Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Constitutionally Illiterate
When even politicians are ignorant of the founding documents, our system is in trouble
On Nov. 5, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, took the podium at a Republican rally, waved a document defiantly and declared:"This is my copy of the Constitution, and I'm going to stand here with the Founding Fathers who wrote in the Preamble, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " Mr. Boehner was encouraging participants to protest the pending House vote for health care reform by demanding their constitutional right to make medical decisions.
Pop quiz: What's wrong with this picture?
If you said that there is no explicit constitutional right to make medical decisions, you score some points. If you said that the passage Mr. Boehner quotes is from the Declaration of Independence you get an A. If you also noted that the quotation is not even from the Declaration's preamble, you earn extra credit.
Mr. Boehner is not the first opinion leader to confuse the Constitution with the Declaration, nor is he apt to be the last. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, for example, said, "As our Constitution declares, we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights " Of course, Mr. Boehner, unlike Mr. Falwell, entered the profession by promising to protect the Constitution.
Mr. Boehner noted his 19 years of public service, yet how could he protect the Constitution when he can't distinguish it from the Declaration? Indeed, how many public servants, for whom an oath to the Constitution is an entrance requirement, know the document well enough to protect it? Judging from the foregoing, from political rhetoric in media and from many anecdotes, one suspects that constitutional literacy is too low. This is a problem for sworn professionals who cannot protect what they don't know, and it is a problem for the ordinary citizen who, in a democracy, is supposed to be running the country through informed voting and participation in public conversations.
The value of constitutional literacy and the lack of it are obvious, the nature of it less so. What are the minimum conditions for constitutional literacy? This should be the topic of public conversation and consensus. To that end, here are some preliminary suggestions that distinguish eight levels of constitutional literacy. At each level, one should know:
* The basic difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One establishes a government, the other doesn't. One rests on man-made law, the other on natural law; one posits only conferred rights, the other posits inalienable rights.
* The age and basic anatomy of the Constitution. When was it ratified? (1788.) How many articles are there? (Seven.) How many Amendments? (27.) What, in general, is each about?
* Certain significant details from the articles and the amendments, such as the basic requirements for being elected to, appointed to, or removed from federal office.
* Most details of each article and amendment and the history surrounding its creation and ratification, including the history of democracy and republicanism.
* The more important arguments for the various elements of the Constitution, such as those found in the Federalist Papers.
* The more famous court cases and their implications for public policy, such as Marbury v. Madison (1803), Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Roe v. Wade (1973).
* Key disagreements about the nature of law, rights and justice, and which theories about each are reflected in the Constitution as opposed to the Declaration or other important American documents -- such as Marbury v. Madison, which has led some to conclude that judges make law.
* The history of and theories about constitutional interpretation. At this level, disagreement may be due to philosophical or political differences, rather than constitutional illiteracy. Thus, it is fair to call both Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Stephen Breyer constitutional scholars, yet they frequently disagree on the meaning of key constitutional passages or of their application to a specific court case.
From the opening of the constitutional convention to the present, political conversation in the U.S. has been raucous, robust and often significant in its impact on public policy and on individuals' lives. How much better would things be if a majority of the participants in this conversation were constitutionally literate?
- Posted in
43 Comments so far
Show All-"This is a problem for sworn professionals who cannot protect what they don't know, and it is a problem for the ordinary citizen who, in a democracy, is supposed to be running the country through informed voting and participation in public conversations."
So true. But I'm reminded of a post I made a little while ago. I was commenting on the American habbit of reciting bits of the US constitution, giving the impression that everyone over there has it memorized. This is of course not the case. But what is more dangerous than not knowing your rights, is each of you, including your supreme court justices, having your own personal fantasy version of the US constitution.
If enough people are ignorant of the facts, then it explains how Obama is able to claim that, somehow, he has the power to, for example, assassinate people at will, or arbitrarily decide to not prosecute Bush war crimes. American law has literally become whatever Obama reads in his made to order "OLC memos", or writes in those famous "signing statements", and ever so secret "executive orders".
Politicians are not ignorant of the US Constitution, they simply exploit it to make their case, just as those who exploit the Bible do.
"Well" (to quote Reagan), there is a singular Constitutional prohibition against BaraCYA: Congress shall pass NO ex post facto law. And that goes for CIAs, telecoms and their Bush Hog-styers, lipstick and ALL!
These mistakes are made because both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have become "shills" in the hands of PR experts on behalf of politicians. Politicians use the rhetoric of a Democracy to get elected and once elected, invest themselves with the soveriegn will of the people and trade it for personal gain and power. "It's a business". "While the business of America is business" (Calvin Coolidge) Governance in a Democracy is about service. We have endured as a Nation on the strength of Democracy's rhetoric, what if we practiced what we preached? How great could we become?
