Ezra Klein says a stupid thing…
…but it’s not the stupid thing that some on the right have accused him of saying.
First, watch the video:
Now, what he didn’t say. He didn’t say the Constitution has no binding power. His statement was in answer to a question about reading the Constitution aloud in Congress; the act of reading has no binding power, according to Klein, and is merely a gimmick—although that does sound rather deprecating, and he probably wishes now he’d kept his mouth shut.
Nor did he say that interpreting the Constitution is “impossible.”
But Klein did say the following stupid thing:
The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago.
Ezra Klein is young. Very young, as I’ve written about at some length here. Why he has been hired by many of the supposed heavy hitters of the MSM as a major political commentator, I’ll never know. His errors are often those of youth, and this case is no exception.
The Constitution is not confusing because it is old. If you don’t believe me, Ezra, ask members of the current Congress to devise a clearer one and see what they’ll come up with in the new 20,000-plus page document that would undoubtedly result.
Legal documents of any length must nearly always be interpreted when they are applied in the real world; that’s one of the main functions of our court system. Longer and more specific is not necessarily better, and older documents at least have accrued a host of common law cases on which to rely when interpretation is necessary.
Klein also implies that interpretation is arbitrary, and each side is merely seeing in the Constitution what it wishes to see. But the Constitution is not merely a blank slate onto which people can project their own wishes. There is a host of evidence of the intent of the original authors, for example. Those who want to expand the reach of the Constitution beyond that are doing something qualitatively different than those who consider themselves contructionists.
It’s not just a difference about what people “want to get done.” It’s usually about wanting to expand the reach of government versus wanting to restrict it. There are powers enumerated to the federal government in the Constitution, and one might say that the disagreement is about extending and expanding those powers because people on the left want to “get things done,” and keeping limits on those powers because people on the right believe that’s just the sort of tyranny the founders wisely wanted to prevent by writing the Constitution and limiting those powers in the first place.
1. The talking head commentator is the one who asked if it was a “gimmick”. The word is supposed to be damning. He agrees with her that it is a gimmick, and suggests that reading it will do nothing.
2. That’s the real problem – the disconnect between words and deeds in the post-modern liberal. Reading it is not a “nothing” at all, unless reading prayers at mass or marriage vows or oaths of office and all sorts of things like that are “nothings”. He is saying, as Liberals truly believe, that, for example, the marriage vow has to be interpreted by each spouse for its reality; or that an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution means anything a liberal wants it to mean.
And that’s the actual world we live in.
I think it is an excellent idea to read the Constitution aloud to open Congress. I hope they do it slowly and thoughtfully. I would be in favor of the first act of Congress on every single business day was the reading aloud of the Constitution. That would be a greater value than 9 out of 10 laws that are really burdens that these grotesque narcissists place on our backs.
I belong to a certain fellowship that reads out of a big book all the time. It is tremendously enlightening.
It’s never been read before, but liberals are supposed to be all about new things. maybe we should make it a regular part of business. It’s an idea, perhaps, whose time has come.
This illustrates perfectly the gap between the left and right in this country.
To the Klein and his ilk the Constitution is words, just words. That they are also “old” words makes them unintelligible to those who know what’s good for the country – a bigger and more intrusive Federal government.
To conservatives the Constitution is clear in delineating the separation of power and of duties between state and federal. Unfortunately, the country has departed so far from that road map of limited Federal government power that it is going to require a super-human effort just to move halfway back to the real intent. It can be done, but it will not be easy. It will take years of sustained effort.
The writings of Dickens are very old. Shakespeare’s writings are much older. The Bible is really old. In all those examples interpretations vary, but the core meaning of the words is fairly clear. Simply being old is not enough to negate the message.
What does it say about our future when the wretchedly ignorant are sought out to air their wretched ignorance?
They’re not standing on a box in Hyde Park spouting their ignorance. They are sought out and amplified.
