But in the end, you’re still trying to build a structure to withstand being inhabited by people who have no idea how it was built or what keeps it standing, but take it for granted and continue to knock out walls when they become inconvenient. That merely delays the inevitable end.

As with real buildings, the only open-ended solution is active maintenance of the building by qualified individuals — and to keep up the supply of those, you need active maintenance of the *culture*. That’s the challenge no civilization has yet solved.

A constitution is not a philosophical treatise on the nature of government; it details the organization and limits of government, not the reasons therefor.

Do you honestly believe that would make a difference?

It would be construed (i.e. misconstrued) to fit whatever, at that moment, was popular in the courts.

The problem is the intellectuals’ prodigious ignorance of the constitution and their philosophy which renders this ignorance acceptable, not the Constitution itself; its faults are trivial by comparison.

If you are interested in the actual meaning of the constitution, I would recommend, outside the Federalist Letters and the writings of James Madison, Joseph Story’s “Commentaries On The Constitution Of The United States” or the abridged version titled “A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States.” He lays out the constitution and explains each article and section.

This is a great quote by Adams. One which religious conservatives constantly tout as proof that America was and must again become a religious country if it is to survive. But the truth behind Adam’s statement is not that America was religious but that it was philosophical. Skepticism can not support a healthy (or any) society. And thanks to Hume and Kant (which is worse?) we are drowning in skepticism, relativism and its political consequence – collectivism. Its actually amazing America is holding out as long as she is given the leftist assault she has been subjected to.

I am amazed that they were able to anticipate as much as they did.

While I would like to think that if an Objectivist were transported back to 1787 and were able to fix all the flaws in that document with the advantage of hindsight, I still don’t believe that the resulting document would have been more idiot-proof; as they say, they are always coming up with “better idiots”, in a manner of speaking.

IMO, Adams was about as prescient as could be expected, given the context, when he said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In other words, if the culture and intellect go to hell, as they clearly have, the best possible Constitution can only delay the end.

Seriously, every time I think that David Brooks is utterly worthless, he surprises me and becomes even worthlesser.

You said, “There could have been safeguards built into our constitution if the founders had not written conradictions into it like giving the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce… ”

The term “regulate” does not here have its modern connotation; it means “to make regular”, i.e. to make the rules governing trade between the states consistent among the states. This is a legitimate function of government.

This was meant to avoid some of the problems which arose under the confederation, e.g. the state judges would favor their own residents in property and contractual disputes involving parties from multiple states.

I’ve speculated that Obama may be setting the stage for nominating Cass Sunstein (thanks for the plug, Harold) either now, if Sotomayor is rejected, or when the next opening comes up. Sunstein, being much smarter, and much much worse philosophically, would be a dominant force on the Court. Sotomayor will just be another leftist vote.

You mentioned that the Republicans of today are hapless, and I fully agree. They can’t construct a principled argument against Sotomayor, or anything else for that matter. And if it was McCain in the White House, he’d be bowing the the religious faction and using the anti-abortion litmus test. The left uses a tribalistic litmus, and the right uses a mystic litmus. In the end, it’s our liberties that suffer either way.

Rajesh: Mike N answered pretty well, but I would add that, if you want some specific examples, look to vague language like “promote the general welfare” which has been bastardized to mean whatever the statists want it to mean. Or in the Declaration, where the “property” was replaced with “the pursuit of happiness.” It was vague even then, but it made sense at the time because the culture was much better (more reasoning).

Also, you asked why the Founders couldn’t see this coming. Well, they did to a certain extent, because they looked to ancient Greece and Rome, as well as their very recent separation from monarchy for examples. They didn’t want the federation to collapse like the Greek city states, they didn’t want a king, and they wanted to improve on the Roman republic with the new knowledge from thinkers like Locke. Still, they didn’t have the benefit of Ayn Rand’s insights, and had not abandoned the altruist morality. They either didn’t see the contradiction between property rights and the morality of sacrifice, or they couldn’t figure a way around it. So they relied on the implicit understanding of the importance of property rights in the culture at the time. And now, as the culture has deteriorated (as Myrhaf pointed out) the lack of explicit definition in the Constitution is coming back to bite us. Now we’re only relying on what little is left of the American sense of life to protect individual rights.

I wanted to try and end this comment on a more positive note, but now I’ll simply echo what Myrhaf said. Things are getting darker.

Obama is a hate filled racist so it is no surprise he would find another, Sotomeyer, attractive. It is the philosophy of Kant that has made these two people possible and the only way to fight them is on the philosophical level. I don’t mean a direct philosophical confratation with them. They will simply ignore ideas. I mean introducing a human philosophy to the young who will eventually replace nihilists like these with people who respect human life.

I guess they couldn’t have thought that the country would be abandoned by the intellectuals in such a big way. I wonder if we ever defeat the “dark ages” of our times, could there be safeguards built into constitution to prevent such attempts to choke it.

The left has succeeded in creating a culture where only whites can be racist and no one else. Leftists can say the most vile, racist things and get away with it because they are of course motivated by the best of intentions, ie altruism and “equality”. Some conservatives get this but (Krauthammer for example) not nearly enough.

Now he is trumpeting some article that claims Sotomayor is a “moderate” on business matters. Isn’t that wonderful? She is only against property rights *some of the time.* Let’s all stand up and cheer, shall we?

Johnson has for some time been going out of his way looking for reasons to praise Obama and his decisions, and his minions.

Instead of looking for feet of clay in a hero, Johnson is looking for a heart of gold in a villain. These are two sides of the same coin. You tear down the heroes, and lift up the villains. Egalitarianism, it seems, is the result of Johnson’s moderate-ism. The victim of both of these ideas is: Justice.