Posted on 06/04/2005 6:07:03 AM PDT by George Frm Br00klyn Park
WorldNetDaily / Commentary
The Constitution, version 2.0
Posted: June 4, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Alan Sears
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
During the next 15 years, the United States could see some incredible transformations. Every young adult would be given $80,000 via a new tax on the "rich." Felons would be allowed to vote. A second Bill of Rights would be instituted, complete with a slew of new entitlements to ensure social and economic "equality." And most amazingly, no one will need – or even be allowed – to vote on these sweeping changes. Unelected judges could simply mandate each of them – for our own good, of course.
None of these changes are inevitable, but lest you chalk it all up as alarmist hype, an influential group of legal scholars seeks to make these things – and more – a reality.
In April, Yale Law School's chapter of the American Constitutional Society sponsored a conference titled "The Constitution in 2020." The event was designed to foster leftist policies into being, with the consent of neither voters nor elected officials. Perhaps this strategy should be expected in light of the desperation of many leftist politicians to remain in office these days. Not surprisingly, one of the conference's main financial backers was left-leaning and Bush-bashing international financier George Soros.
The first sentence of the conference description stated the goal forthrightly: "It is time for progressives to set a constitutional agenda for the 21st century." Yale law professor and opening speaker Bruce Ackerman revealed how sweeping their dream agenda could extend.
The professor promoted taxing the "wealthy" to create a "citizenship inheritance" of $80,000 for every young adult to use as each sees fit. In addition, Ackerman and other conference speakers believe that we as a nation need convicted murderers, rapists and other felons to help us select our leaders at the ballot box.
Harvard Law's lMartha Minow agreed.
"For the politically unpopular and disenfranchised – including detained immigrants, children and literally disenfranchised ex-convicts – we do need to ramp up affirmative constitutional aid," she urged.
But affirmative action for felons and non-citizens wasn't enough for some. University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein insisted that even more progressive "constitutional interpretation" was required.
"It is important to be clear on what is meant by 'the Constitution,'" he said, churning up thankfully forgotten days when we wondered what the meaning of the word "is" is. "That idea could of course be limited to what is technically part of constitutional law as the Supreme Court understands it. Much more ambitiously, it could include anything deemed 'constitutive' of national commitments and principles."
And which "commitments and principles" is Sunstein referring to? Well, leftist ones, of course.
The professor referred at length to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's proposed "Second Bill of Rights," which would invent bizarre, socialistic governmental guarantees our Founding Fathers never could have dreamed of.
Rights to a well-paying job, housing, health care, education, recreation and even freedom from "unfair competition" are included in this imagined constitution. No mention, of course, is made of the destruction of our nation's economic engine in the process.
While the original Bill of Rights set limits on the government, the Bill of Rights "the Sequel" would grant the state inconceivable authority to intervene in every sector of our lives.
If brought to the electorate, this breathtaking expansion of state power would be emphatically laughed out of town halls from Arizona to Vermont. But while the proposals seem outlandish today, government-sanctioned abortion and same-sex "marriage" seemed equally outlandish before being fabricated by some members of an unelected judiciary.
The sad truth is that, practically speaking, the only impediment these days to government-enforced recreation and nationwide salary caps is the interpretation of one more runaway Supreme Court decision. And if this effort is allowed to prevail, the results will be with us for a very long time.
Left-leaning columnist Joshua Micah Marshall reveled in the promise of the 2020 conference.
"This isn't about 2006 or 2008 or figuring how all the cards might fall right in this or that cycle," he said. "It's about creating the building blocks of progressive reform, one step at a time, one lawyer at a time, one new idea at a time, building networks of like-minded individuals who create enduring change. That's stuff that doesn't show results in a week or a month; but it endures."
The left has made it clear that the will of the people is not their primary objective, and they are willing to work incrementally to achieve their goals if need be. The conference at Yale demonstrates how important the judiciary is to our future. It is a startling reminder of the need for our judges to interpret the Constitution for what it clearly says – rather than what they wish it said.
