Understanding it provides us with an understanding of how the courts work and how they can be checked, and surely this is an objectively good thing. Beyond that, making judgments about the inherent goodness of the system itself is meaningless. Much like your guns, the system is neither good nor bad in and of itself - it's either useful or not useful, but it is the uses to which it is put that determine whether having it is a good thing or a bad thing. If you want to drag value judgments out of me, I will oblige and tell you that the illusion is good insofar as it lets the courts effectively do the things that society truly requires of them, and bad insofar as it lets the courts do all sorts of extraneous things on top of those basic responsibilities.
If that's true, then the Constitution is useless.
Not at all - what I am saying is that if we all stop agreeing to abide by it, then it becomes useless. So long as it serves a function for us, it is useful. The fact that words have meaning doesn't accomplish anything unless there are real flesh-and-blood people who breathe life into them. Check out the Soviet Constitution some time, if you need an illustration - it's just chock-full of rights and freedoms for the workers, but the fact that those words have a true meaning didn't help them very much. And the same thing is possible here as well - you may very well have an objective right to own a gun, but if none of your neighbors agree to respect that right, you're going to have to either move, give up your guns, or wait for them to be pried from your cold, dead hands. Your rights have practical value only insofar as we all agree that they exist and insofar as we all agree to respect them.
The reason this doesn't happen is that they've relinquished that responsibility to the courts. And that's precisely because of the illusion that you so correctly pointed out, but seem so disturbingly unconcerned about.
You can be as concerned as you like about the weather, but that doesn't change the fact that it's raining. But you are quite right about the first part, though - We The People have abdicated our responsibilities, and by extension, so have our spineless representatives. But nature abhors a vacuum, and those responsibilities have to be exercised by someone. So the courts have obligingly filled in for us. And now we want to blame them for the state of the nation. Priceless, isn't it? In the immortal words of William Shatner, "Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes" ;)
It's one thing to say that courts are restrained by public opinion (and to a large extent that's true), but something completely different for you to say that they don't lead society and in fact follow society. They very much do lead society, even if they are a bit - judicious - about it.
The devil is in the details, and the details are actually a bit more complicated than what either of us have yet outlined. I think it's probably accurate to say that what the courts tend to do is, with their preferred ends in mind, gauge public opinion, and introduce things as they think they can. It's not entirely accurate to say that they lead society, and it's not entirely accurate to say that they follow it - what they do is more or less sit back and watch, and dole out new things as they judge that society is ready to accept them. Sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement towards wholesale new changes, and sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement to change things back to the way they used to be. But either way, they haven't got the power or the legitimacy to really force unwanted medicines on the body politic.
Of course they can afford to do otherwise. They don't have to keep grabbing more power for themselves. They do it because they can.
Sorry, I should have been more clear - what I meant was that they can't afford to keep going once the people stop. But they will keep going until then - it's the nature of the beast. The state never shrinks, and never voluntarily gives up power - it only grows. We're supposed to know that - Thomas Hobbes knew it, 350 years ago - and take steps to prevent it, but so far, we haven't. And in the end, whose fault is that?
Which is what I and others are trying to do here. Would you care to join us?
The People have abdicated our responsibilities, and by extension, so have our spineless representatives. But nature abhors a vacuum, and those responsibilities have to be exercised by someone. So the courts have obligingly filled in for us. And now we want to blame them for the state of the nation.
You're forcing me to have to be blunt. Part of what I'm "blaming" is the attitude that you've exhibited, namely that there can be no such thing as an objectively knowable meaning to the Constitution. Many people have allowed themselves to accept that as well, and therein lies the abdication that you've referred to. There's a way out, as I've been trying to show you.
Sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement towards wholesale new changes, and sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement to change things back to the way they used to be.
I see no evidence of the latter, other than purely token sops like United States vs. Lopez that have no effect on anything.
By the way, you said there was a point to your question regarding where states obtain plenary powers to legislate in various types of matters. Did I give you the answer you were looking for?