General Petraeus says he needs drones. John (Man With The Tan) Boehner is a drone, which is sometimes defined as a parasite. Send Boehner as well most of the Congress. Throw in Obama too.
Please note you have a 'constitutional scholar' as your President.
Not that it's going to help you at all in the coming months...
I am not willing to call Justice Scalia a constitutional scholar. Anyone who requires that legislation adhere strictly to the words in the Constitution is implying that the meaning of the words to us is the same as to those who wrote the document. The only ones who know what the writers of the document meant are scholars who are familiar with how the 18th Century gentry thought. You have to read everything they wrote - including letters, etc. I doubt seriously that any of the Justices has the time to do that.
As evidence, Scalia's decision about gun control was ridiculed by constitutional scholars. He put his opinions into the decision.
At the teabagger convention, Tom "I'm a screaming bigot" Tancredo said that we should go back to literacy tests for voting rights. I say a very different test is needed. I think a test of those who want to run for office covering the constitution, the bill of rights, and current law should be given, and if not passed, the person is not eligible for office. They can study up and come back next time to take it if they want, no problem.
If such a test were given to today's congress, I can bet that 99% of them would fail, and dramatically. You can BET that some wouldn't be able to spell their own names correctly. Sarah Palin would quit half way through and every answer would be essentially "All of 'em". McCain would get mad, tear it up and storm out of the room.
If this were a requirement, then you can bet that Nancy Pelosi would never have been able to even utter the phrase "Impeachment is off the table". She would know it's NOT an option. And people on BOTH sides of the aisle would know enough to make sure it wasn't let slide. They would all KNOW it was required.
You can't defend something if you don't know what it even IS. It's time that those in charge of making constitutional law KNOW what IS or ISN'T constitutional. It's their JOB, damnit. WE couldn't go to a job and keep it not even knowing what we're doing. Some of them have been doing it for DECADES.
WJM,
Classic! I would not want to correct Biden's test because if there are essay questions, I would never finish correcting it.
WMJ,
"I think a test of those who want to run for office covering the constitution, the bill of rights, and current law should be given, and if not passed, the person is not eligible for office."
Yeah, especially when they take oath with their hand on the almighty Bible to defend citizens rights under these documents. The sad part is, we can't fire these idiots until the next election cycle; and by then, most of their constituents have forgotten or never paid attention to the level of betrayal that occurred during their time in office.
Check your Constitution. There is no requirement to be intelligent. Only to be a certain age and a citizen of the US for the requisite number of years. So if you want to require some sort of test you'll need a Constitutional Amendment.
With more talk of Supreme Court retirements bubbling up, where does the Constitution limit the size of the Court? Nowhere. I've been tooting this horn for months. The Republicans in the Senate would look even goofier if they put holds on five or six Supreme Court nominations...
I carry a Constitution booklet in my car, in my briefcase, and have one in arm's reach at home. It's a very good tool for shutting people up. People also so like to cite The Federalist Papers. Interesting reading, but not the law of the land.
I note that most references made by the public to the Constitution refer not to it, but to the Bill of Rights. The Constitution consists of a series of baffles to hold the public at bay and its mechanisms would not enjoy much support among the public if presented with alternatives, such as the parliamentarian systems operating elsewhere. Indeed, there was nine-to-one oppositon to the Constitution among the general populaces at the time of its ratification. Fortunately for its authors, ratification did not entail a public referendum, nor even a universal ratification by the states as the Articles of Confederation would have required. What does enjoy support among the general public is the Bill of Rights and any challenges to amend or create a new Constitution will run aground without a guarantee to the Bill of Rights.
I would appreciate the Constitution more if it provided the citizenry a direct method of removing dysfunctional congresspeople...a method other than a voting cycle...
perhaps the Constitution would be more effective wrapped around a brick...
That's what state constitutions and laws are for. I believe every state has a way to recall its Congressional delegation, but they likely differ from state to state.
The Constitution is just a prop for these assholes. When BV$H was in office he considered it just so much toilet paper.
Is the Constitution (and Declaration) taught in civics and government classes in high school across this nation? What is the average constituional literacy of our high school students? If they don't know anything about the Constitution then they will not recognize when they are being denied these all-important rights. I wonder if there is a lack of Constitutional learning in our public schools. If there is a lack, is it part of our national dumbing-down of the populace?
"is it part of our national dumbing-down of the populace?"
was the pope a Nazi?
