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The ability to change it, the Constitution is a living document. It also provides us with the safety of many checks and balances that we sometimes take for granted between the three branches (Executive, Legislative, Judicial).

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16y ago
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10y ago

This is a very interesting question. It seems straightforward enough... but things sometimes aren't what they seem. If you'd asked, "Do people today benefit from the Constitution?" the most accurate answer would be, "Well... sort of... but not exactly, no."

The Constitution's only purpose was to establish a form of government designed - in nearly every clause of every article - to hamper its own ability to threaten the Liberty of any individual citizen. It defines very strictly the roles and responsibilities of each of the three branches. It ingeniously laid out a generally self-correcting system of checks and balances, whereby every power granted to one branch is offset by the abillity of another to hinder, delay, override, veto, or nullify it. It's "self-correcting" in that if one administration's policies and practices go too far, the next one can reverse them.

We benefit also by its explicit limitation of the court's ability to abuse its enormous power. For example, the police may not (in theory) burst into a person's home at will, ransack it, loot it, and haul the occupants off to secret jails in the dark of night... which still happens in the legal systems of many countries. It's a tremendous benefit that we are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court; in some countries, people suspected of a crime are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Although it's sometimes very difficult to witness criminals slipping through our system and back onto the street because the police and/or the courts failed to follow proper procedures to the letter, those procedures also protect the innocent from incarceration without charges, without trial, without legal representation, without communication with or notification of the family, without a translator if needed, and without recourse - all because of corruption, some petty personal rivalry, or a lack of integrity on the part of the people working as officers of the law or of the courts (for example). Any one of these circumstances can - and do - befall citizens in other parts of the world.

We benefit just as profoundly from having incorporated the Bill of Rights into the Constitution. Without this very detailed list of our Natural Rights (meaning the Rights we all have by virtue of having been born human, which are beyond the authority of any government to bestow or revoke), we ourselves would be unlikely to remember them all, let alone stand up for them. We would tend to claim certain benefits or comforts to which we've become accustomed as Rights. We would be easily deceived by clever, silver-tongued politicians that some extravagances are Rights that really aren't and that our actual Rights aren't guaranteed. In short, we wouldn't know Rights from wrongs. Imagine the trouble we'd be in then!

So what's the not-straightforward part?

While the Constitution brilliantly - if not perfectly - constructed a government to safeguard our Liberties, it is after all just a piece of paper with some good ideas written on it. The truth is that we can only benefit from it as long as the government adheres to its rules.

And that's why we can only benefit from the Constitution as long as We, the People, understand it. We not only need to know what it says, we need to know what it doesn't say. And we need to know why the Framers wrote it that way. We must all understand what its wording meant to them so we know how it protects us.

We - all of us - also need to understand a century-old controversy over the temptation to view the Constitution as a "living, breathing document." This idea has been defended and advanced by some very prominent, powerful, and persuasive people including Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who served there for almost 30 years. We must all understand the notion's pros and cons and how it could be used to subvert and undermine it rather than to keep it vibrant.

Why should every citizen need to know all of that history?

Well, politicians are especially good at sugar-coating their actions, aren't they? Some of them become corrupted by the power of their positions. Can you name any who you can say without a hint of doubt are always 100% honest about every deal they make for their votes in Congress?

If We, the People, don't understand the rules, we'll never know when they're being broken. We're more likely to believe them when they lie to us. We'll believe them when they say the rules don't matter because they're too old. We'll cheer when they violate the other party's Rights to shut them up, never believing that if it can happen to them, it's only a matter of time before it happens to us too. It all comes down to the absolutely critical question, with the future of Liberty itself hanging in the balance:

If We, the People, don't demand that our government always adhere to the Constitution and fight back with one voice when they don't... who will?

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9y ago

In the United States, the US Constitution has benefited everyone living in America. Generally speaking, the Constitution provides for free elections, freedom of the press, and freedom to practice one's religion. These issues, covered in the first set of amendments, have survived the test of time.

Critics of this document are free to call for changes in it, but for the most part, changes are rare. One reason for that is the method of making changes which requires two thirds of the Congress, or by a Constitutional Convention that requires two thirds of the US States legislatures.

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12y ago

That's up to government really. but it sopposed to protect the people from government corruption

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12y ago

well the citizens of that nation can vote and that is it really

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