My Favorite Amendment

[IBCoupe]

A Constitutional Law classmate wrote to me tonight:

Hi Isaac.

I'm looking over my notes from the first class and wanted to ask you about the prof's question that you answered regarding why there was no need to mention individual rights in the Constitution. Your response to the question appeared to be spot on . . . could you remind me of what you said. (All I wrote was "ask Isaac"!!)

I hope the weather has not been too much of a nightmare for you.

Sam

I figured I'd share the pertinent part of my response, because I got a kick out of writing it:

Haha, no problem at all, Sam. The point of the Constitution is that the Federal Government, in this case Congress, is not allowed to do anything that isn't explicitly stated. So, the framers said, "Well, if we never tell Congress that they can rip away individual rights, they shouldn't ever do it, right?" And so they didn't put anything in the Constitution about individual rights, because, in theory, they shouldn't have had to. And that was my answer.

There's more to the story, and I'm sure we'll get to it in class, but here's a preview (because I can't resist): some time later, they thought better of that, and some folks suggested that we should have a Bill of Rights, specifically enumerating things that Congress couldn't do, instead. Now, there was a bit of resistance to this, and certain founding fathers said, "Well, if we do that, then somewhere down the road, some idiot is going to look at this list and say, 'Well, you know, the right to X isn't listed in the Constitution, so it must not be a right.'" And so in response to that, they placed the Ninth Amendment into the Bill of Rights, which says that the enumeration of rights shall not be taken to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And that's the story of my #1 favorite Constitutional Amendment. And you better believe that there are idiots like that out there. Every time you hear someone say "Well, the Constitution doesn't say anything about abortion," I'd like you to hit that person over the head with the Ninth Amendment, as a favor to me. It's my favorite amendment because it's a direct smack-down to bad arguments.

So, are you guys policy-geeky enough to have a favorite Amendment? If so, which one and why?

[heliochrome85]

this is a car forum. you should know that for the most part, the 21st beats out the 2nd...

[stebo0728]

I'd say off hand, the 2nd Ammendment is my favorite, because it's so fun to argue about. Though Im convinced that at some point the 5th Ammendment will be my favorite

Now, my LEAST favorite is somewhat of a tie between the 16th and 17th, with perhaps a small tip in the direction of the 17th, as it created such a drastic disparity between how Washington is "supposed" to do business, and how it ACTUALLY does business.

[IBCoupe]

I'm with you on the 17th. The whole point of giving States a forum where they each had an equal say was that it was a check on direct democracy.

[stebo0728]

Exactly! I get the whole corruption angle as to why it was implemented, but thats what knee-jerk reactions get you - bad policy

[Cold_Zero]

Gut reaction would be the 2nd Amendement, because the proper use of this God given right we retain and enforce all other rights....hehehehe

I really would like the 10th Amendment to come back into vogue. It seems for the past two decades (maybe more) that this concept has been lost with our government.