A 'Living' Constitution is a Dead Constitution
Ron Paul was right when he said this in his new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto. Every time we decide that something in the Constitution is no longer relevant to the times, the Constitution becomes a document that gives no more direction than a piece of blank paper. How can we uphold liberty when we continually spit in the face of the document that shows us the way?
Reading further into the book, I came across a quote by Henry Hyde. Paul doesn't mention him by name, but after a little searching, I discovered that it was Mr. Hyde who said the following, in reference to Ron Paul's "radical" idea that Congress be the one to declare war: "There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time, Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn't done any more."
I share Paul's sentiment, in the next paragraph, which mentions how it's such a relief [note: sarcasm] that we have politicians who are keeping us updated on what's "relevant" in our Constitution. One question, though, isn't it up to the people to decide what's relevant? That question then begs the following: are we really losing this much control of our government? The sad answer is a resounding "YES!"
It bugs me how overgrown our government has become and all in the name of freedom. It really creates an oxymoron out of "government protection". Yes, by giving up our liberties, we may be more likely protected from poverty and foreign governments, but those are the things that should worry us least. The thing that we should be protected from the most is the one thing that our government can't and won't protect us from... itself. I'll admit, it'd be foolish for the government to want to relinquish the power it has.
As individuals, we must give up power in order to gain order and protection from external threats, but a government has no such threats and need for protection, so the idea of giving up its power doesn't make much sense. That's why it was important that our government's powers be limited in the Constitution. The Constitution wasn't written relevant to those specific times. It was written because they knew what a government would do with no restraints. They saw it with England, and we get to see the same thing with our ever-growing government.
We, as Americans, are no safer from terrorism than we were pre-9/11. Our government has its agenda to uphold, so they're going to make all of these claims that the eroding of our civil liberties is working to protect us. Sadly, people are wiling to buy into this propaganda. There is no doubt that our government has thwarted terrorist attacks since 9/11. I, just, don't believe that the Patriot Act and similar legislation has had anything to do with that. We thwarted terrorist attacks prior to 9/11, as well. We can't all be naive to believe that the only terrorist attacks planned were successful ones. The extra protection given to us, if any, is not worth the civil liberties that we are continuing to lose.
As long as neocons and liberals continue to see an increasing need in government intervention whether it be at home or in a foreign nation, our liberties will continue to dwindle while we see no reasonable increase in security, but a decline in protection from a tyrannical state that our Constitution was meant to prevent. If we allow our politicians to continue to shit on the document that has given us the ability to stand up and fight, then we have turned our backs on founding fathers and on what it means to be free. We have turned our backs on what it means to be American. We weren't meant to be free of hardship and pain. We were meant to be free of a government that offers us no protection while actively working to take away what liberties that we are willing to give up before fighting back. We need to restore our Constitution. We need our elected politicians to respect the document that our nation was founded on, that they took an oath to uphold, and that millions of Americans have fought and died to protect.