Megyn Kelly Challenges Professor Who Wants America to ‘Give Up’ U.S. Constitution

[Wehrwolfen]

Megyn Kelly Challenges Professor Who Wants America to ‘Give Up’ U.S. Constitution​

By Billy Hallowell
12/7/2013

Many Americans were shocked to learn about Georgetown University Professor Louis Michael Seidman’s advocation for the U.S. to abandon the Constitution — the central document that has helped spawn America’s growth and progression for hundreds of years. As previously reported, the constitutional expert recently noted his belief (via an op-ed) that a blind allegiance to the outdated document is perilous. On Friday, he defended his controversial views about some purportedly “evil” provisions in the Constitution in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.

[Excerpt]

Read more:
Megyn Kelly Challenges Professor Who Wants America to ‘Give Up’ U.S. Constitution (Plus: Judge Napolitano Reacts!) | Video | TheBlaze.com

 

[Katzndogz]

It is not a surprise that liberals want to give up the Constitution. They can't find application to the way they want to run the country.

 

[saveliberty]

Tyranny by the many is still tyranny. Send this guy to Gitmo as a terrorist.

 

[Inthemiddle]

I agree with Megyn, what he's saying is interesting and thought provoking. For crying out loud, don't blindly write off what he is saying, lest you give credence to his points.

 

[Katzndogz]

The Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people. It is totally ineffective to govern any other.

John Adams

 

[Inthemiddle]

If that's true, than I agree, scrap it. We need laws intended for free people, unrestrained by any other person's notions of acceptable morality or religiousness.

 

[BlindBoo]

I would have no problem replacing the governing framework, the least of my reasons is because it has been taken over by special interest critters who more often than not look out for the interest of their political donors than the people who voted them in. I would keep all of the Bill of Rights and most all Amendments.

 

[Inthemiddle]

Yet still, that raises the question, with what would you replace it?

 

[Katzndogz]

If that's true, than I agree, scrap it. We need laws intended for free people, unrestrained by any other person's notions of acceptable morality or religiousness.

Absolutely! Ben Franklin knew this day would come.

there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.

We are now that corrupt as to have need of a despotic government. We're incapable of the Constitution. It's ineffective to govern an immoral and corrupt people.

 

[Decus]

The Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people. It is totally ineffective to govern any other.

John Adams

A differing opinion:

“In politics as in religion, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”

George Washington

 

[saveliberty]

The document is fine. Its the people who rule by it that need to be replaced.

 

[Wehrwolfen]

If that's true, than I agree, scrap it. We need laws intended for free people, unrestrained by any other person's notions of acceptable morality or religiousness.

So how would you write the Constitution? Give us your sage ideas of what consists of Freedom and Liberty.

 

[Politico]

I challenged her to put down the bleach bottle once. Never heard back.

 

[Katzndogz]

The Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people. It is totally ineffective to govern any other.

John Adams

A differing opinion:

“In politics as in religion, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”

George Washington

Very true. As little meddling as possible. Which pretty much does away with 90% of federal laws.

 

[Rct_Tsoul]

Megyn Kelly Challenges Professor Who Wants America to ‘Give Up’ U.S. Constitution

The only thing needed to be given up is the guns, once all guns are gone, and out of the control of the average schmoe, then we will be able to create laws and remove them to serve our interests when and where we see fit, at that point if it tickles our fancy, we can just abolish the constitution, or bring it back when needed for certain situations.

 

[saveliberty]

Megyn Kelly Challenges Professor Who Wants America to ‘Give Up’ U.S. Constitution

The only thing needed to be given up is the guns, once all guns are gone, and out of the control of the average schmoe, then we will be able to create laws and remove them to serve our interests when and where we see fit, at that point if it tickles our fancy, we can just abolish the constitution, or bring it back when needed for certain situations.

That just means a deer will kill you in the car or a bear eat you.

 

[Oddball]

I agree with Megyn, what he's saying is interesting and thought provoking. For crying out loud, don't blindly write off what he is saying, lest you give credence to his points.

He has no points...The Constitution hasn't had anything more than lip service paid to it for at least the last century.

The very notion that he claims that we've paid "blind allegiance" to it, when generations of politicians and bureaucrats have worked overtime to circumvent and plain old ignore its constraints, betray him as a crank from the word go.

 

[Desperado]

Judge Andrew Napolitano gets it. Too bad Congress doesn't share his views.
If they did we would not be in the sorry shape we are in now as a country.

 

[freedombecki]

I agree with Megyn, what he's saying is interesting and thought provoking. For crying out loud, don't blindly write off what he is saying, lest you give credence to his points.

Laying back and playing dead when someone assaults the Constitution is not what made America great. Wise planning and sensible discussion backed with a belief in higher principles is. Causing mankind to be subservient to a large federal government is something our forbears eschewed and solicited a system of human rights to procure liberty to succeeding generations--if we can keep it.

I think that we can.

 

[g5000]

I know all of you sought out Seidman's op-ed to read for yourselves, but just as a matter of record, here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html

Having read that, I find it difficult to believe this guy's claim that he "has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years". His arguments are the usual sophomoric bullshit.

Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action.

The old "they wuz slaveowners and therefore morally bankrupt" argument. A classic ad hominem logical fallacy usually perpetrated by very ignorant people.

Mr. Seidman's argument basically boils down to a familiar gambit; that we are better ruled by extemporaneous decisions which accommodate current conditions (usually a crisis) rather than try to live by time-tested precedents.

This is one of the more dangerous arguments, but one I could plainly see had seduced Barack Obama when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. That was a truly bad day for America.

Why is this dangerous? Simple. If a totalitarian wanted to make a power grab during a crisis (as many Presidents have tried to do), he would be better able to justify his actions by claiming to be a modern man dealing with modern problems and that antiquated precedents are a nuisance and an obstacle to achieving what he has convinced enough sheep are the necessary goals for the "good of the people".

This is yet one more of many reasons why every living soul on the planet should read Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, most especially the useful idiot Mr. Seidman.

A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others and how little he alludes to his own, while the reverse occurs in France. There the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the introduction of an entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel employed; and the fundamental principles of law are discussed in order to obtain a rod of land by the decision of the court. This abnegation of his own opinion and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France.

The French codes are often difficult to comprehend, but they can be read by everyone; nothing, on the other hand, can be more obscure and strange to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. The absolute need of legal aid that is felt in England and the United States, and the high opinion that is entertained of the ability of the legal profession, tend to separate it more and more from the people and to erect it into a distinct class. The French lawyer is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his country; but the English or American lawyer resembles the hierophants of Egypt, for like them he is the sole interpreter of an occult science.

And, indeed, the lawyer-like character that I am endeavoring to depict is most distinctly to be met with in England: there laws are esteemed not so much because they are good as because they are old; and if it is necessary to modify them in any respect, to adapt them to the changes that time operates in society, recourse is had to the most inconceivable subtleties in order to uphold the traditionary fabric and to maintain that nothing has been done which does not square with the intentions and complete the labors of former generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim any desire for innovation and had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead guilty to so great a crime. This spirit appertains more especially to the English lawyers; they appear indifferent to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming inclined to abandon reason and humanity rather than to swerve one tittle from the law. English legislation may be compared to the stock of an old tree upon which lawyers have engrafted the most dissimilar shoots in the hope that, although their fruits may differ, their foliage at least will be confused with the venerable trunk that supports them all.

Tocqueville: Book I Chapter 16