The Senate is in an uproar about
issue of approving nomination of certain judges. There are vocal supporters for and against traditional techniques of filibuster. There are others working hard to identify options and compromises to avoid a head-to-head battle that will leave one side staggering.The rest of country looks on: in confusion, in awe, in indifference, in disgust. We never really trust politicians anyway so why should their internal disagreements mean a hill of beans to working stiff on street?
The critical importance to every citizen, no matter social level or way of life, is that system has to work or we have no rules, no structure, no boundaries to mark our place. We all have differing opinions about how to rule world. Senators and Judges have varying ideas also. The truth is that when Senators and Judges, individually and then collectively, make decisions about issues, we all have to live with results.
One of great strengths of Constitution is that it provides a framework for our society but is also extremely flexible. That flexibility is constantly pulled and stretched by myriad of meanings that can be read into its written form. Over centuries, its principles have been interpreted, and reinterpreted, meanings changed as our society changed.
We hope, as no doubt founding fathers hoped, that in long term opposing forces should balance each other out and a centrist consensus should emerge that keeps us moving in a generally positive direction. For more than two hundred years, that has successfully transpired. While we applaud robustness of a document that has weathered slings and arrows of time so deftly, we must also look at events in short term and trauma they may impose.
Long before abolition of slavery, there was degradation of thousands of human lives, treated, auctioned, bullwhipped, and ravaged like livestock, all under auspices of Constitution.
