The "Crazy" Constitution

Expect to see more crazy stuff like this from the so-called "Justice Democrats" or "Democratic Socialists".

Or stuff like this where the person is arguing the U.S. Constitution is outdated based on two premises that are completely false.

I guess Regina Fake does not know that there is absolutely nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says women can't vote. In fact, a number of states permitted women to vote before the 19th Amendment was ratified. In addition, Regina does not seem to understand that the 3/5 provision applied only to slaves in slave states---not to blacks generally. In a number of northern states blacks had been voting since before the Constitution was even written.

The provision was put into the Constitution to penalize the slave states and diminish their representation and influence in Congress with the intent of eventually eliminating slavery. Slaves were not 3/5 of a person. The states with slaves were not allowed to claim they had the full representative power of those people.

It is too easily forgotten that the United States of America is the oldest continuous government system that exists in the world today. Think about that. Think about all the other large countries in the world today. UK. France. Germany. Russia. China. Japan. They have all undergone fundamental changes in their governmental structure since our founding. The stability of the United States is unmatched compared to any other in existence.

That continuity and stability also is a significant reason why the United States economy has also been the envy of the world for decades upon decades.

It is quite remarkable that something that dates back to the 1700's has served us, and continues to serve us, so well.

As to the unequal representation based on population of each state, this was fully understood by the Founders. The population of the states were skewed considerably when the Constitution was written. The three most populous states--Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania--made up almost half of the population of the new nation.

In fact, here is a document from the papers of the U.S. Archives that shows the population of the various states while the U.S. Constitution was being debated and written by the Founders.

Note that Virginia had over 1/6 of the nation's population at that time. By comparison, California has 1/8 of the population today.

Credit: National Archives from the papers of David Brearley

Many of the most influential Founders were also from Virginia---Washington, Jefferson, Madison as well as George Mason, Edmund Randolph and George Wythe. Yet, Virginia still ended up with only two senators like every other state.

The Founders knew full well what they were doing. There were very clear population differences in the states at the time the Constitution was written and ratified. That is why the House of Representatives was established that allocated representation on the basis of population.

However, the nation being formed was called the United STATES of America for a reason. A fundamental principle from our founding was that smaller states would not have their interests and voices diminished by larger states with larger populations.

The real reason that the liberals attack the Constitution and try to diminish it is that it stands in their way to transform the country into their progressive vision.

The Founders provided a manner to amend the Constitution. It just requires the consent of 2/3 of the House and Senate and 3/4 of the states to agree. Notably for the liberals who despise Trump today, it does not require the President to concur. Alternatively, it can be amended by a convention called by 2/3 of the states thereby bypassing Congress altogether followed by ratification by 3/4 of the states.

It is hard to amend the Constitution. It was meant to be hard. After all, it is the highest law. Or it is supposed to be. In recent years, liberals have turned to using the Supreme Court to replace the Constitution.

That is why the Supreme Court is everything to Liberals. Most everything they care about in the last 50 years did not come from legislation or constitutional amendment but by the opinions of five Supreme Court justices. Look no further than abortion and gay marriage as prime examples. Or the affirmation of the constitutionality of Obamacare which is now under further threat by another judicial ruling by a federal judge in Texas.

Every new appointment to the Supreme Courts puts their agenda at risk. They know that they do not have the support of the necessary majorities of American voters to support and extend their progressive agenda. They do not want to follow the Constitution to get there.

Our Founders wanted a clear consensus before we made radical changes to the rules that governed us. They didn't want the "highest law" being changed based on passing fancies and the short-terms whims of the people. They also did not want slim majorities trampling on minority rights. Or the views in several states to overwhelm differing views in smaller states. They wanted true consensus on any amendments. The Democrats simply don't want to wait and do the heavy lifting necessary to do that.

Is the Constitution crazy and unfit for modern times?

No.

Crazy only describes those that want to undermine and undo the foundational document that underlies the greatest government system ever known to man in the history of the world.