in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
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Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
The Constitution is just too confusing!
Well, it is for Ezra Klein, one of the Washington Post’s bloggers. You see, it’s over 100 years old and the language is just too confusing:
Watch at Ace of Spades.
Newsbusters provides a transcript. Here’s the relevant part:
[MSNBC HOSTESS NORAH] O’DONNELL: You heard all the different politicians talking about the Constitution. Well, this is what’s going to happen. When Republicans take over next week, they’re going to do something that apparently has never been done in the 221-year history of the House of Representatives. They are going to read the Constitution aloud. Is this a gimmick?
KLEIN: Yes, it’s a gimmick. [Laughs] I mean, you can say two things about it. One, is that it has no binding power on anything. And two, the issue of the Constitution is not that people don’t read the text and think they’re following. The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done. So, I wouldn’t expect to much coming out of this.
Ezra, dude, let me help. You have this thing called a “brain” and access to a wonderful process called “reason.” If you use them, then many confusing things, such as the basic governing document of the United States, actually become comprehensible. Try it some time; you might be surprised at the results.
Okay, snark aside, his argument is just plain silly. Sure, language changes over time and words develop new definitions. Changing usages of punctuation can shift meaning. But it’s not as if the Constitution exists in a vacuum, without any context. Nor has English changed so much from 1787 that our poor brains can’t parse it. (Just curious, Ezra: do you have problems with Shakespeare, too? I mean his plays are over 400 years old…)
See, Ezra, we have these marvelous resources available to help us understand what was meant way back then: the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers present us with the arguments of both sides for and against the ratification of the Constitution, and they went on at great length about what the words meant. (In fact, our Bill of Rights was produced largely as a compromise with the Anti-Federalists, who were gathering momentum to call a second Constitutional Convention to fix what they saw as problems with the core document.)
If those aren’t enough, we also have state constitutions from the time, showing us how already existing governments understood their roles and power, and the records of the debates in state conventions prior to their ratification votes. And we also have Supreme Court decisions from the early republic showing us how learned men much closer to the Founding interpreted the Constitution. Okay, so maybe their language will confuse you, too. I can but point the way.
Sure, there are are vague patches in the Constitution: the “necessary and proper” clause forces us to think about the nature and scope of government, and what is necessary to its operation. The “general welfare” and “commerce” clauses have been badly misinterpreted over the years (largely by progressive judges). But it’s not as if we’re left with nothing to do but throw up our hands and say it’s so confusing that it makes our brains hurt. We can use the resources available to figure out those vague parts — you know, reason.
Honestly, what Klein is saying, and what his fellow progressives have been saying for over 100 years, is that government is simply too difficult, too complex, too confusing for the common folk, and that we need experts to guide us and make decisions for us. They know what’s best, so stop fussing over a centuries-old and obsolete piece of parchment.
But that’s the beauty of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: so short that any citizen can carry it in his breast pocket and plain enough that most parts are readily understood, while those that aren’t can be reasoned through. That’s one of the things that empowers the citizen, that he can check the owner’s manual when he likes to see how things should be done. Your vision of a Constitution that’s too confusing for the modern day instead turns citizens into subjects dependent on the dispensations of the elite.
The Constitution is a challenge, Ezra; it is not confusing.
LINKS: Klein explains himself on the confusing Constitution and Republican gimmicks.
UPDATE: Iowahawk skewers Klein on the lance of satire. At Liberty Pundits, Dr. Melissa Clouthier lays bare what Klein and his fellow progressives really want.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)
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Excellent post! I wonder if Klein finds the Bible “confusing” too …
Thanks! I’m sure all those “thees” and “thous” in the KJV are just too much for him.
Very informative. “… written more than 100 years ago.” That means it was written before 1910, and it must be confusing because a lot of people believe that it says things that Klein knows are not natural to either him or his ilk.
And what institution of higher learning did he spring from? I don’t have a degree, but I can certainly understand and reason through the Constitution.