Still is. Or is again, should I say? And dont' forget that Prescott Bush was a nazi sympathizer before, during and after WWII.
a born-again nazi!
lol.
Civics is still taught and is a requirement for high school graduation, but the course is nothing more than the dry presentation of facts, names, and dates. Little effort is made to connect learning to issues that actually affect people. Of course, a single course in twelfth grade is not sufficient to provide citizens with literacy in our government. Beginning in the fourth grade students should begin to learn about the principles upon which the nation was founded and those lessons should be tied to real life news events and discussed openly in class. Furthermore, this "training in democracy" should not be confined to the social science/history departments, but should touch all subject areas. Why don't we teach "citizenship" this way? There are a lot of reasons--to name four: an outdated curriculum, unimaginative teaching methods, unprepared teachers, and the perception that the subject is not important since it is not included in the high-stakes standardized exams that determine kids futures. The situation has always been this way, as far as I know. It isn't that this failure of the schools is something new.
Gee, ya think? Welcome to AmeriKKKa!!!
Hopkins has a "Division of Public Safety Leadership"?
Was that established with the Eric Blair Foundation Endowment?
Gee, when I went to school, we DID study such things in Civics class - and were required to know the founding documents (and arguments) thoroughly. Besides that, those of us from immigrant families were given the facts by our parents, who had to pass a real test on the subject (unlike these days, where people can BUY the answers to a simple quizz.)
You can't expect people to remember every detail throughout their lives - but having a copy of these important documents - and many letters sent between 'founders' - hasn't made our government work any better. Fascism ignores the rights of people - only corporations and the military count to them - and they're in charge right now. It's going to take a citizens rebellion to introduce real democracy - or a responsible republic - and I don't see that happening. (I'm not crazy about 'democracy' - mob rule makes me nervous, especially and illiterate ADDICTED TO TV PROPAGANDA mob...
One big problem is that idiots do not need facts to argue their beliefs, which are really just opinions. Try to introduce facts, not opinions, to those who worship Rush Limbaugh. I have found that to be impossible.
Education in History of the Constitution, History of U.S. Government, and Civics in general are all requirements of effective Citizenship.
I encourage everyone to ensure that the children in their community, their own children, their neighbors, and they themselves posses this education.
How to do this?
1. Push your State Education Dept and your local Public School Board to restore Civics to a central position in the curriculum, with U.S. Civic history and Constitution history as centerpieces. Pay the damn taxes to ensure this if needed.
2. Teach your own children about this at home. There are some good books on the subject, but even something as simple as a copy of the Constitution and some refreshment on Wikipedia will get you quite far.
3. Form community groups to study these matters. ENSURE THAT THEY ARE NOT ABOUT CONTEMPORARY POLITICS, but instead actual history and basic concepts of liberty and democracy and Constitutionalism that everyone can agree on. DON'T ALLOW THINGS TO DEVOLVE INTO ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUES. Either from ignorant persons or from those who took A people's history of the United States and similar works too much to heart.
4. I'm not going to pretend you need me to tell you how to educate yourself on these things.
-matti.
Before doing number four perhaps one should require one to have some grounding in critical reasoning, Such as reading the late Steve Allen's Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking With 101 Ways to Reason.
Gary
"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”
-- Oscar Wilde
I wonder whether Boehner, or most of the Repugs, are literate at all, not just concerning the Constitution. More to the point, they're aliterate. They can read, it's just that they never do.
I don't have time to learn all that stuff. It cuts into my TV time.
Boehner isn't alone. Have any of you watched even the intro of Glenn Beck's TV show? He acts like he's the supreme authority on the Constitution and the founding of this country, nearly always opening with a quote from one of the Founding Fathers.
Then there is his "Refound America" project.
You know, I just started reading The Shock Doctrine (finally, right?). And Beck's attacks on his ideological enemies, "progressives" (which he labels anyone he dislikes, including Bush) are so vicious that they remind me of the military dictators and juntas from Naomi Klein's book. As well, his purported goal of restoring the country to its founding and Constitutional purity eerily reminds me of the "blank slate" that was sought by that crazy psychiatrist be electrocuting people until they lost all sense of their self. He has even spoken about the need of a new depression, to "reset the system."
He wants to do away with more than two centuries of legal and philosophical advancement, history, rights, and basically, progress in this country, so he can have his visionary ideal of a pure country...and of course he's a fundamentalist capitalist, as well. And he has promised to be a "progressive hunter", likening it to Israeli Nazi hunters.
It's scaring the shit out of me.
