-interpreting the words to suit it's fancy ... the otherwise brilliant fellows who crafted this work of art did the unthinkable. The designed an impeneratble front door, secure windows, but left the back door wide open.
Quite inexplicablly, they took great pains to design a system with seperation of powers between the three branches to prevent a small group of men or one man to seize dictatorial powers, but then left the damned thing up to non elected appointees of the supreme court to become the very thing the constitution was crafted to prevent ... a small group of men exercising tyrannical power by the simple means of declaring "shall not" means "can do" because we say so!
I guess the only explanation for this is that they figured the 2nd Amendment, and the people would not allow such nonsense to happen. They obviously underestimated the depth to which stupid could achieve, given enough time.
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