Role of Constitution

All organized sports have a rule book. If the coaches and referees of organized sports started making their own rules and calls, in violation of how the rule book read, you would have unworkable chaos.

You can compare the sports coaches and referees to our politicians and judges. Compare the sports rule book to our U.S. Constitution. For decades presidents, members of Congress and judges have been making and approving “plays” that are either not constitutionally provided for or are just outright prohibited.
 
Such is the present efforts of our government to basically grab an overly large role in our badly needed health care reform. That, and other power grabs, have put us at least halfway into the awaiting chaos.

If government or sports teams want to break the rules, then please, at least for the sake of reason and stability, change the rule book first.

Larry McMeins
Olathe

Many conservatives spend a lot of time and effort professing to the purity of and strict adherence required to the U.S. Constitution. I have only a few questions.

Why did it require 27 amendments? Why do the senators from Wyoming represent 500,000 citizens, while the senators from California represent more than 36,000,000, but each has one vote? Fair? Democratic?

Wonder why the Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians are having problems getting this concept to work? Obviously a few more amendments may be needed to this flawed document.

No, I am not a communist!

Robert Wewers
Leawood

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

These deadbeats need to take civics class and also read up on what happens when a chair is kicked our from under your feet while a noose is around your neck. Anyone invloved in this should be executed.

http://www.auditor.mo.gov/news/20071018csd.htm

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

The government at all levels steps on Constitutional rights on a daily basis.
W have little if any power, they give us promises and just enough "stimulus" to keep us content for short time. Washington should be torched and members of governmnt along with any appointees held accountable.
Voting them out does nothing, it's the same problem w have with inner city gangs except these clowns wear expensive suits on our dime.

[Sammy]

Robert. Great questions. At least people are talking about the Constitution. That's a step in the right direction.

To answer your second question, that's why we call our country the United "States" of America, rather than the United "People" of America.

The equal representation of each state in the Senate is meant to act as a check and balance on the population weighting in the House and the heavy population weighting used to select the President (though there is a state element in that election as well that comes from the two senatorial votes in the Electoral College).

The Founders believed that not having strong geographic representation had caused other societies to fail, by allowing power to concentrate into populated areas. The smaller areas became the sheep and the cities became the wolves. All got a vote for what was for dinner. The wolves won.

As for the number of Amendments, I'd argue that all, except Amendment 18, are meant to further limit the powers of government from interfering with individual liberty. Amendment 18 was repealed later after it proved to be a dismal failure and caused power to dangerously concentrate in the hands of criminals.

There may be new ways that have evolved for government to interfere with individual liberty that should be addressed (e.g. special interests) with more amendments.

But using the presence of amendments as an argument to support more amendments to move the Constitution away from its original intent (to limit government's encroachment onto individual liberty) is a very bad argument, since the one time that was tried it failed horribly.

[Greghand]

You can compare the sports coaches and referees to our politicians and judges. Compare the sports rule book to our U.S. Constitution. Larry McMeins

Larry has a point but it's more similar to what team did the refs bet on or what their favorite team is. Unfortunately every time Politicians vote in an unconstitutional manner the decisions are more important than a bad call in the superbowl.

[Greghand]

Larry McMeins

[Kate]

The House of Representatives represents the people while members of the Senate represent the states. That way each state has equal representation, regardless of size.

[Smarter Than You]

Bob may not be a communist, but he wasn’t a very good student either. The first ten amendments, the “Bill of Rights,” were adopted on Dec. 15, 1791. That leaves 17 other amendments over 218 years. The last was 17 years ago for those keeping score at home.

While Wyoming and California each get two senators, Cali gets 53 Representatives to one for Wyoming.

Based on his tacit swipe at “conservatives” it’s safe to say Bob’s is the stellar type of intellectual laziness that Obamacare appeals to.

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

Robert -

It is a democratic republic. Ever take a civics class.