Posted on 05/09/2018 4:15:32 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Has it? In case you didn't notice, Representative Bill Foster believes in word substitution and the living and breathing constitutional doctrine. He said:
It always has been up for reinterpretation. The technology changes, and the weapons thought to be too dangerous to be in private hands change. A civil war cannon is frankly much less dangerous than weapons we are allowed to carry on the streets in many of the states and cities in our country today. This is something where technology changes and public attitude changes and both are important in each of the generations.
Of course, if one part of the Constitution is up for reinterpretation, the whole thing is. But that's less important than the fact that Representative Foster is disagreeing with his own forefathers here. He would have you believe that the Constitution has always been living and breathing - this is a common refrain with progressives. They want to push this ideal that what they believe, the progressives, that's how it has always been. Well, a historian worth his salt would see through this. His own founding fathers, in the early 1900s, sung a very different tune. As I pointed out in January, in 1912, the constitution was not "living and breathing". Here is a brief snippet of what the progressives' own founding fathers were saying:
Can a practically unamendable constitution, adopted in the conditions and under the influences of the political thought prevailing at the end of the eighteenth century, be adapted by judicial interpretation to the needs and thought of the twentieth century without causing us to lose the advantages which are commonly regarded as attached to a written constitution?
That's Frank Johnson Goodnow, who was at one point President of John's Hopkins University. Walter Weyl, who quotes (agreeing with) Goodnow in a different writing: (page 111)
According to Prof. Frank J. Goodnow, there are some measures " which many believe to be absolutely necessary either now or in the future . . . which we in the United States are probably precluded from adopting because of the attitude now taken by the courts towards our practically unamendable federal constitution."
Charles Beard, one of the first revisionist historians of progressivism, wrote the following: (page 56)
The new Constitution bound every state to an amendment, in case it was approved bv two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states. Even this system, as events have proved, has required such extraordinary majorities as to make amendments by regular process well-nigh impossible.
The Progressive(Bull Moose) Party platform of 1912 laid out in its platform the necessity of easier amendment - the first plank! Additionally, Roosevelt talked about the importance of this, such as:
We propose to make the process of Constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present.
Bill Foster believes it was always open to reinterpretation and change.
The original progressives did not believe it was always open to reinterpretation and whined that it was impossible to change.
Both cannot be correct.
I will glad to reinterpret it for him: shall not means shall not.
A civil war cannon is frankly much less dangerous than weapons we are allowed to carry on the streets in many of the states and cities in our country today
>> Did he really say that?
INALIENABLE RIGHTS are NEVER up for ‘reinterpretation- the4 second amendment does NOT grant us the right to self defense- it CONFIRMS our INALIENABLE RIGHT to self defense-
Sorry libs. The addition of Gorsuch means five strict constructionists. Kennedy might even join the ruling. No re-interpretation this time - Nya Nya Nye Nya Nya.
The Second Amendment: Our guns are a discouragement to tyranny.
This is is exactly what it is, and always has been, when tyrannical thinking people start thinking like they can just take it away, only proves my point that this is an absolute truth.
A true crack down on the 2nd amendment will bring war.
“Representative Bill Foster believes in word substitution and the living and breathing constitutional doctrine...”
Wrong, a$$hole.
slightly misleading... the first Ten (and others) were submitted for consideration immediately after the Constitution was ratified, and were passed within 2 years... the remaining 17 were spread over the following 227 years (one every 13 years), and NONE have been submitted for ratification in the last 47 years. (Only 1 has been ratified in the last 47 years, the 27th, but it was submitted for ratification back in 1789, believe it or not.)
Only 6 more have ever been submitted for ratification but were not passed, and only 2 of those were put up for votes in the last 94 years.
I did laugh at that...
I’m thinking of getting a few Civil War cannons for home defense....he should be fine with it....
Believe or not, that is what Progressives think. They don’t like the First Amendment either. It needs to ‘reinterpreted’ in the light of modern communication technology.
For instance, they want thought crime laws to protect people from ‘hate speech,’ make it unlawful to criticize global anthropogenic climate change, and such.
They want a far more authoritarian world than some of us are willing to put up with.
“slightly misleading”
But still underscores the point that the Constitution is not “unamendable”. It is, however, very difficult to amend. That feature is one of its great strengths. It protects us from the whims of the mob and the designs of the few.
A well educated Public, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Books, shall not be infringed.
A well regulated Internet being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Modems shall not be infringed.
A well regulated carpentry being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Hammers shall not be infringed.
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