He wants to scare the shit out of you, though he's just an ignorant little prick who wants most of all to be the Joseph McCarthy of our age, and of course Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are letting him do it, because there are millions of half-literate or illiterate Americans who find his paranoia comforting. They want clearly defined enemies, and Beck is on their twisted, basically moronic level, so they trust him. He's exactly as murderously fascistic as the South American dictators Klein discusses in "Shock Doctrine" and wants essentially the same things. Mainly a fascist ditatorship, which means absolute rule by corporations, and of course we virtually have that already. Beck and O'Reilly are absolute enemies of real freedom and wouldn't know democracy if it was shoved up their tight asses. A sane society would have locked them up long ago. Freedom of speech is one thing, but the freedom to take advantage of ignorance to propagate pure evil is another. They and Limbaugh should be in straitjackets, locked away in some padded cell.
Sioux Rose
Ephraim: Eloquently stated.
zmann, If you read the rant on their home page they are encouraging people to fix what is right with America. Real brain sturgeons these Beck followers.
Beckerheads
Article 6, Section 3 of the US Constitution provides that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any public office.
On August 16, 2008, both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama went to Reverend Rick Warrens Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California and answered questions from the congregation about both public policy and on their own religious beliefs.
Senator McCain at the time had been in the Senate for 26 years. Barack Obama was not only a Senator, but had been highly touted as a Constitutional Scholar by his supporters.
By their actions I determined that neither Senator was, either aware of the restraints imposed on them by the Constitution, or they just didn't care and were willing to do anything to get elected. As far as I was concerned this disqualified both men from being worthy to be President of the United States. In the end, for me, it came down to a choice between Cybthia McKinney and Ralph Nader for my vote!
Bring America Back !!!!
***Please refrain from too much criticism of John Boehner, he is easily offended and crys a lot !! After all, he is a lockstep Bushite Neocon, and not a grown man yet !!
***Say , this topic reminds me of another constitutional illiterate==some guy named Obama who was supposed to be an Harvard expert on the document.
*While still a Senator, Obama voted Yes to pass the FISA
wiretapping criminal immunities of "W" Bush, Cheney; Big Telecon Corps and not least of all==the US National Security Agency
**All the above were guilty of felonious violations of our wiretapping laws, and the constitutional guarantees of Privacy ! Since Obama was sworn as Senator to preserve and protect our Constitution his vote was for an illegal after the fact approval of massive crimes against Americans.
**So, of course when He again took that Oath on Jan 20, 2009, Obama was already guilty of violating it !!! The immunities retroactive for those Felonies were and are
totally illegal and unconstitutional. Barak and Team Obama simply do not have a clue regarding the charter for our
Government. And they have proved it time and time again on every fraudulent campaign promise he made to get elected !
Most challenges to the FISA immunities legislation have been
superficially dismissed in the lower courts One recent dismissal cited the US Citizen did not prove sufficient personal damages from the massive wiretapping crimes !
......and that's the way it is....Feb 6, 2010 !!!
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_passionate_defender_of
You score NO points.
The 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution pretty plainly say that if the US government isn't explicitly authorized powers in a given area, those powers are reserved to the states or to the people.
There is no mention of "health care" at all in the US Constitution. Which means that, at the very most, decisions regarding health care are left to the states. Most of the states, having more sense than our current federal government, have decided to leave these decisions to the People.
So, there IS an explicit right to make health care decisions. Just as there is an explicit right to decide what movie to watch or what football team to cheer for. The citizens of the US have all rights not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitution. I'm not sure how we got to the point that some of the citizenry want to give up their rights, but I'm not among them.
Actually, the Preamble holds the key to a Federal health care system. It calls for establishing the general welfare. When one out of every five Americans are either uninsured or underinsured I suggest that the welfare is not very general.
What an immense waste of human energy & effort the whole sham of the Supreme Court has been, and always will be.
'The two least popular professions in America are that of lawyer and politician; but judges are among the most popular, and they are nothing but lawyers who are also politicians.' - Vincent Bugliosi
As I understand it, and for better and worse, "the Constitution" has become not only the words in the framing document and later Bill of Rights, but also the interpretations that have been tacked on by the Supremes over the years. Kind of like non-ratified Bills of Rights. Or the Talmud as accreted to the Torah. Remove all the barnacles, if you can, and we get to the original Ship-of-State, but then we have the problem, as stated somewhere above, of excavating 18th c. gentry minds and intentions with 21st c. contexts. Which is, I suspect, the idea behind the continuous dialogue of this "living document": to rewrite continually, instead of throwing everything out and starting over from scratch.
Of course, that also seems to mean that the current violations ARE de facto constitutional, simply because them what claims to protect it, own it, and we don't have, or haven't yet taken the measures necessary to rectify these egregious crimes.