The latest assault on the Constitution

You may have noticed the liberal world’s recent bizarre campaign to denigrate the U.S. Constitution. According to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Adam Liptak of the New York Times, and others, the Constitution is no good any more because other countries are not using it as their model as much as they once did, mainly because it doesn’t guarantee enough “rights,” such as the “right” to housing, food, and medical care. In other words, the Constitution is no good because it doesn’t outright mandate an omnicompetent central government attending to every possible human need. So what’s new about that? The left has always disliked the Constitution for that reason. They’ve always been hostile to the Constitution’s restraints on government power, because, being leftists, they want a government of unlimited power. They’ve just found a new way to make the same argument, by saying that the Constitution is not as influential internationally as it once was.

Seriously, has any American who respected and revered the U.S. Constitution ever done so because other countries imitated it? To the contrary, we Americans have always been aware that countries that imitated the Constitution only imitated its form, usually with disastrous results, because those countries lacked the political, ethnocultural, and moral basis for such a Constitution. But the left seeks to make us feel bad about the Constitution because various fourth rate countries are no longer ostensibly following our lead.

However, as Paul Nachman brings to our attention, the leftist schtick is running into some resistance on the part of New York Times readers commenting on Liptak’s article (Paul says to see the semi-obscure “Read All Comments” link a little way down on the left).

Samples:

StrayGoose

Little Rock, AR

What am I missing here … the US Constitution rightfully does not contain “entitlements” to food, education and healthcare, as the Federal government has no business providing such.

Feb. 7, 2012 at 1:13 p.m

Margaret Kearney

AZ

And if the other countries jumped off a bridge, would you follow them? The Constitution was purposely designed to be difficult to amend as it should not be done lightly. And it protects all the rights we need WHEN it is properly interpreted and enforced. It is the interpretation and enforcement that are lacking today and our rights are eroding.

Education, healthcare and food are not the province of governments to provide.

Feb. 7, 2012 at 1:01 p.m.

John

Alexandria, Virginia

Rights are things the government cannot take away. They are not things that the government attempts to provide.

Feb. 7, 2012 at 12:59 p.m.

seanpatriot

TEXAS

HEY NYT, WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES COULD CARE LESS IF OUR CONSTITUTION LOSES APPEAL WITH PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.

Feb. 7, 2012 at 12:59 p.m.

MTL

Arizona

Just a ‘terse’ question: When did it become important whether Botswana, Yemen and the Republic of Nowhere approve of the US Constitution?

Yet another attempt by liberal media and their collaborating politicians to render it easier to ignore the Constitution. It doesn’t guarantee ‘enough’ rights? That’s because there aren’t any additional ones that aren’t controls upon others, in disguise.

The Constitution doesn’t guarantee us extra ‘stuff’. It guarantees the rights of people to be left alone by their government. We’ve all been ‘helped’ by the Federal government quite enough, thanks. It is our founding document. It’s not supposed to be particularly flexible. Don’t like it? Pass an amendment. Else: quit whining.

Feb. 7, 2012 at 12

Paul Nachman adds:

Maybe there’s some life in the old republic, after all.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 08, 2012 10:31 AM | Send