What's Wrong with America 2

Here is the Constitution of the United States of America. Go check it out: it's in a nice outline form, so you can see what it addresses without reading all the text, though you should feel free to read away. But I'm linking to it because I want to talk about amendments and the purpose of the Constitution. Which I do not know much about, in the legal or political sense, beyond what I learned in 11th grade U.S. history, but I'm pretty good with texts, plus I'm a citizen and, last I checked, this is still America, so I have a say (that would be Amendment 1, commonly known as the First Amendment).

If you look at the amendments to the Constitution, you will see that they are almost all about how we govern ourselves: how the legal system works, how the army works, how senators are elected, who can vote, taxes, etc. There are also a few amendments that address the appalling mistake our founding fathers made with regard to slavery. Though in fact we can see even those amendments in the context of government, for they establish African Americans as full participants therein.

The one amendment that goes beyond how we govern ourselves is the 18th--oh yes, and the 21st. That would be Prohibition, of course, and its repeal. We sensibly realized, back in 1933, that the Constitution was not meant to govern how people live their lives. We certainly use it to determine lots of things beyond how we govern ourselves, lots of things that have to do with how we live our lives, but we do that in the judicial and legislative branches of our government, which have traditionally worked pretty well.

The Constitution is a serious document and I take it seriously. Regardless of how you feel about flag-burning and gay marriage, I can find no rationale for putting them in the Constitution. They have nothing to do with how we govern ourselves, and their presence would demean the Constitution itself.

Luckily, 48 senators agree.