Neo
The Constitution is not confusing because it is old. If you don’t believe me, Ezra, ask members of the current Congress to devise a clearer one and see what they’ll come up with in the new 20,000-plus page document that would undoubtedly result.
Excellent point. Congress has shown itself “adept” at writing bills of 800 to 2000 pages in length. Latin American countries have a penchant for writing new Constitutions, in some cases every ten years on average. Since it appears that very few Congressmen bother to read what they vote for, we could expect the same behavior for a new Congressionally-written Constitution.
These documents tend towards the hundred page length and up.
Why is everyone trying to cover for this child. He’s young compared to many but adults of 19 are leading men into combat daily and making decisions as well as statements that lives depend on. Decisions and statements for which they will be held to adult levels of responsibility. So why is this 26 yr old, whose had a charmed life but little real adult accomplishment, to be given a break from adult responsibility. He’s even to the age where he has to pay for his own health insurance and can’t sponge of mommy and daddy, at least by force of law, anymore.
He’s a “journalist” and should be held to adult standards for his asinine statements. Of course, ‘journalist’ no longer relates to the trade of reporting the happenings in an objective professional manner anymore.
Mr. Klein, I have no trouble understanding the essentials of the Constitution, and I don’t even have an Ivy League degree. The fine points are certainly subject to interpretation. We’ve been doing that since 1787, and it’s worked out pretty well for us. A bare-bones document that any reasonably literate 10th grader could grasp, with a few prohibitions on what the Congress “shall not” do tacked onto the end (Bill of Rights) has helped to give us arguably the greatest country in the history of the world. Then look at the turgid prose in the EU constitution:
http://www.unizar.es/euroconstitucion/library/constitution_29.10.04/part_I_EN.pdf
It’s like comparing Secretariat to a peddler’s nag.
Call me “confus[ed] because [I] was [conceived] more than [50] years ago,” but doesn’t calling someone a “wonk” imply that he at least knows something about what he’s talking about?
Iowahawk is on the job, as usual.
The Constitution Is Very Important
Neo: “Nor did he say that interpreting the Constitution is “impossible.””
Actually, that is exactly what he said. He didn’t say merely “The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago.” — That would have been bad enough; that is enough to indicate the the profound lack of profundity of his intellect.
What he said is: “The issue of the Constitution is not that people don’t read the text and think they’re following. The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago … and what people believe it says differs from person to person, and differs depending on what they wanna get done.”
What he *said* is that it is impossible to know the truth of what the Constitution requires.
Despite the vast changes in language and usage over the past 230 years, the Constitution is remarkably clear today. The Drafters, surely by design, crafted a document that is largely free of “legalize”. I have the impression that they meant for it to be read and understood by ordinary, literate, citizens–a minority then, and perhaps now.
Whenever some person or group starts to question the interpretation of a document, or starts to assign different meanings to words, you can be sure that they have ulterior motives.
The Constitution is a stumbling block for Statists. They will naturally do whatever they can to disparage and undercut it. It is hardly a secret that the intent of the Founders/Drafters were to thwart those same types. Then they were called Royalty and Nobility, but Despotic government was their aim, just as it is with today’s Statists. It must be defended at all costs–and I would say with any means available.
One wonders if, in response to all the flak he’s been getting, he actually went back and re-read the Constitution. (He probably read the beginning, so that he could finally get the date right. I doubt he went much further.)
It’s well worth re-reading from time to time, along with the Declaration of Independence, just to remember what geniuses these men were. As P. J. O’Rourke is fond of saying, these men wrote the operating manual for the entire United States — and did it with less than one-fourth the words in the manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry.
The engineers among us recognize how precious something is that works, and has a proven track record of working. This has worked for over 230 years, and worked well enough for a small breakaway colony to become the most powerful nation on Earth, with only a handful of tiny changes.
How remarkable that is.
