I hate to get all “scholarly” on a miserable rainy Friday. But there was a very interesting discussion a couple days ago on Sean Hannity’s radio program. A caller said that in his mind a good test for Harriet Miers, or any SCOTUS nominee, would be to ask them if they believed the Constitution is a “living document.”
My initial thought was, well of course it is! That is what I was taught throughout my public school education. The Constitution has a mechanism to be amended if enough Americans were moved to do so. In fact, we even have the capability to convene a Constitutional Convention to make changes. So I believe that it is in fact a “living document.” But this caller had another, very interesting interpretation.
He said that in his mind the phrase “living document” meant that judges could intepret the Constitution any way they want. That the words in it don’t mean anything except through the filtered eyes of lifetime-sitting judges. That thought had never struck me before. And it is most disturbing because many if not most of our Federal judges are elite academic types with their heads buried in case law and whose allegiances are with the American Bar, ACLU, and other liberal causes. There is a clear disconnect between the judicial branch and the people. So this caller is right, the Constitution has become a “living document” for the Federal judges, but no longer for “We, the People.”
And then he made a more important point in my mind. The Constitution is a “contract” between our Founding Fathers and “We, the People.” If you had a guy building your home based on a contract you both signed, would you want him to interpret the contract with his own “intent” halfway through construction of your house? Of course not. So why are we allowing our sacred Constitution to be altered based on the will of liberal special interests with undue influence on the Federal judiciary?
Our Federal judges are in “breach of contract” with the American people.
Our President’s duty to us is to reclaim this contract and appoint Federal judges and Supreme Court nominees who believe that as well.
I will be very interested to hear how Ms. Miers answers the question….. “Is the Constitution a ‘living document’?”
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

One day in the late 1970s, when I was growing up in Cincinnati, my Dad took me downtown to see American Nazis’ rallying on Fountain Square, the center of the city. In a corner of the plaza just northeast of the fountain, a group of maybe ten unimpressive, mostly unkempt, white guys were rallying for white supremacy and against Jews and blacks. There were more spectators than there were protesters. Indeed, there may have been more cops, standing shoulder to shoulder in a cordon around the protesters, protecting them from the crowd.
My Dad, an amateur photographer, took a few pictures of the event. One of them showed the stern face of a black policeman, probably in his early 30s or so, with an angry-looking white guy behind him, holding up a sign which read “White Power.” My Dad mounted the picture and titled it “First Amendment.”
Later, as I learned more about Cincinnati’s history, I realized in his childhood, that man probably didn’t think he could be a cop when he grew up. At the time, there were very few black policemen. And there he was protecting the freedom of some kook to rally for white power. Some kook who would surely want to deny that man his freedom to choose a career in law enforcement.
Every time I think of that day–and my Dad’s photograph–I have this wonderful feeling about our great nation; his picture said so much about one of the many things which makes us great. As I studied history and current events in the years following that rally, I learned how, in many countries, even regrettably sometimes in our own, the police did not protect the right of citizens to protest, but rather arrested those who spoke out against the government.
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