Lauren Bobert thinks the Constitution can not "evolve"

[msquared]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawmakers-rip-rep-lauren-boebert-090414931.html

There may not need to be a literacy test but maybe there should be a civics test.

The Constitution was designed to evolve.

But we all know that good Christians do not believe in evolution.

[NobleHunter]

Someone should ask her if the commerce clause is intended to restrict or expand the federal government's power.

[msquared]

She probably does not know what the Commerce Clause is. She only knows one thing and that is the 2nd Amendment.  Well maybe not, since that was the Constitution evolving.

[Lloyd Perna]

Nice trick there linking a huff post hit piece from yahoo news to make it look respectable.

[Fenring]

I thought a yahoo was a cowboy or something.

[msquared]

Which part of her tweet was misreported?

[TheDrake]

All of these comments are clueless. I'm no Boebert fan, but she clearly isn't referring to Amendments, which in modern times are largely unthinkable anyway folks. Good luck getting all those supermajorities and ratifications. There is a non-zero probability of a new amendment, but I think we can safely rule them out.

She's clearly referring to the concept of a Living Constitution.

The bad news is that, perhaps because we do not realize what a good job we have done in solving the problem of how to have a living Constitution, inadequate and wrongheaded theories about the Constitution persist. One theory in particular-what is usually called "originalism"-is an especially hardy perennial. Originalism is the antithesis of the idea that we have a living Constitution. It is the view that constitutional provisions mean what the people who adopted them-in the 1790s or 1860s or whenever-understood them to mean. (There are different forms of originalism, but this characterization roughly captures all of them.) In the hands of its most aggressive proponents,originalism simply denies that there is any dilemma about the living Constitution. The Constitution requires today what it required when it was adopted, and there is no need for the Constitution to adapt or change, other than by means of formal amendments.

The proper rebuttal to her tweet, would be to ask WHICH founding father we are spitting at?

In response, Hamilton argued that Jefferson and Madison did not understand the meaning of the Constitution; the general welfare clause was a freestanding grant of power. In addition, he insisted that they did not know what the word necessary meant. Hamilton explained that necessary “often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conducive to.” The meaning of necessary was expansive not restrictive. Clearly the Constitution’s original public meaning was to allow for vast implied powers that went far beyond the enumerated ones. To meet Hamilton’s standard of necessary, one merely had to show that the implied power—issuing a corporate charter for the bank—would be useful for carrying out the enumerated power to tax, and that the implied power was not forbidden by the Constitution.

No spit for Hamilton, spit for Jefferson and Madison.

[Lloyd Perna]

None of it.  The tweet was the first line in the article.  The rest of it was deranged lefties taking the opportunity to overreact when   they all really know she wasn't referring to the amendment process.  Of course she knows the constitution can be amended.

In fact she was responding to Biden's statement that

"You know, there’s always a renewed national debate, every time we nominate, any president, nominates a justice, because the Constitution is always evolving slightly in terms of additional rights, or curtailing rights," Biden said. "And it’s always an issue."

He further goes on to say he's looking for a candidate "with character" and a judicial philosophy that "suggest there are unenumerated rights to the Constitution"

I wonder why your article didn't report on any of that? 

[TheDrake]

None of it.  The tweet was the first line in the article.  The rest of it was deranged lefties taking the opportunity to overreact when   they all really know she wasn't referring to the amendment process.  Of course she knows the constitution can be amended.

I wouldn't give them that much credit. Those critics are detached from reality.

[Crunch]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawmakers-rip-rep-lauren-boebert-090414931.html

There may not need to be a literacy test but maybe there should be a civics test.

The Constitution was designed to evolve.

Oh man, where to start. I suppose being obtuse sounded good but, dude, it doesn't play well. We all know what she meant. I can see from the hit piece linked that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to show they're even more obtuse than anyone else. It's like a competition for the dumbest hot take.

But we all know that good Christians do not believe in evolution.

A complete non-sequitur.

When you think about how short the post was, that it could get so much wrong in the limited space,  it's really pretty impressive.

[cherrypoptart]

It's obvious she's talking about the Constitution evolving the way the left likes it, without a Constitutional Amendment because they know they don't have the support for one. So the words of the Constitution stay the same, the intent of the people who wrote it stays the same, but we change the meaning and intent to whatever we want to which means their original intent and meaning become meaningless as does the Constitution itself when it means whatever we want. The left is just doing to the Constitution what they do to language itself where they make words mean whatever they want so that they mean nothing at all, a bit like AOC just did when talking about capitalism, defining it in a way that no sane person who supports it ever would.

https://news.yahoo.com/aoc-capitalism-not-redeemable-system-110000599.html

"So to me, capitalism at its core, what we're talking about when we talk about that, is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental, and social cost."

