From Bumper Stickers to Talk Shows

My friend Skylar posted this quote on his Facebook profile and I found it quite fitting.  Apparently everyone nowadays considers themselves to be an expert on Constitutional Law and expert political analysts. 

"The Constitution has too often been misused for personal gain. Individual desires have been palmed off as scholarship. Politicians have pandered to the public by compounding misunderstandings of Supreme Court decisions, not correcting them. Constitutional pronouncements appear everywhere, from bumper stickers to talk shows. Too many people appear in classrooms, pulpits, campaign platforms, and mass circulation magazines, telling us not what they believe the Constitution means, but what they insist it says, giving every appearance that they are the sole heirs of James Madison’s wisdom."- Robert Paul Wolff via Rex E. Lee

There was an excellent piece on this topic on The Daily Show a while back.  Please, watch it, learn and enjoy.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
You're Welcome - Constitutional Crisis
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Too many people are being misled about what the Constitution does and does not say.  I've even heard people (by people I mean Glenn Beck loyalists) claim that the Supreme Court and other Federal judges are unconstitutional because they're not elected; to which the only reasonable response is a jaw dropped to floor in exasperation and disbelief.  

In Federalist 39, James Madison wrote, "It is sufficient for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people..."  The fact that you disagree with the appointment or nomination and confirmation of a particular administrator or judge is not reason enough to deem the system "unconstitutional."

Defending the Constitution is a noble cause; defending your interpretation of the Constitution is delirious.