Of the 17 Amendments adopted subsequent to the original ten (aka Bill of Rights), the record is less than stellar. Included are the two on booze (con and pro), the income tax, direct election of senators, tweaks on presidential succession and term of office, 18 as national voting age.
Leaves me once again convinced about the miraculous coming together of the Founders and their times.
Tom @ 10:55 . . .
Great point. Aside from the “tweaks on presidential succession and term of office,” one could actually argue that most of the other post-Bill of Rights amendments are fairly useless, except for the 14th and 15th amendments.
So 13 amendments total were really all that were needed to make a better document than that of most countries in the world.
Also, everyone should check out the link to Iowahawk provided by Rickl @ 9:53 pm.
Before we take up arms against the socialist oppressors, we should do everything we can to take them down with ridicule.
Ezra Klein is a putz, and Iowahawk nails him.
Before we take up arms against the socialist oppressors, we should do everything we can to take them down with ridicule.
Agreed, but some won’t see the joke. The Iowahawk parody is probably how they wrote in J-school, and got graded “A”.
In the post where i put the link to this, i mentioned that Marx, and Rousseau and all that rot are also, by the assertion, too old to understand…
Ezra Klein needs to go flip burgers for a while.
Bless these Progressive’s little hearts. They just don’t see the irony of arguing words really have no meaning and doing so with WORDS.
Promethea @1:13-
Not only were they “fairly useless”, as you say, but some were clearly harmful d/t unintended consequences.
The Constitution and its creation are miraculous, truly.
In a sense, it would have been better if the Constitution was written in legalese. The terms of law–and the principles behind them–are not nearly so open to reinterpretation as the readable language in our founding contract.
That the United States has lasted this long, and done so well comparatively, is as much a result of the character of the people as the founding principles and docs. The first century or so, when there really was little Federal power exerted, show that humans can work out ways to live and prosper without a despot or nanny smacking them into line.
The brilliance of the Founders was to put faith in the possibilities of free men. It is that faith which has been compromised by the temptations of do-gooders.
I think Klein is spouting a liberal talking point: that parts of the constitution are anachronistic (eg, the second amendment). This is a justification for treating the constitution as a living document instead of interpreting laws with respect to it. This viewpoint did not fare too well in terms of their goal to limit gun rights. I am unsure what other parts of the constitution they think are out of date. I doubt they have a clear idea–this is an argument of convenience on their part.
Why he has been hired by many of the supposed heavy hitters of the MSM as a major political commentator, I’ll never know.
its called grooming and creating an old timer that serves. a lot of what leftists do that we DONT discuss is look way ahead and to historical conditions and value. Helen Thomas got as far as she did because how long she had dug into her position…. the same here.
I noticed that the things that confuse you and others most are things that have to do with manufacturing a valuable condition later, and so you cant fathom it. in a ‘natural’ world that isnt really possible, but with one run through with collectivists cooperating to nth degree based on a phone call, such IS something that can be manufactured and created (and tossed aside if something happens too – remember the catechism of a revolutionary which i guess no one wants to apply)
time in place = credibility to the masses
soooooooo
to gain credibility and control in the future, groom and protect and guide people from the earliers possible moment.
AND select an incompetent, in that way, they are beholden to you for putting them up on the post. that is, if you select the capable, they can be independent of you, but if you select an incompetent, you now have a puppet in place who knows that without his compliance, he falls and has nothing, and so complies.
its why totalitarianism becomes rife with incompetence… you cant have independent people that may want to go their own way, and so you have to create this other bureaucratic form, a cargo cult form where people below serve people above, and so on… with really the only competent being at the very top far removed from common operation.
this is a DIFFERENT SYSTEM, and failure to realize that is to fail. way back people were upset with me for not being too hopeful, i am getting less hopeful as few if any have progressed past what they knew then as to the different ways and means.
