Change This
Document!
February 4, 1999
The other
day I was chatting with a man I have known for half my adult life,
and what began as a conversation about philosophical principles wandered
into the topic of professional wrestling. I offered a few mild criticisms
of the sport, and described how I would handle an opponent in the ring if I
were a wrestler.
“If you were a wrestler,” my
companion said, “you’d be one of those guys in a hood and
mask.”
Maybe I should have shrugged this off as
a casually insensitive remark. But I couldn’t. It was just too
hurtful. I wondered whether he’d been feigning friendship all these
years, just waiting for the chance to slip in a few wounding words.
“Just for the record,” I
retorted, “I don’t even own a hood or mask at the
moment.” (Of course it depends what you regard as a
“hood” or “mask,” but I think I was legally
accurate.) But he didn’t retract a syllable.
Speaking of hoods and hurtful remarks, it
has been reported in several newspapers that I once spoke to the Council
of Conservative Citizens, which is currently being pilloried as a radical
racist organization.
Well, it’s true I addressed them some
years ago. But I should state here, for the record, that I would never have
accepted their invitation if I had known then of their associations with
Republican leaders. Still, they seemed like nice folks, and neither I nor
anyone in the audience wore a hood or a mask. I don’t recall any
burning crosses, and I don’t even think anyone used the hurtful word
niggardly.
But I did talk about the need to restore
constitutional government, and if anyone finds that hurtful I want to
humbly apologize. It just sort of slipped out in a careless moment. I now
recognize that the last thing this country needs is “constitutional
government,” which are code words for heartless bigotry.
After all, the Framers never intended for
the Constitution to be taken literally. That would mean repealing most of
our laws. It would make it impossible to save Social Security and
Medicare and to bomb other countries when we are in the mood to do so.
Countless patriotic Americans would cease getting regular checks in the
mail and would be forced to seek income only from those who paid them
voluntarily.
No, the Constitution was meant to be a
“living document.” It means whatever the people in power
want it to mean, when they want it to mean it. This is, after all, a
democracy, in which the winners get to rewrite the rules of the game.
That’s what separates democracy
from such static forms of competition as, say, professional wrestling.
Who wants to live in a country where words always mean the same things,
year after year? The life of a Supreme Court justice would be intolerably
dull. The rule of law would lack the vital element of surprise. We would be
overrun with fetuses.
The Framers weren’t perfect. Far
from it. Their chief mistake was to write the Constitution down, which
created the false but stubborn belief that it wasn’t supposed to
change too fast. This mistake was compounded by including the
cumbersome amendment process, which created the equally false belief
that the Constitution couldn’t just evolve spontaneously, like other
living things. Evolve, of course, meansto change in a
progressive direction. And progressive, when applied
to government, means more.
The written Constitution has also led
right-wing extremists to make the simple-minded assumption that
criminals should be removed from office, which would clearly thwart the
will of the people. Instead of writing that officers could be removed for
treason, bribery, “or other high Crimes and Misdeameanors,”
the Framers should have written “or other equally high Crimes and
Misdemeanors.” Or better yet, “or even higher crimes, and not
just some lousy misdemeanors, such as perjury about private consensual
sexual relationships.”
But these are minor flaws. The true
genius of the Constitution is that it is a self-abolishing document. Its
subtext, for those who can appreciate its subtle nuances, is:
“Change me.” It enables us to gradually obliterate its own
literal meaning, if we can think of a more progressive one.
Joseph Sobran
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