Most people don't think of the USA constitution as a legal contract, but that is exactly what it is. I will explain that in this blog.
Some of this may sound like a repeat, but just bear with me a little. Recall that the revolution started back in 1776, but it was not until 1790 or 14 years later that we actually had the USA. It took that long for the 13 original English colonies to agree on how to combine. Notice the problems that England is now having with the Common Market contract that they agreed with just a few years ago. If you were going to join some group where the group had control of your assets, wouldn't you want some kind of air tight contract? Look at "time shares" and how sloppy many of those are. Some people don't read the fine print and wonder later how to get out of their contract. The people who signed the original constitutional contract were a lot smarter than our politicians are today and they did a very good job formulating that contract. Looking at that contract, it seems clear that the individual colonies were very concerned about exactly what authority they gave to the federal government. The constitution clearly focuses on limits to what the federal government can and can not do. At the end, it states that all authority not specifically assigned to the federal government shall be vested in the colonies or states. That is preity clear!
In the case of England, they don't have a constitution like the USA does. That means they only need a simple majority to change any law. The wise people who wrote our constitution looked ahead and knew that in the future, some faction of citizens might want to change the constitution or contract. They wanted to make sure that if there was a change that more than a simple majority had to agree with it. They knew that it was better to stay with the original contract rather than "risk" a future change that may turn out to be against what they had agreed too.
How would you like it if you sold your house to someone and at some future date they found that they had paid too much for your house and decided to stop making the mortgage payments? I don't think you would like that. What if you had died before the house was paid off and the new owners tried to screw your children out of the mortgage money? You wouldn't like that either. Isn't that what we are talking about here with the constitution contract that our forefathers signed? My family was here back in 1608 and participated in the revolution so I have more of a person relationship with the original constitution than most, but that doesn't make any difference. By law, we let immigrants come into the USA and become equal citizens. That means they have to agreed to live by the original constitution or contract made back in 1790. No exceptions!
I don't have a problem with changing the constitution by the defined legal process, but I do have a problem with those who feel the constitution is some kind of "living" document that can be changed with a simple majority vote based on the whims of the day or by the whims of the Supreme Court. Like a lot of things, once you let something out of the bag, it can be impossible to ever put it back in again. That is how I feel about our constitution and see it as the "ultimate" contract with "all" of us and those who came before us and those who will be here after we are all gone!
PS--I forgot an important point about the constitution. The founders were concerned about a future majority taking advantage of the minority with a "one man one vote" concept. The contract tried to protect a minority from the tyranny of the majority. In England there is no constitution and thus there is no protection of the minority from the majority. Small states would never have signed the constitution if there was not this protection. Democrats want to ignore the intent of the original founders! That is why our constitution is a binding contract. Thank the founders.
Some of this may sound like a repeat, but just bear with me a little. Recall that the revolution started back in 1776, but it was not until 1790 or 14 years later that we actually had the USA. It took that long for the 13 original English colonies to agree on how to combine. Notice the problems that England is now having with the Common Market contract that they agreed with just a few years ago. If you were going to join some group where the group had control of your assets, wouldn't you want some kind of air tight contract? Look at "time shares" and how sloppy many of those are. Some people don't read the fine print and wonder later how to get out of their contract. The people who signed the original constitutional contract were a lot smarter than our politicians are today and they did a very good job formulating that contract. Looking at that contract, it seems clear that the individual colonies were very concerned about exactly what authority they gave to the federal government. The constitution clearly focuses on limits to what the federal government can and can not do. At the end, it states that all authority not specifically assigned to the federal government shall be vested in the colonies or states. That is preity clear!
In the case of England, they don't have a constitution like the USA does. That means they only need a simple majority to change any law. The wise people who wrote our constitution looked ahead and knew that in the future, some faction of citizens might want to change the constitution or contract. They wanted to make sure that if there was a change that more than a simple majority had to agree with it. They knew that it was better to stay with the original contract rather than "risk" a future change that may turn out to be against what they had agreed too.
How would you like it if you sold your house to someone and at some future date they found that they had paid too much for your house and decided to stop making the mortgage payments? I don't think you would like that. What if you had died before the house was paid off and the new owners tried to screw your children out of the mortgage money? You wouldn't like that either. Isn't that what we are talking about here with the constitution contract that our forefathers signed? My family was here back in 1608 and participated in the revolution so I have more of a person relationship with the original constitution than most, but that doesn't make any difference. By law, we let immigrants come into the USA and become equal citizens. That means they have to agreed to live by the original constitution or contract made back in 1790. No exceptions!
I don't have a problem with changing the constitution by the defined legal process, but I do have a problem with those who feel the constitution is some kind of "living" document that can be changed with a simple majority vote based on the whims of the day or by the whims of the Supreme Court. Like a lot of things, once you let something out of the bag, it can be impossible to ever put it back in again. That is how I feel about our constitution and see it as the "ultimate" contract with "all" of us and those who came before us and those who will be here after we are all gone!
PS--I forgot an important point about the constitution. The founders were concerned about a future majority taking advantage of the minority with a "one man one vote" concept. The contract tried to protect a minority from the tyranny of the majority. In England there is no constitution and thus there is no protection of the minority from the majority. Small states would never have signed the constitution if there was not this protection. Democrats want to ignore the intent of the original founders! That is why our constitution is a binding contract. Thank the founders.
