there’s a difference between people who wear it on shirts and put stickers on their cars to make a political statement and then cherry pick what they like out of the constitution and then there’s normal people who respect the constitution as a rule of law and respect the oath taken to defend it
I will never cease to be amazed at the degree to which many of my AmeriBros seem to fetishize the constitution as an immutable thing, as opposed to a living document and a statement of fundamental principles. It's like George Washington brought it down from Mt. Vernon carved into stone tablets.
I'm a pretty big Constitution Stan. It needs some tweaking, for sure, but it is pretty amazing. The timing of it was pretty key. We couldn't do better today.
I'm 3/5 in agreement with you. Without pretending to be able to do better, it has some massive gaps, such as its reliance on respect for norms, its utter failure to allow for demographic or technological evolution, its ambiguity on key concepts like muh gunz, and its comparatively sclerotic nature.
And yes, 3/5 - well played.
Not in complete agreement, but I understand the frustrations. There are definitely some needed updates, but ambiguity isn't bad at the federal level in some instances.
Ambiguity only goes so far, and sometimes it is inevitable. Take the 1st Amendment. "Congress shall make no law..." - absolutely crystal clear. And yet, the US does not have freedom of speech, e.g. even Brandenburg v. Ohio places limits on expression, and the existence of "free speech zones". \1
...and we won't even get into what SCOTUS have upheld in terms of religion (or do court decisions not count as "Congress shall make no law"? Then, 2A. Ambiguous, just because of that fucking comma, and because nobody saw AR-15s coming, and how many school shootings is that this year? \2
...and then there's that pesky slavery thing. <3 13A, but whoa Nelly, what's that "...except [...]" bit in there? Is that forced prison labour I see on yonder highway shoulder? So I guess we could revert to strict interpretationalism, except that kind of puts the kibosh on pretty most... \3
...socioeconomic or political innovations of the last >200 years, and don't get me started on things like war powers, and what to do if a minority of voters and their elected representatives suddenly decide that treason and grift and raping little girls are just peachy keen \4
...I'll readily agree that it was a revolutionary (literally) and incredibly influential document for its time - hell, even my own country's first constitution cribbed from it. But note "first" - because that was in 1848 and we've had 3 so far. Because the world changes, and we should adapt. \5
...but no, I think it's horribly outdated, insufficient, inflexible, and not fit for purpose. Just my 2c - the US has a clear choice. Either confront some pretty sticky questions, like the limits of speech in the age of social media and FIMI, head-on, or simply cease to exist in the coming years.
I know what you're saying. I'd also wear a t-shirt though!