BrianGarst.com

An Obama judicial appointment has troubling views on the Constitution:

Liu opponents point to a number of his writings, including a book he co-authored in 2009 called “Keeping Faith with the Constitution,” in which the authors opine about their concept of judicial interpretation.

“Applications of constitutional text and principles must be open to adaptation and change … as the conditions and norms of our society become ever more distant from those of the Founding generation.”

That theme — that the Constitution’s text and principles must be adapted to changes in the world — repeats throughout the book and raises eyebrows among conservatives.

It is imperative to combat such dangerous views wherever they arise.  Yes, some principles change over time.  Others, including many captured by both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, are timeless.  But for those principles that might change, the Constitution provides a process for dealing with that: amendments.

It’s an entirely different beast to say that the application of the constitution changes.  The principles of the Constitution should be simply applied as they are.  Believing differently raises an obvious question, which in the end should reveal the fault of this view.  Who decides how the application changes?  The answer, as we have seen to our detriment over the last 80 years or so, is that the court decides.

Allowing the Supreme Court to bring the Constitution into alignment with changing principles removes the people from the democratic process.  This is why the Constitution was given an amendment process – so that it could maintain its principled timeliness, but still be of, by and for the people.

constitution Goodwin Liu