Alan Sears, formerly chief of the criminal section of a U.S. Attorney's Office and an associate solicitor of the U.S. Department of Interior, is president and CEO of theAlliance Defense Fund, America's largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding and litigation.
Yup!
Since ... um ....
"Yea, hath God said ... ?"
The Bible is front to back full of good and excellent teachings.
I learned very early in my relationship with Christ, that the best and most common way we are induced to fall is to question God.
Some good teachers in my life have been able to articulate how that question by Satan to Eve, in The Garden, has been his (Satan's) favorite and most effective modus operandi .... question authority.
Whether we accept authority or not, the fact is there will always be an authority in our lives.
If we switch our allegience to authority from God to Satan, guess who becomes the more powerful?
We can never win a war by depleting our ranks ... we need to promote the ones already in-service and recruit new soldiers.
The same is true with America, Americanism, Patriotism and simular such ideas.
If America does not promote into leadership (or the potential leaders never step forward), and recruit new ones (I really enjoy those posts that announce a new FReeper has been born ... ), We will continue to get the Nancy Pelosi's and John Kerry's and etc., etc.
Whom will perform their particular brand of recruiting (the same enticements used by Satan ... lust of the eyes, of the flesh and of self) and they will overcome.
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; Then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
2 Chronicles 2:14
Still very sound teaching (doctrine).
Congress has had 200 years to "begin" and never has. If you think they're going to start now you're mistaken.
Remember that the Constitution gives the people a means to change whatever doesn't work, and the judicial system doesn't work except for liberals. The Framers knew some changes would have to be made, and they had an abiding distrust of a court system that could get out of control.
So, why are you so much against doing what the Framers gave us the means to do, and what's wrong with judicial term limits?
"Rights to a well-paying job, housing, health care, education, recreation . . . are included in this imagined constitution."
Gee, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought every citizen in the US already had these rights.
---This is the most cogent argument I've ever seen for abolishing judicial review. ---
Then we would be in the same shape as the British. The Parliament passes any stupid law they wish and your only recourse is to go beg your Member of Parliament to please reconsider or vote for another one in hopes getting another party in that might change the law.
Look at British gun laws! The Brits beheaded one king that tried to take their arms and dismiss Parliament. Now through Parliament and various bureaucratic regulations they've been almost completely stripped of their traditional rights.
I'm getting real sick of Cass Sunstein and Joshua Micah Marshall.
Thanks for the ping. They're not that bad...they afterall ARE progessive. (rolling eyes icon)
I read the article earlier this morning and have already saved it to my file. Before someone else says it, welcome to the Soviet States of America.
Cheers,
Lloyd
ping!!!
The Constitution version 2.0 come about when Lincoln took office. We are now looking toward version 3.0 or is it 4.0. FDR did even more damage to it.
A billion is good. Why if the government gave every citizen a billion we would all be rich! Yea, that's the ticket!
This would be even better. Then they wouldn't have to work, which would leave more jobs for the 'undocumented workers'. :)
"Why stop at $80,000? Indeed giving each citizen a billion or so is no sillier and not much more self-destructive either."
Because if you make over that you are an evil rich person, except for hollywood elitists pinko commies and New York/New England elitists.
Ladies and Gentlemen, these are the stakes in the judicial confirmation battle. This is why conservatives are so livid at the Gang of 14 who acted as enablers to Our Robed Masters. Mr. Frist, get these fine men and women confirmed!
I like this Constitution Society better:
http://www.constitution.org/
Yes it is - and one of my favorites!
...that question by Satan to Eve,
"Ye shall not surely die:" Gen. 3:4
The beginning of the end.
Well put.
I say hang every last one of these despotic traitors and usurpers, burn down the law schools of Harvard and Yale, and begin anew with professors who teach Constitutionalism instead of watered-down Marxism.
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