We’re supposed to revere – and follow – the Constitution. But if they don’t, why should we?
By they, I mean the people who lord it over us. Our rulers. I choose the word deliberately, in the interests of editorial accuracy. We’re certainly not ruled by the Constitution.
And neither are they.
Consider, for instance, this business of judicial review. The power claimed by the Supreme Court to “interpret” the Constitution. It is a power you will find nowhere in the Constitution itself, or even hinted at. It was simply asserted by the first chief justice, John Marshall (who was a cousin of but also – unsurprisingly – a great enemy of Thomas Jefferson’s) in a kind of lawyerly Beer Hall Putsch. The court, under Marshall, defined and decreed its own power. It has been the final arbiter of what the Constitution “really” means ever since.
Even when the court’s interpretation is obviously at odds with the plain meaning of what is actually written in the Constitution.
This is the mechanism by which we are halted and searched randomly – the very definition of unreasonable, which is the language you will find in the Constitution. But the Court has repeatedly asserted its own fluid definition, Humpty Dumpty-style, contrary to what is written and simply because it can. The Fourth (and other amendments) mean whatever the Court says they mean, which means they mean nothing at all.
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