Chicken soup for the Constitutionally baffled

We all take an oath to protect a document that was written oh so long ago, which defines our freedoms and the limitations of our government. However, today we see that this whole notion is flipped upon its head; today our freedoms are limited and the government has an uneasy amount of control. The way that today's government has justified this is by claiming that it is their constitutional right to do so in times of war, or in a state of emergency. This is what confuses me. In an examination of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights we can see how incredibly vague and optimistic of a document it is. To me the Constitution seems like the moral code of a government, and less like a doctrine. The vagueness of this document and its openness to interpretation is both its blessing and its curse.

The analysis of the blessings is one that is easier. The document has become timeless for two main reasons: its ability to be adapted to each new-coming generation's morals and values, and its openness to amendments. The argument still remains of whether or not the Constitution should be read as its framers intended. If you think about it much of the framers hated big government and wanted more states' rights, and wanted to limit the power of the president, and created a strong congress. However, today we also have the exact opposite. But that is coming to dwell upon the curse and not the blessing. The primary blessing of the Constitution is the fact that it keeps true American blood pumping within us. By this I don't mean the blind tribalism that plagues us into ignorance and intolerance, I am talking about the fact that the Constitution keeps the blood of debate pumping within us that we received from our forefathers. The fact that the Constitution is so vague it lends itself to intelligent debate over how it should be interpreted, and one text can support so many different points of view. I saw a great example of this in Woll document # 5. We see a classic debate over this Constitution by two of our greatest minds, Madison, the writer of the Constitution, and Hamilton, the writer of many of the Federalist Papers. They both argued about the pros and cons of the separation of powers system. Madison saw the system as one that would encourage competition and insure the checks and balances, which would limit arbitrary and excessive governmental actions. Hamilton argued that an independent presidency, a central component of the separation of powers, makes the national government energetic and effective. Also he argued that if the presidency was going to be effective it could not be equal to the Congress and the Supreme Court. This leads us to the curses of its vagueness.

The Constitution's vagueness becomes explicitly clearer when it speaks of war. Within the Constitution it seems that just about any right of the people is subject to suspension when it comes to "states of emergency," which ironically erodes democracy and strengthens the executive branch and especially the president. This brings us to more appetizing arguments about the interpretation of the Constitution and what it explicitly states.

In order to better analyze how the Constitution is read and interpreted, it is best to look at how it shouldn't. Woll argues that the Constitution should not be seen as a manuscript for the government, but as a proclamation of ideals; it should not be seen as a "framework," and not a "blueprint." The statements of Amendments are explicit, but no examples are given. In order to tackle these ideas Woll poses a few questions of his own: "How are the visions, premises, and convictions [that applied to our forefathers] relevant to how this brief text ought to be read?" In easier words he asks how should we read it, or better yet, how should it not be read. He goes on to divide us into two types of readers of the Constitution, those of us who see the Constitution as a mirror in which we see what we wish to, and those of us who see it as literal law. The fact that the Constitution is so loosely written it is easy to see why so many fear, "how easily men satisfy themselves that the Constitution is exactly what they wish it to be." And also if the Constitution was nothing more than a mere mirror for self interests then it would loose all "legitimacy." Woll's solution is to hold true to the core ideals of the Constitution, and simply maneuver around the edges. He states that there are many areas of contradictions in the Constitution, but that is because of all that it contains, both a manuscript for government, and a proclamation of ideals. However, I feel as though the Constitution does not necessarily gives all the rights that are accredited to it.

In the original Constitution the right of women and African Americans were not even stated let alone insured, but that is history. What about today? Which rights to do we assume we have but are not neccarily given textually within the Constitution? In the light of the coming Constitution day, the Arizona Daily Star published an article titled Constitutional Myth busters (http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/257155.php). From this article it was easy to gather all the rights that we simply assume are endowed to us from our Constitution, and we all see how important it the Constitution itself is for a successful government. The most obvious of these unwritten rights is the right to privacy, which can be implied from many places such as the Fourth Amendment, and then reassured by the Supreme Court cases such as Roe v. Wade and court cases in Connecticut which led up to it. Also the right for freedom against censorship is also not explicitly given in the Constitution and specifically it’s First Amendment. The First Amendment is no shield for absolute rights, but it does guarantee a few of our fantasized rights such as free speech as long as it does not over step its bounds. The two areas that are not protected are classified information, and obscenity such as child pornography. The moral from these two examples is that there are limits that are not meant to overstep. However, an interesting argument can be made as a tangent to these points: is a Constitution, which is so incredibly malleable and vague, even all that necessary in government, and even more importantly in a democracy?

This leads me into the "Debating Democracy" packet reading, which presents interesting points and counter points in this very discussion. Miroff writes about how civic partisanship (which is also not textually insured by the Constitution) is also not all that necessary when it comes to actual nuts and bolts of running a democracy. For him a Constitution itself is secondary as well, and that idea of democracy is one that is just to broad to be limited be petty mechanics. However, these petty mechanics are what hold our breached freedoms in place today. Honestly there is no chicken soup for the constitutionally baffled. In this case intellectual debate is our cure to unbafflement.