Yeah, if that's what capitalism really was, I wouldn't support it either. Just do the same thing with the Constitution and that's how it "evolves", not as intended with amendments.

[TheDeamon]

The Constitution was designed to evolve.

But we all know that good Christians do not believe in evolution.

Darwin didn't propose the theory of evolution until the 19th Century. The Constitution of the US was written in the 18th. 

[Aris Katsaris]

Am on the local non-progressives' side on this, I've not seen sufficient evidence that she actually meant "there was no amendment process in the original constitution"

[Wayward Son]

I think Stephen Breyers put it very well, as this summary describes it:

“People think we decide things politically,” Breyer says, “or that the only way to protect against subjective views of judges is to have something called originalism, which is as if you could reach decisions by means of an historical computer. I don't think any of those things are true.”

Breyer argues that the founders did want a living Constitution; they wrote a Constitution they wanted to last for the ages. The founders knew “perfectly well that conditions would change. The values don't change. The circumstances do.”

He points to the countless Supreme Court cases that debate open matters. “What does that word ‘liberty’ in the 14th Amendment mean? What does ‘due process of law’ mean?”

Citing the Constitution’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual” punishment, Breyer notes that standards of morality evolve over time. “Flogging as a punishment might have been fine in the 18th century. That doesn't mean that it would be OK, and not cruel and unusual, today,” he says.

What about the First Amendment freedom of speech? There was no Internet in 1789 -- no radio or television. You can't simply "freeze" the Constitution with the "dead hand of the 18th century," he contends.

What's more, he says, historians don't agree on what the founders meant at the time they wrote the Constitution.

“History is very often in these matters ... a blank slate or a confused slate, and if you want to govern the country by means of that history, then you better select nine historians and not nine judges to be on the court.”

“And I’ll tell you,” he adds, “those nine historians will very often disagree with each other.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The Constitution evolves because the world around it evolves, and our understanding and beliefs of the core values evolve.

[TheDrake]

I think Stephen Breyers put it very well, as this summary describes it:

“People think we decide things politically,” Breyer says, “or that the only way to protect against subjective views of judges is to have something called originalism, which is as if you could reach decisions by means of an historical computer. I don't think any of those things are true.”

Breyer argues that the founders did want a living Constitution; they wrote a Constitution they wanted to last for the ages. The founders knew “perfectly well that conditions would change. The values don't change. The circumstances do.”

He points to the countless Supreme Court cases that debate open matters. “What does that word ‘liberty’ in the 14th Amendment mean? What does ‘due process of law’ mean?”

Citing the Constitution’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual” punishment, Breyer notes that standards of morality evolve over time. “Flogging as a punishment might have been fine in the 18th century. That doesn't mean that it would be OK, and not cruel and unusual, today,” he says.

What about the First Amendment freedom of speech? There was no Internet in 1789 -- no radio or television. You can't simply "freeze" the Constitution with the "dead hand of the 18th century," he contends.

What's more, he says, historians don't agree on what the founders meant at the time they wrote the Constitution.

“History is very often in these matters ... a blank slate or a confused slate, and if you want to govern the country by means of that history, then you better select nine historians and not nine judges to be on the court.”

“And I’ll tell you,” he adds, “those nine historians will very often disagree with each other.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The Constitution evolves because the world around it evolves, and our understanding and beliefs of the core values evolve.

Yes, people can and do argue about originalist versus living constitution, or more accurately the degree to which we ought to allow for evolution. To wit, the degree to which new technology has created questions about search and seizure. That level of "evolution" however is about resolving ambiguities, not overriding text or expanding powers in a non-specific way - like the battle over the central bank.

Slavery was wrong, but it wasn't the job of the supreme court to outlaw the practice - or was it? Original intenters would have sided with the idea that any restriction to slavery should be unconstitutional. The most flexible "living constitutionalist" might well claim that there are implicit reasons why the clauses should have been reinterpreted to stop slavery.

There's no reason to call Boebert out for not knowing how amendments work.