they don’t even perceive that collective organization is different than organic organization…
that design is different than self organization
everytime there is clear evidence of such stuff, they are confused as if its in a different language, it makes no sense. of course it doesnt because an organic system of merit, which we no longer live in thanks to the different “innocents clubs” like feminism work on equality of outcome not equality of opportunity, and are collective not organic.
you look based on organic and do not imagine that he is a cell in a larger body… that he is part of a multicellular metaphysical being, while the rest of organic society is independent cells.
you cant fathom how an independent incompetent can go so far.
and i keep telling you that a collective incompetent can
so do we switch and try to learn the differences and so learn to see it, and so learn why X is chosen over Y? of course not… its too much fun and a puzzle to try to keep banging the square shaped peg into the round hole… even more fun and confusing is the ball whose circumference is slightly larger than the hole… then we are even worse off as we cant figure out why round don’t fit into round…
we forgot so much history, and so we forgot so much of how people live… in the real world not in the cage of domestic life.
and thats what the point to the cold war and the not fighting directly was all about… you cant defeat a society who has so much knowlege in its meme memory floating between family generations and so on… so you have to disrupt it long enough that they no longer even believe reality is real… (getting the psychological medical area to work on which is more normal, domesticated stunted behavior or full rich dynamic behavior, which they are afraid of?)
we didn’t have room in the fridge. so i said to my wife, don’t worry we can bank the stew. most people don’t know that you can keep food fresh for a long time without any refrigeration if you know enough to cook certain kinds and you heat and bank it twice a day.. [and if you know this, the large cast iron kettles make sense rather than look weird. the stew pot is your refrigerator]
i can describe so much of what we lost. makes the fire fox series of books seem like a encyclopedia when its just a smidgen.
a collective is a meta agent, like a company.
it can live for a thousand years, when people cant.
have a view of people only, not the other thing, and you wont get that from the day of its creation, this has been the one thing in almost every really bad thing that has happened..
Franco in Spain won, but if he didn’t who would have?
Stalin…
Half of germany, the three baltic states, poland, rumania, hungary, slovakia, the czech republic, armenia, kazakstan, and tons of other countries turned into satellites..
small islands off japan, parts of china…
wars?
WWII was Molotov and Ribbentrop…
the war to make communist china was who?
Korea we were fighting soldiers from where?
(hint they had a reunion in Moscow)
Vietnam, also…
in Israel we didn’t participate in because we didn’t want American and soviet troops to collide and it to escalate…
cuba?
venezeula?
honduras?
how about organizations? FARC? Rote Zora? and on and on… CPP-NPA? Red Army Faction (RAF)? GRAPO? ERP? Communist Party of India (Maoist)? Sazman-e Reha’i-ye Afghanistan, ALO?Front National du Tchad Rénové, FNTR? ULFA, India? Parté® Déªmokraté® Kurdistan-Iran / Hezb-e Demokrat-e Kordestan-e Iran, DPIK? # Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro (Frente Popular para la Liberacié³n de Saguia el Hamra y Rio de Oro / Jabhah al-Sha`biyah li-Tahrir al-Saqiyah al-Hamra’ wa-Wadi al-Dhahab, Frente POLISARIO) Sahara Press Service? Marksist Leninist Komé¼nist Partisi, MLKP), Turkey?
pick a country and i can list 20 organizations for each EASILY with only cursory looking…
the story of labor movement in the US is rife with their games… as is the race movement, and the other front mass movements based on mass politics.
The Cambridge Five, Aldrich Ames, Klaus Fuchs, Robert Hanssen, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
and some we dont even pay attention to like Herman Simm
ALL these parties, groups, organizations, fronts and more… are ALL tied to one place!!!!!!!!!!!
where would world war II be if it wasnt for stalin? would hitler have tried it without stalin?
were would china have been if not for the games of russia and sympathies here changing the outcome?
where would the US be if we didn’t have such describing the ills that collapsed Rome as social goods, and ignore how they are copies of other things in history by other means.
the list and history is HUGE… and we spend our inordinate amount of time on a tiny 10 year period and only half of that story even!
we dont even bat an eye that sleeper spies were caught. in fact, they have been turned into the next american idol contest as people are now falling all over themselves to turn something, be caught, and have such a celebrity existence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the KGB defector that revealed them has a “Mercator” out after him according to Putin..
so much stuff we don’t pay attention to was we try to make sense of chess by applying the rules of Parcheesi and wondering why we always lose, are confused, and so on..
he probably wishes now he’d kept his mouth shut.
