The Constitution should be considered...

[MaC]

Yes, I've probably oversimplified here, but I think that most people fit into two camps even if the lines are not clearly drawn.

Based off of this conversation:

A new one would be good provided it's almost identical to the former (mainly updated language); plus there should be more safeguards for individual liberty and defined punishments for those in office who abuse or deviate far from the written Constitution.  This is to say that this Constitution should also be considered 'dead' in that it shouldn't be modified whenever progressive reactionaries have a bleeding heart cause.

"progressive reactionaries"? Did you come up with that yourself?

I'm going to say something that will scare you and Emsworth:

The Constitution is a living document

Oh my god the horror!!

Well, what I have to say to this Pym, is what if somebody in power decided to abolish the first amendment during say the 1950s when we had the 'red scare'.  Now at the time free speech was very much restricted and the first wasn't respected (hell, you couldn't even say 'pregnant' on television).  But let's say that the powers at the time decided it was in the 'best interest' of the American people to repeal the first Amendment, and it was still repealed today.  You wouldn't be enjoying "Brokeback Mountain" because it would discourage deviant behavior.  You might not even be able to post here if you were considered too radical.

I hope this help explains the case for a "dead" Constitution in that it shouldn't be tampered with, and the only good thing that came out of messing with it was equal suffrage and abolition of slavery.

[Emsworth]

My position on this issue very closely matches the view expressed by Justice George Sutherland in his dissent to West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937):

"We frequently are told in more general words that the Constitution must be construed in the light of the present. If by that it is meant that the Constitution is made up of living words that apply to every new condition which they include, the statement is quite true. But to say, if that be intended, that the words of the Constitution mean today what they did not mean when written ... is to rob that instrument of the essential element which continues it in force as the people have made it until they, and not their official agents, have made it otherwise. ...

"The judicial function is that of interpretation; it does not include the power of amendment under the guise of interpretation. To miss the point of difference between the two is to miss all that the phrase 'supreme law of the land' stands for, and to convert what was intended as inescapable and enduring mandates into mere moral reflections."