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I agree. The documents say what they say and provisions are in place to reword/redefine them if we so choose. I see those who choose to channel the dead for their original intent as much a threat to our nation as the living document types.

I agree. The documents say what they say and provisions are in place to reword/redefine them if we so choose. I see those who choose to channel the dead for their original intent as much a threat to our nation as the living document types.

Bingo. Those were intelligent men, some of the most intelligent men of their time (some would argue that as a whole, the most intelligent), and easily more intelligent than some of the idiots we have running around in Congress, in the courts, and elsewhere in the government.

They had a pretty clear view of things, that we don't any more.

They saw a need for the citizens to be able to rise up and defend themselves against an unjust government.

They saw what happened when the Church ran the State, and they saw what happened when the State ran the Church as well as when the two were practically combined (which we can see now with certain Islamic countries).

They knew what they were talking about. We don't need the Psychic Friends Network trying to read their minds.

I see those who choose to channel the dead for their original intent as much a threat to our nation as the living document types.

You have a great deal to learn about both the Founders and the documents they bequeathed us. First, unfortunately for the "living document" enthusiasts, the Founders were erudite, literate, and prolific. They wrote volumes explaining what they meant. No honest student would dream of attempting something as patently stupid as "channeling," much less the obscene notion of simply "rewording /redefining as we choose." We must not, but also don't have to, for the Founders wrote it out for us in plain English, and the documents survive.

The second point is that the Constitution was written to be understood by the informed citizen, not as raw material for shysters' food-fights. Precisely to protect it from what has happened in the last fifty years, it was meant to be difficult to change. It was not meant to be torn up and re-written by any "gang of five" lawyers who happened to hold sway in the SC at a given time and decide to "redefine" for example, the taking of private property.

Those who would compare "original intent" to the "Living document" fraud display a troubling ignorance of the basics on which this nation's governance was established.

I agree. The documents say what they say and provisions are in place to reword/redefine them if we so choose. I see those who choose to channel the dead for their original intent as much a threat to our nation as the living document types.

Uh, what's your alternative? There's a debate about whether this language is merely non-preferentialist (allows the government to support religion if there is no preference by sect) or separationist (denies government the power to aid -- or inhibit -- religion at all). You can't resolve that debate by appealing to the language alone. There's insufficient information in the words themselves and "respecting an establishment of religion" is unclear on it's face. You have to either consider, for instance, both the legislative history and what the authors and the authorizing congress understood "establishment" to mean in practice, or leave it up to the prejudices of individual jurists.