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Professor: Take our country back, from the Constitution
cbsnews.com ^

Posted on 01/27/2013 8:36:51 AM PST by Sub-Driver

Professor: Take our country back, from the Constitution

The U.S. Constitution - a document perhaps too revered, says Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman. (Library of Congress)

(CBS News) Is the U.S. Constitution truly worthy of the reverence in which most Americans hold it? A view on that from Louis Michael Seidman, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University:

I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution.

I know, it sounds radical, but it's really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie.

For example, most of our greatest Presidents -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts -- had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.

To be clear, I don't think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago.

Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn't a natural-born citizen. So what?

Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: academicbias; antiamericanism; anticonstitution; constitution; constitutionalcrisis; littleredschoolhouse; naughtyteacherslist; sedition; seebsnews; wddim
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To: Francis McClobber
He seems like a classic example of a perfesser who hasn’t done much more than research or navel gazing for a mellinium or two.

An "Ivory Tower Idiot"
Educated beyond all reason....


41 posted on 01/27/2013 9:37:00 AM PST by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: Smokin' Joe
So.... If it feels good, do it?
Pretty scary as a system of government, IMHO.



It's damned scary but it goes a long way to explain why highter education system is the way it is

42 posted on 01/27/2013 9:41:31 AM PST by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: Sub-Driver

Seidman.

Another ‘academic’ who conveniently looks past the atrocities committed by the NAZIs to support their same end goal.

Big surprise.


43 posted on 01/27/2013 9:44:27 AM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: GOPJ
Scummy elites run most 3rd world hellholes... In those places, elites “do it their way and in a hurry”.

You mean like "Progressive" New York and it's recently passed "gun laws" that even outlaws their own cops from having those "scary"gun magazines?
44 posted on 01/27/2013 9:45:07 AM PST by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: Sub-Driver
Let's give up on the Constitution.

Okay, Doc. Let's.

I hereby declare that the constitutional elective process is null and void and that the Pretender currently occupying the White House is to vacate those premises within 72 hours (leaving all the furniture and silverware behind). I further declare that I will henceforth be the Supreme Leader of this Nation, and that the Democratic Party is to be considered an outlaw organization.

Oh, and Congress is fired.

45 posted on 01/27/2013 9:50:14 AM PST by IronJack (=)
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To: kcvl
The Constitution is difficult to change precisely because the Founding Fathers knew that jackwagons like this Seidman would come along every so often and want to destroy it.
46 posted on 01/27/2013 9:53:00 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
There are more tears over answered prayers than unanswered ones, professor.

I wonder how wonderful the good professor would think his ideas are when a different group gets in power.

IIRC, the marxists/liberal/progressives were the ones screaming the loudest when Bush was making moves they did not suit them.

Isn't it groups like the ACLU and Eviros that are constantly in court to defend their "rights" under the constitution?

47 posted on 01/27/2013 9:54:06 AM PST by oldbrowser (They are marxists, don't call them democrats)
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To: central_va

Maybe the South saw the distant future-—“If they (the North) prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion of States forever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible democracy. The Government does not now recognize itself as an ordinance of God, and when all the checks and balances of the Constitution are gone, we may easily figure to ourselves the career and the destiny of this godless monster of democratic absolutism. The progress of regulated liberty on this continent will be arrested, anarchy will soon succeed, and the end will be a military despotism, which preserves order by the sacrifice of the last vestige of liberty.

They are now fighting the battle of despotism. They have put their Constitution under their feet; they have annulled its most sacred provisions; The future fortunes of our children, and of this continent, would then be determined by a tyranny which has no parallel in history.”
Dr. James Henly Thornwell of South Carolina, in Our Danger and our Duty, 1862


48 posted on 01/27/2013 9:54:29 AM PST by yadent
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To: kcvl
Louis Michael Seidman... aka: “Tar Baby the Lamp Post Decoration” without that silly Constitution...
49 posted on 01/27/2013 10:06:36 AM PST by M-cubed
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To: Tea Party Terrorist

I never meant to imply give up the Document; I meant to say that I’d give up the government that is responsible for safeguarding it. Traditional America and its grand history is no more. They do not have the right now in my book. They only want to destroy it.


50 posted on 01/27/2013 10:07:57 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: loveliberty2
Altho' the old idea of a compact between the Govt. & the people be justly exploded, the idea of a compact among those who are parties to a Govt. is a fundamental principle of free Govt.

The whole Progressive enterprise is based on what Madison wanted to be "justly exploded"...how many times has Obama talked as if we have a "social contract"(compact) between the Gov't and the people, rather than among the parties of the people joining to compose the government.

51 posted on 01/27/2013 10:14:33 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: BenLurkin

Great comment.


52 posted on 01/27/2013 10:19:16 AM PST by firebrand
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To: hinckley buzzard
Thanks for your comment. In addition to the erroneous idea you speak of is the likewise false concept that ours is a "democracy." Any student of America's founding ideas understands that the idea of "democracy" was rejected in favor of liberty in a representative republic.

"Progressive" use of semantics, misrepresentation of ideas, and outright censorship of the principles of liberty from the nation's textbooks and public discourse have resulted in voters who are participating in the destruction of freedom for future generations.

For a quick review of those principles and our nation's first 50 years under its Constitution, consult John Quincy Adams' "Jubilee" Address here, or a recent reprint of a 1987 Bicentennial collection of the Founders' principles, here

53 posted on 01/27/2013 10:35:24 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: Sub-Driver

The Constitution is the charter document of the United States. “Get rid of it” and the Union is dissolved.

As a Southerner, I can see some positive points to this.


54 posted on 01/27/2013 10:35:31 AM PST by Little Ray (Waiting for the return of the Gods of the Copybook Headings.)
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To: oldbrowser

History shows that without the rule of law and limited government, the most ruthless and unprincipled seize power. Stalin and Hitler were not anomalies, they were the logical and inevitable consequence of rule by demagoguery.


55 posted on 01/27/2013 10:37:18 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (What word begins with "O" and ends in economic collapse?)
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To: Sub-Driver

This is the definition of “domestic enemy” as in “preserve, protect and defend against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic”.

Seidman takes a big risk, outing himself like this.


56 posted on 01/27/2013 10:37:18 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: Sub-Driver; a fool in paradise

An intellectual midget gets his 15 minutes of fame. It’s over shorty, back to frenemies LiLo and Paris.


57 posted on 01/27/2013 10:57:50 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Sub-Driver; Revolting cat!
Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn't a natural-born citizen. So what?

IBWDDIM!


58 posted on 01/27/2013 11:08:46 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: a fool in paradise

"I'm crushing your head....I'm crushing your head.,,,"

59 posted on 01/27/2013 11:10:25 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: Sub-Driver

I quit reading when he listed Lincoln, Wilson and both Roosevelts as some of our “greatest presidents.”


60 posted on 01/27/2013 11:14:02 AM PST by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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