[Aris Katsaris]

Slavery was wrong, but it wasn't the job of the supreme court to outlaw the practice - or was it? Original intenters would have sided with the idea that any restriction to slavery should be unconstitutional.

The 4th amendment already said that the right of the people to be secure in their person shall not be violated. Not "white people", just people.
The 5th amendment already said no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Not "no white person", just "no person".

These things outlawed slavery already. Slavery proponents were already crapping all over the constitution.

Do please explain to me how the hell was slavery supposedly allowed given the 4th and 5th amendments?

Haha, nevermind I actually know how -- slavery proponents were from the very start doing their creative reinterpretation of the meaning of the text of constitution to the point that you eventually had to have a war to explain with an additional amendment that using the magical word "slavery" doesn't give an exception to what the constitution already said about depriving people of liberty! That nothing in the constitution actually says it only grants rights to white people.

What a fine example you picked, the bit where hypocritical slavery proponents had decided from the start that the text of the constitution simply doesn't matter, because they themselves know that slavery is okay, they themselves know that only white people have rights -- so how can the constitution possibly say what it actually says, it must mean something different instead!

And, to answer your question: Yeah, every sane, every honest Supreme Court judge should have recognized that the 4th and 5th amendments clearly outlawed slavery. If slavery proponents didn't like it, they should amend the amendments.

[TheDrake]

But now you're making an argument in favor of the letter of the law, aren't you? In an interpreted constitution, why wouldn't they be able to decide who is or isn't a person under the Constitution? And wouldn't that also mean that the supreme court could recognize a foetus as a person, with all those same rights? After all, it's an evolving constitution that needs to be adapted for the understanding of the times, right?

[Aris Katsaris]

But now you're making an argument in favor of the letter of the law, aren't you?

When have I ever made an argument for anything else?

I would personally very much like constitutions to mean exactly what they say, and to be formally amended to mean correct new things when it's decided they should mean something different than they did previously.

In an interpreted constitution, why wouldn't they be able to decide who is or isn't a person under the Constitution?

Yes, that's kinda my point. For the whole history of the United States from its very beginning, you've had an "interpreted constitution" whose words the Supreme Court interpreted to mean whatever it was politically useful for it to mean, disregarding its actual plainly spoken words.
And there's no example better than how for an entire century, the first century of USA's existence people pretended that slavery was allowed under the constitution, when clearly it was outlawed under the 4th and 5th amendment.

If you want a non-living, non-evolving, non-speciously interpreted Constitution, sure, I'd personally LOVE that. But don't tell me you ever *actually* had that before at any time in the history of the United States, from its very founding.

Declaring a fetus a non-person is actually much less specious than declaring black people non-persons just for the sake of those amendments, and simultaneoulsy counting them as persons for the sake of article 1, section 2. It takes a good amount of double-think, black people they be persons whenever we need them to be, no? Slaves are useful that way, persons for purpose of article 1, not actually persons for purposes of the bill of rights.

[TheDrake]

But now you're making an argument in favor of the letter of the law, aren't you?

When have I ever made an argument for anything else?

I would personally very much like constitutions to mean exactly what they say, and to be formally amended to mean correct new things when it's decided they should mean something different than they did previously.

I had the wrong impression. You did say you weren't faulting Boebert for her statement, but that wasn't a statement about how the interpretation issue should be determined. Apologies on the misinterpretation.

[Aris Katsaris]

You did say you weren't faulting Boebert for her statement

Just as a further note, I didn't say I wasn't faulting Boebert either, btw. I didn't *judge* Boebert on her statement. I don't know if the founders actually "intended" the constitution to be "evolving" or not. Not sure I particularly care of what they intended or not.

(Part of the bit where I care about the actual text of the constitution, is that I don't actually much care about what the founders intended or not when they were writing it. Because after all, it wasn't their personal diary so if they were actually intending anything relevant, they should put it in the actual text where the rest of the people can read it, when they vote for it or for them.)

What I did was that I merely didn't fault her with the silly "haha she hasn't heard about the concept of amendments" claim that the progressives in this thread seemingly did, disingenuously.

I recognized that (like the non-progressives said) she was probably talking about the 'reinterpretations' that people favour when they don't feel they can actually pass amendments.

[TheDrake]

Consider the hair split.

[msquared]

Ok now Boebert wants the Christian religion to control the Gov.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/adam-kinzinger-practicing-christian-fires-192048198.html

All real Christian Americans need to oppose this woman.