LD – Professor Levinson:
Please forgive the length of this comment – owing to which I would understand your foregoing it.
I should like to start with stating my read on Mark’s earlier comment which you found “completely fair”.
“what I am trying to do [ ] is to get Americans to stop obsessing [ ] about hot button "social issues" and reflect about the unfortunate consequences [ ]of our basic structures.”
Critical as I am about some aspects of the Constitution I don't see your position as plausible. Essentially you are asking some to put aside issues THEY think important to discuss those YOU think important. Strategically shouldn't they at least demand changes to suit them as the price of agreeing to your changes? This also assumes important issues can be sorted into distinct piles – EG structural vs social - which I don’t see EG Huckabee's proposal [assuming his hot button vague posturing is reducible to a concept which is amenable to articulation in written English stripped of nuances requiring an overwhelming consensus to starting from a single set of faith-based assumptions (which the trends towards increased numbers of typically Catholic & Muslim & non-faith-based voters suggests is a bridge long past)] could easily be construed as structural in ways which I expect you would argue negate the point of the exercise EG in the case of Huckabee establishing a particular brand of preference for selected passages from the King James translation of the various Old & New & dubiously originating books from the Judeo-Christian heritage as the basis for a codified national set of articles of faith IOW a “national religion” – something which in the case of 17th century England it appears was only “accomplished” in a context of a practical exclusivity of Catholic-based barely enfranchised mostly illiterate citizens with nothing even approaching the sort of 21st century US sense of entitlements to citizenry over a period of decades through a process marked by arbitrarily imposed & politicized textual choices & a level of violence which I would think would be roughly equivalent to that seen in Baghdad over the past 5 years – plus precisely those pulls to emigration which contributed so critically to the establishment of the American colonies which facilitated the narrowly defined circumstances under which the subject of your post came to be so broadly accepted by a remarkably homogenous group of like-minded ethno-centric actors as the least worst poltitical expedient in the first place – especially given what I would forsee as a reliably predictable starting point of a religious test for suitability for any service above strictly janitorial in all 3 [4?] branches of public office – IOW a franchise limited to church members. : Mark Field as ghost re-written by Diderot’s Dog
Now to my own growl:
In my view the component which is critical to the enabling the process you argue for is a single baseline: practically unanimous acceptance that workable solutions to the variety of structural conundrums which are impairing human progress in the context of this Union clearly – plainly – obviously – carry significantly greater value than the shared baseline values of any minority group of individuals within the committee of the whole IE all citizens.
It strikes me that the only circumstance which history suggests carries the degree of compulsion necessary to achieving such a baseline is national security – which if I may be forgiven a second time for now extrapolating beyond what I suggest is the relatively indisputable proposition in the paragraph immediately preceding this one - is precisely the base on which the structures of the dilemma were erected.
In the case of the current administration I suggest it may be more accurate to describe the effect as ‘precisely the rationale for removing or enfeebling the weight-bearing walls on which the premise was erected. Although the [in my view entirely correct] deeply accepted perception the record of the Bush-Cheney administration being unconscionably marked by monstrous failures, I posit that something of the same effects were brought about as well under some of their predecessors who today – as Bush at least apparently hopes will be granted him [I expect Cheney is more inclined to dream of Kuwaiti citizenship.] – are widely lionized: among whom FDR & Reagan are most prominently featured on the banners of the two vast armies competing for the affections of the citizenry [diminishing how the legacies of others denied beatification have contributed to the current state of trench warfare at the seat of national government & banditry in outlying regions like Alabama: EG LBJ & Nixon].
For my own part though I share your sense of alarm over the long term consequences of the dilemma I am convinced that it is an inevitable by product of – well – the genius of the existing model – bearing in mind a coldly rational appreciation of both the circumstances of its birth & those of the many challenges it has endured [I would particularly look forward to President Bush opting on the occasion of his last obligated attendance on Congress to report succinctly – such as: “The state of the Union is that for the most part it still endures under a single flag. Good bye & good luck.”].
In my view real valid just calls on the citizenry to forego some manifestations of their expectations for individual citizenship status are a necessary expense to the end of sustaining the venture – the concerted restoration of which is an absolute necessity to that which you & I - & I hope the majority of citizens – something beyond maintaining the bare outlines of distinct nationhood IE the Terry Schiavo model of living under a facsimile of “life” – which the Founders sought to capture in the phrase “life [plus] liberty [plus] the pursuit of happiness” - & which 235 years on IMO should be interpreted as “individual security with rational justified tolerance for both potentially progressive variation on the notion of pursuing human fulfillment”.
But the model has also been subjected to a number of “national security crises” which are neither real nor rational – but instead were phoney contrived esoteric or ideological – in which something like the same quality of sacrifice has been imposed on a deeply divided citizenry as that which it has been called upon to “voluntarily” forego in times when no rational patriot could decline.
If I’m right [I concede the possibility that many may conclude I’m left – or at least wrong – or necessarily both] then I think it means you - & the two faithists with pretensions to chief executive-hood – have succeeded in convincing me of the need for Constitutional amendment – but in ways that are more like the faithists in its number & more like you in its effects [or put conversely, less comprehensive than what you propose & less likely to amount to surrendering the essence of the model than the faithists propose].
Is it possible to achieve one of the two goals I favor without a major resort to the agonies of protracted amendment [EG (1) the Emancipation Proclamation (2) suffrage & (3) the failed ERA - despite the ease with which all would seem to flow naturally from the model]? I’m thinking now of the challenge to presidential authority posed by the Unitary Executive interpretation. Could that be settled by bundling a relatively more marketable “minor” amendment establishing & safeguarding an independent prosecutorial office [I’d be willing to endure the odd trial over lying about getting a blow job to enable Congress to exercise its obligations of oversight in a meaningful way - after all impeachment is a critical component to the model] together with a court challenge which squarely engages the essential precept of the Federalist Society?
[Surely a few among its alumni would find pleasure in the prospect of burning their membership cards.]
I think the other necessary amendment holds the same promise of marketability – a requirement to adhere to a Congressional determination that the crisis is ended – or that the call to sacrifice is no longer justified – together with a mandatory process of restoring the promises of the model.
Also if you have the time I have some pigs I need help with getting airborne.
