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What does the Constitution mean?

Posted by Agit8r • 7/21/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: constitution, cotus, interpretation

Does it mean:

A) What the authors of 'The Federalist Papers' said that it would mean?

B) What the authors of the Constitution document itself intended

C) What everyone who signed the document intended

D) What those state legislators who sent delegates to the convention intended

E) What those who amended the Constitution intended

F) What the Supreme Court Justices interprets it to mean

G) What each of the branches of government equally interpret it to mean until checked by another by the mechanism which the constitution enumerates

User Comments

7/21/09

anticsrocks

B, final answer. But I do have some lifelines left...

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1. 7/22/09
  
  anticsrocks
  
  One of my lifelines...
  
  Where the Constitution is silent, see states' rights.
7/21/09

clioandme

I've never heard it put that way, but "G" sounds about right. It's the only one that includes checks and balances and allows for the give and take of our institutions.

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7/21/09

csiunatc

B as interpreted and voiced by F

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7/22/09

Agit8r

interesting...

I would have to say B, except when overruled by E, and when ambiguity exists we must defer to F... and of course through practical operation it acts as G

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7/22/09

polybore

G best fits. Who knows what the authors of the document were intending if anything more than attempting to put a respectable sheen on an otherwise somewhat sordid enterprise.

That may seem a bit harsh but the fact is that the constitution has only been adhered to in a fashion that in any way reflects how it reads for the last 40 years or so. That bears the question how were they previously able to interpret the constitution in a way which allowed segregation, slavery and the virtual extermination of the native population?

So in effect it does not matter what the delegates intended the constitution to mean rather how it is interpreted at any particular point in time. Hence G.

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7/22/09

Anok

Like Polybore said (good answer by the way) I would have to go with G and/or B and/or none of the above specifically. The constitution is only a piece of what the founding fathers intended - a clue as it were, but it is allowed to change as the country needs it too within certain parameters.

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7/22/09

Agit8r

MOST of the Constitution is merely an agreement of intercourse between the states. The delegates primarily came together so that they could arrange for "Commercial Amity" so that governors wouldn't be flouncing around saying stupid s--- like "We beat Oklahoma"* when they exacted protectionist measures against one another.

*that dirty anti-federalist Rick Perry

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