I was asked if Congress should update the Constitution.
This was my answer;
The main body of the Constitution is fixed for all time. It’s the Amendments that update it by changing the legal interpretation of the various clauses. Example; the 14th Amendment was originally intended to grant citizenship and voting rights to the freed slaves. the supreme court legislated from the bench to expand the coverage to include Anchor babies. If you read; http://www.14thamendment.us/amendment/14th_amendment.html You will see what the Senators who proposed it, explained what it was intended for, and what it has morphed into because of the supreme Court Legislating from the bench.
So you see it’s now become a two pronged method of changing the meaning of the Constitution instead of updating it. Some believe what the courts have done in interpreting has overstepped the clear delineations of power specified within the main body of the Constitution, others do not.
>
If you believe that America was the first experiment at self governance, then by definition you would have to believe it is the people themselves who are the final rightful power to make the decisions about what government will do and what it will not do. Unfortunately people have become too lazy to take that responsibility and have invested it in their elected representatives who over time have now become rulers instead of the hired hand servants they were intended to be.
>
To take back that power, the people would have to use Article-V in either a Delegated Amendment Proposal Convention, or a Convention of States. That would NOT be a Constitutional Convention as the politically vested have used to scare the people away from taking back their power legally and Constitutionally. The people using Article-V would have the same protections and restrictions that Congress has when they have called it 27 times since the Constitution was first Ratified.
In actuality Article-V was placed in the Main Body of the Constitution by our Founders as a last resort for the people to rein in an overreaching and unresponsive government with a bloodless use of power.
Remember this above all else; America is a Republic and is governed by the express consent of the governed themselves.
Click on the picture to see the 14th Amendment presentation.