As you so aptly pointed out, the elitist/statist of the progressive persuasion have been dumbing people down for a century and now feel they are the few who can “manage” government without referring to the Constitution…..wasn’t there just a blog where good ole Charlie Rangel said who cares if we write laws that aren’t constitutional…it wasn’t his job???
God help our children! I hope they become better informed and prove these fools wrong.
The phrase “over 100 years old, so it’s not relevant/can’t be understood” was the excuse of the early Progressives for ignoring what it said. Klein just didn’t update the script.
OK, so now I am totally confused. I understand the Constitution just fine but am baffled by “Jersey Shore” and how spending money we do not have is good for the economy…..
Well, if an intellectual like Bill Clinton can get confused about the meaning of two-letter words like “is”, I guess I can understand how this mental-midget is easily confused by real big words like “keep”, “bear”, and “arms”. Not sure if it matters tho, now that a mexican is interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Thanks Obama
@NMBobblehead;
That’s no problem. We’ll just steal any money needed from wealthy Americans…er, I mean tax the evil rich white people..er, I mean redistribute the wealth…yeah, that’s it; redistribute the wealth!! Oh, and just before the 2012 election we can just let unemployment benefits run out. If that doesn’t convince people to get off their butts, and get jobs, nothing will. Oops, I think I just accidentally leaked the democrats game plan.
>Ezra, dude, let me help. You have this thing called a “brain” and access to a wonderful process called “reason.”
=======
He is a Liberal, and is therefore incapable of reason.
A reasoned individual would not utter the idiocy that Klein uttered.
We’ll look back in 50 years and be aghast that we let such a crew of doofusses steer this country onto the rocks in the Strait of Hussein Obinkee.
It’s not that its old and out of date, it’s because it’s inconvenient and power limiting for what he wants.
The Constitution has no meaning for any statist, therefore is irrelevant in any conversation about the wonderfulness of the state running every life (except mine, of course!).
And Klein’s columns are full of such reasoning, each and every one.
Wow. Ezra is too stupid to understand English?
I’m not surprised. I wonder if he could find his way down a one-way street?
Klein is lying. Even he doesn’t believe that crap.
He’s using his reputation as an ‘intellectual’ to push deliberate falsehoods onto a gullible public, thereby enabling liberals to destroy the Constitution further.
Not insane. Just doing his job and running interference for Stalinists.
Apparently the taxpayers of the State of California wasted a good deal of their money on providing young Ezra a college education at UCLA. Seems that the little twit didn’t even learn how to read.
What an idiotic blog post. Klein is absolutely right that the Constitiution is unclear and therefore subject to all sorts of differing interpretations – that’s why they teach it in law school (usually a minimum of 2 semesters and that’s just the intro). That’s why you have so many 5-4 decisions by the Supreme Court, why you’ve had so many god-awful decisions (Plessy v. Ferguson) and inspiring ones (Brown v. Board of Education). The Constitution was a political document, and meant to be interpreted so as to preserve its flexibility (please see Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall). Perhaps you would have been happier with just statutes? A person might think this was just part of an hysterical wingnut pile on …
I’ve decide to utilize my marginal bully pulpit in defense of what Ezra Klein was implying. He obviously was not clear enough, perhaps an analogy would do the trick :
Ezra Klein In The Cross-Hairs Of Right Wing Outrage
To Dave: yes, the following phrases are without doubt confusing and worth a minimum of two semesters…
“…shall make no law…”
“…shall not be infringed.”
“…shall not be violated.”
“…enumeration…shall not be construed…”
“…are reserved…”
Yes, it takes a real mental giant and a full army of lawyers to understand such complex language as in these examples, which just happen to be the ones most trampled on by the judiciary in our history.
I wonder if any of our founding fathers saw this coming and that’s why they put the word “shall”, which allows no ambiguity, into the language of the Constitution so often?