View of Constitution

[BenBurch]

How do you view the Constitution?  

A: A living document, that evolves over time

B: Or are you an originalist?

Discuss your views below, in the comment section.  Let's start a conversation! 

[BenBurch]

Kinda curious, so I thought I'd post this.

[BenBurch]

I consider it to evolve somewhat, especially regarding completely new concepts and technologies. For example, I strongly believe that the Fourth Amendment applies to digital documents and records even though a perfectly strict "dictionary-literal" reading of "persons, papers, houses, and effects" would not include them - I think "papers" includes them even if the Founders were not explicitly thinking of information stored on spinning magnetic disks when they wrote it.

The constitution "evolving" against its own intent, like some claim with the second amendment, is more dubious to me.

This is an excellent post.  Your second paragraph is more what I had in mind with an evolving Constitution than the first.  Nice to know we agree brother!

[BenBurch]

I'm an originalist. A Constitution/bill of rights that changes with the political whims of the moment is dead. They were specifically designed to not change with passions of the moment and to have their principles remain consistent through time; this is the best way to ensure that the rights of political minorities/individuals remain protected.

I agree with this completely.

     I also agree. People will sometimes strawman the originalist position by representing it as a worldview obsessed with old dead men. That misunderstands the point of the Constitution, though. It reflects a constant set of principles about what constitutes good government, and that is what the originalist position cares about. I do not adhere to the Constitutionalist position necessarily because it is the Constitution (though its role as the supreme law of the land must be recognized), but because it defines what is the ne plus ultra of the proper role of government.

     It does not matter what Jefferson would have thought about computers, but rather what the ideas on the role of government that form the foundation of the Constitution would have led one to conclude about computers. This is how we can know that "papers" includes digital content, even though such things obviously did not exist when the document was written.

Yes, yes and yes!