Post-Constitutional America

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Such is the oath of office taken by US Senators and Representatives in the United States today.  The very first Congress took an oath that was essentially the same, but more elegant in its simplicity;

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.

It is notable that there is nothing in either of these oaths about the will of the people, or the prevailing winds of public opinion, or the trends of societal change.  Such things would be key concerns if this were a Democracy, but it's not.  The United States is a Republic. As I near the mid-century mark I am impressed by the realization of just how long our education system has made little to no effort to inform our society about the type of government the founders bequeathed to us and the reasons for it.  For a generation we have allowed the distinction between Republic and Democracy to blur; to the detriment of the Republic.

Our elected officials take an oath to the Constitution because our Republic is ruled by the Constitution; it is ruled by law not people.  If the Constitution were to become outdated in some way there are mechanisms by which it can be legitimately altered.  Those mechanisms are cumbersome and require broad consensus.  The difficulty in changing the Constitution was intentionally designed into the system as a protective measure.  The requirement for broad consensus ensures that changes to the Constitution will be incremental and narrow in scope.

Unfortunately, there is a growing sense that the Constitution is just an historical document.  It is frequently referred to in the same breath with the Declaration of Independence.  One document, though it elucidated timeless principles, was written for a specific time, to address a specific situation.  The other document was written for all time, to be the constant guiding star for the government of the United States.  The well kept secret is that our elected officials, left and right, know this.  The US Constitution is treated as an anachronism by politicians because it is, in many cases, an obstacle to their agenda.

The Constitution does not grant the American people the right to bear arms or the right to freely exercise their religions.  Rather, the Constitution denies the federal government the authority to do anything to infringe on these inalienable rights which we innately posses.  When a government official uses the increasingly common talking points about the right to enjoy shooting sports, or the right to worship, they are attempting to narrow the scope of the negative rights constraining the federal government in these areas.  The confusion that these politicians sow among their constituents should never be construed to indicate a lack of understanding on the part of the politician.  No significant number of elected federal officials believes that the 1st amendment is simply about the right to sit in a church pew, or that the 2nd amendment is just about the right to shoot targets and hunt.  But many of them would be very happy if the majority of the American people could be tricked into believing that the founding fathers thought that the first and second entries into the bill of rights were simply about enjoyable pastimes.