“You can’t be without our constitution and still have traditional morality.”
Yes you can. That’s what we have now.
“Without a constitution we would live in a tyranny.”
Perhaps, but tyranny doesn’t mean no moral order. I’m not going to say it’s conducive to moral life, but it doesn’t preclude it. The moral order is bigger than that.
You’re looking things backwards. Without a certain moral order, and various preexisting cultural institutions based on that order, there couldn’t be a Constitution. Ivory tower intellectuals could write one speculatively, but it’d never have force. Moreover, the Constitution needs a moral order to persist. The Founders were explicit on this count, and I agree. Laws are empty without qualified men to administer them and educated men to follow them.
It may not require angels, and no men are angels. But it does require knowledge of what constitutes freedom and duty. It does require general moral order to understand correct political order. It does require “eternal vigilence,” which can only be worthwhile when you know what to be vigilent about.
The law itself does not protect us from tyranny. It cannot, for men will not follow the law just because it exists. I offer as evidence their not having followed the Constitution, which now persists as a animatronic skeleton. it has no soul left, because men failed it, for various reasons. They failed it because they didn’t maintain the ideas, the moral ideas, behind it.
“A tyranny is the good example of an ‘anything goes’ society.”
Like I said, I’m not going to say it’s conducive to moral order. Tyrannies aren’t necessarily degenerate. The important thing, though, is that, again, you’re twisted up. Even if tyranny leads to Anything Goes—for the government, at least—the Constitution doesn’t lead to morality. Constitutions can lead directly to tyranny, by being defenseless. Morality led to the Constitution, and only morality can preserve it. It cannot preserve itself.
“Can you give an example of traditional morality (meaning that it was practiced in past by Americans)that must be conserved that is not protected by the constitution.”
Is this a serious question? I couldn’t possibly. The Constitution protects various things worth protecting, directly or indirectly, mostly by suggestion. But it barely brushes by in a canoe the coast of an island of the continent of traditional morality. You can talk about the first amendment protecting free expression, art, religion, the critical attitude, thought itself, etc. But that’s loose talk. No one would know what to do with the floor of freedom to speak, which within Western culture (as butressed by traditional morality) can rise to the heavens, or stay put right there on the cold concrete. Nothing in the Constitution says what happens next, after people can express themselves.
I can sum up what I’’m trying to get across, perhaps, by pointing out that, as our president says, the Constitution is a document of “negative liberties.” It briefly lays out the state’s responsiblities to its citizens, but mostly it says what the state can and can’t do. It doesn’t say what its citizens can or should do once the system is in place. That is basically up to us. You can infer from what the Bill of Rights chooses to protect what’s important to us. Religion, speech, guns, etc. Though this is misleading, since those things were chosen partly because they are especially important to resisting government.
We are not without a constitution.
Perhaps, but tyranny doesn’t mean no moral order. I’m not going to say it’s conducive to moral life, but it doesn’t preclude it. The moral order is bigger than that.
There can't be a moral order within a tyranny by the definition of tyranny. If the government has no moral authority then there can't be a moral order. Individuals could still be moral, and society could still be orderly, after all the trains ran on time during fascist rule, but that doesn't make it a "moral order".
You’re looking things backwards. Without a certain moral order, and various preexisting cultural institutions based on that order, there couldn’t be a Constitution. Ivory tower intellectuals could write one speculatively, but it’d never have force. Moreover, the Constitution needs a moral order to persist. The Founders were explicit on this count, and I agree. Laws are empty without qualified men to administer them and educated men to follow them.
Define these preexisting cultural institutions. I can think of one founder that said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" and while it is a true statement, the same applies to any form of government.
Like I said, I’m not going to say it’s conducive to moral order. Tyrannies aren’t necessarily degenerate. The important thing, though, is that, again, you’re twisted up. Even if tyranny leads to Anything Goes—for the government, at least—the Constitution doesn’t lead to morality. Constitutions can lead directly to tyranny, by being defenseless. Morality led to the Constitution, and only morality can preserve it. It cannot preserve itself.
Tyrannies are inherently immoral. Nothing inherently immoral leads to moral order except perhaps as a result of it being overthrown and typically not even then. I never said that the constitution leads to morality. No government can make a people moral, however, a moral form of government presents the best environment for individuals to be moral.
Is this a serious question? I couldn’t possibly.
Finally something we agree on.
It doesn’t say what its citizens can or should do once the system is in place.
Nor should it. The people tell the government what to do once the system is in place.
I can sum up what I’’m trying to get across, perhaps, by pointing out that, as our president says, the Constitution is a document of “negative liberties”.
Except the President's opinion, like on many issues, is so wrong that the opposite is correct. The constitution absolutely states with perfect clarity both the purpose and the powers of Government. The President, like so many good democrats has the constitution on it's head. What he wants it to mean is that the Government has any power not clearly limited by the constitution.
I'm starting to think you don't even understand the premise of the constitution. Our system of constitutional government was not created to enforce some sort of traditional morality that you can't define, it was created as a moral form of government that protects the freedoms and liberties of the people that created it.
The freedoms of the American people are not completely listed in the constitution. The legitimate powers of government are completely listed.
The constitution wasn't created to make people moral, to enforce morality past its enumerated powers, or to ensure people stay moral. No system of government can do this, and it would be immoral for any government to try. We the people are responsible for our own morality, we are responsible for the morality of their children, and are responsible for keeping the immoral from usurping the constitution.