The US Constitution is NOT flexible. It was never intended to be flexible. That’s why there are provisions for amending the constitution when sufficient numbers of citizens agree an amendment is needed.
At RenewAmerica.com, Edward Daly writes: “Many judges these days like to refer to the Constitution of the United States as a “living, breathing document,” implying that its text is designed to be flexible. It is not. The Constitution is a set of rules, and like any other set of rules, it is meant to be strict and uncompromising. Of course, the Constitution can be modified through the amendment process, but once ratified, any amendment becomes like the rest of the Constitution; rigid.
And while any amendment may be repealed, as was the case with the 18th Amendment (The Prohibition Act), until that happens, it is just as concrete as any other part of the Constitution, and not subject to interpretation beyond the literal meaning of its text. The Constitution does not live, breath, or do the cha-cha, for that matter. It is in many ways an instructional manual for the way our country was designed to run, and amending it is very serious business.” SOURCE
Either the constitution means what it says, or it is of no account — totally useless — and the US is adrift in a sea of utter confusion, ripe for take over by tyrannical forces already tethered deep inside our government.
It is a common expression of the Progressives (read: Marxists) that the constitution is a living, breathing, document. I know it is not. YOU know it is not, and THEY know it is not. BUT — our children don’t. And they won’t — unless parents teach them the truth.
More and more our public schools (read: indoctrination centers) are dropping Civics/government/social studies from the curriculum of their schools. Our young scholars are graduating and entering adult life without a clue as to how the US government works. They are ignorant of our founding documents. They don’t know squat about the constitution. That makes them vulnerable to the protestations from the leftist Marxists that the constitution is a living, breathing, document and open to interpretation — or even change — on a whim of the government.
But, Hey! This is how the progressives/Marxists have been making inroads into the political thinking of American society over the past decades. “Get ’em when their young and you’ll have ’em forever.”
The constitution is writ in stone! If you want to change it, you must carve another stone, as an amendment, and stand it alongside the original. The original constitution is simply not open to interpretation.
Look at it. Read it. A grammar school kid can understand it. The founders took great pains to make the constitution eminently readable and understandable.
In a letter to Henry Lee in 1824, James Madison, considered the “father” of the Constitution, wrote:
“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers.” SOURCE
Please note the line in Madison’s letter in which he says: “In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.” In other words, change the original “sense”(The meaning) of it — and it is NO LONGER THE US CONSTITUTION!
Now. Look at what is happening today, right this moment, in our national government. Bills have been introduced in the Congress that would simply ignore the constitution.
All those gun control bills and gun banning bills simply ignore the original sense, the original wording, of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. The Second Amendment clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be “infringed.”
Infringed means to commit a breach or infraction of; to violate or transgress.
Simply put, the very words of the Second Amendment say — and mean — that the right to keep and bear arms is absolute, sacrosanct, cannot be changed, cannot be denied — in other words, there is not a damned thing the government can do to take the guns of American citizens.
Yet, they are trying their dead-level best to do just that. And they are counting on the support of those adults who passed through our government schools in which they were indoctrinated that the constitution is a living, breathing, document. Those American have, most likely, never heard of Madison’s letter to Henry Lee way back in 1824. (Some, no doubt, have never even heard of James Madison.) I would warrant most have never, ever, read the constitution, either.
Allow me to inquire — why are we allowing this farce to continue? If they get away with it, it means they can simply ignore more of the constitution at will. It means they can change the “sense” of the constitution from the sense/meaning in which it was ORIGINALLY accepted and ratified. If they get their way, the constitution will not be worth the paper it is written on.
The support by the Mainstream Media of the Marxist efforts to reinterpret the Second Amendment would be funny were it not so serious. (“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools …” — Romans 1:22 — New Testament ) They do not seem to grasp that if the sense/meaning of the Second Amendment can be changed — and allowed by the courts to stand — then the sense/meaning of the First Amendment can, likewise, be changed.
Look. The very on-going efforts to re-interpret, or change the sense/meaning of the Second Amendment, is an act of tyranny. The constitution, itself, forbids exactly what they are trying to do.
The 2014 elections are a couple of years away (at this writing) and it will be our first chance at removing the proponents of a living, breathing, constitution from office. In the meantime, we ought to be demanding the resignation of every Senator and every Congressperson supporting the effort to “infringe” upon the Second Amendment and we ought to demand the President resign, as well.
This is quickly becoming more than just a fight to keep our guns. This is a fight to maintain our rights under the US Constitution, our freedom and our liberty.
This is a fight for freedom.
© J. D. Longstreet is a conservative “Carolina Boy.” A Southern American (A native sandlapper (South Carolinian) and an adopted Tar Heel — A North Carolinian) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First.” J. D. Longstreet is a very proud direct descendent of several Confederate soldiers. He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator. Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.
Longstreet’s Commentaries are posted at “INSIGHT on Freedom” at: and at “The Sentinel Factor” at: and “Target: Freedom” at: , and at: “Liberty2Express” at: and “Freedom Dossier” as well as many conservative sites across the World Wide Web.