[September 17th is
Constitution Day, so to celebrate this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful
of contexts for that foundational American document. Leading up to this special
weekend post on threats to the Constitution in 2019!]
On three
distinct types of contemporary threats to our founding documents and ideals.
1)
Evolution: No, not the frustratingly-still-controversial
scientific theory, but rather the Constitution’s status as a living
document about which I’ve written in most of the week’s posts. That status,
which began immediately with the Bill of Rights and has been part of our
government, laws, and civic society ever since, means that every aspect of the
Constitution can and should be examined, debated, and potentially (if not at
all lightly or quickly) changed in every era. Which also means that some
challenges that might appear to be threats to Constitutional rights should be
better understand as part of that natural and necessary process of evolution. I
would put the continuing debates
about the 2nd Amendment in that category—as much as I personally
hate guns, I recognize that the “right to bear arms” is a phrase in that
foundational document; but how to read that amendment (in full), and how to
apply it to both modern technologies and 21st century society, are questions
that we can and should continue debating.
2)
Emoluments: Many aspects of the Constitution are
far more straightforward and unambiguous than the 2nd Amendment,
however, and in that category I would put both the Foreign
and Domestic emoluments clauses in Articles I and II. So seriously have
these prohibitions on presidents profiting from the office or having conflicts
of interest been taken over the years that (to cite one famous example) Jimmy
Carter sold his modest peanut farm before taking office in 1977. And yet
each and every day of the last three years, Donald Trump and his family and
friends have profited immeasurably from such emoluments—as I write this in
early September, Vice
President Pence and his entourage are staying at a Trump hotel in Ireland,
hours away from their meetings in that country; and just a couple weeks ago Trump
discussed
hosting next year’s G7 meetings at another Trump resort in Florida. Those
are only two of the countless ways that this president threatens this core
Constitutional concept and limitation.
3)
Essential: There are very serious potential
consequences to those emoluments threats, particularly when it comes to foreign
influences on, I dunno, small matters
like election security. But I believe an even more essential element of our
Constitutional rights and shared civic society is under threat in 2019: the
promise of the Constitution’s
opening phrase, “We the people.” As I argue in that hyperlinked book, and
as this week’s posts have I hope made clear, both the Constitution itself and
much of American history have failed to live up to our expressed national ideals.
But the ideals remain, from that founding moment down to our present one, and
at their core is a vision of a government, to quote
one of our best presidents, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
To name just two examples from the couple of weeks before this writing,
however, our federal government has both expressed an interest in doing
away with birthright citizenship and submitted a brief
to the Supreme Court arguing that employers should be able to fire
employees due to their sexual orientation. The fundamental vision of both our
laws and our people are under constant threat in 2019, threats that require from
all of us both historical engagement and contemporary resistance.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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