A wish in which I heartily concur.
The problem is that Klein is a) young, b) quite stupid, c) does not realize the truth of b), and d) has a media megaphone.
He should be the shlub the office sends out to get Danishes, something commensurate with his gifts.
So … is Ezra Klein denying the clear meaning of the Constitution because it is inconvenient to his way of seeing the world, or is it really hopelessly difficutlt for him because his worldview has no room for its ideas?
“The brilliance of the Founders was to put faith in the possibilities of free men.”–FOXMARKS
True, but the quality that was responsible for the faith of the Founders, wasn’t so much brilliance, but rather humility that accepted the best solution for the intransigence of man is recognition that we are all created equal. And why are we all equal? Because we are created beings.
The Founders founded a republic on God and his laws but at the same time were able to move that foundation out of the political sphere. To a people like Ezra Klein, the constitution is unintelligible because its foundation, to them, is unintelligible. God, creation, law . . . all of these are illusions. Man is the creator and law is only the expression of power.
Klein is confusing the true nature of his incomprehension. Just as njcommuter says, “his world view has no room for [the constitution’s] ideas.” When Klein implies “old,” he is really saying, “not progressive,” and pointing to the fact, that the history of his type of thinking has become celebrated and accepted only in the last, say, 50 years as Western philosophy.
However, those of us who have one of the belief structures wherein God is exalted and is the Creator of law and man–we have no difficulty in seeing Klein’s statements as an accusation that God is preventing man from becoming God.
He’s really just being disingenuous. Arguing that the left’s arbitrary interpretation of the constitution meaning whatever they want is as valid as those who actually try to interpret it.
His youth problem is mostly he is not skilled enough at deceit… yet… So; he phrased his argument poorly. An Obama or other older leftist would do the same thing / argument much better.
Neo: “Nor did he say that interpreting the Constitution is “impossible.””
Iléon: “Actually, that is exactly what he said. … What he *said* is that it is impossible to know the truth of what the Constitution requires.”
Klein was invoking the self-contradictory notion that “liberals” believe/assertion is a fundamental truth about the nature of reality: there is no truth of the matter.
For a “liberal,” if different groups of persons disagree about something (and especially of one of the positions is recognizably leftist or “liberal” and is the weaker position) then it is “obvious” that even if there is a truth of the matter, it simply can’t be known … and “therefore” the “liberal” position is the “correct” on for society to adopt. Sure, that’s anti-logical and irrational, but so are “liberals.”
What Klein was claiming when he that “The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago … and what people believe it says differs from person to person, and differs depending on what they wanna get done” is:
1) there is no truth of the matter regarding what the Constitution says;
2) even if there were, SINCE some people (i.e. “liberals”) disagree that it says what it says;
3) because: “what people believe it says differs from person to person, and differs depending on what they wanna get done“;
4) THEREFORE, even if there were a truth of the matter regarding what the Constitution says, it can’t be objectively known;
5) THEREFORE, on any question of poblic policy, the “liberal” position is *always* corect and obligatory (both morally and Constitutionally).
—
This is *how* progressives have been “reasoning” for a good century.
I think most of us can pretty well read and “understand” the U. S. Constitution, it’s the Form 1040 tax instructions I have trouble with — that’s why I have a tax accountant prepare my returns.
I wonder if Mr. Klein is confused by the, yet older, Declaration of Independence.
Klein was invoking the self-contradictory notion that “liberals” believe/assertion is a fundamental truth about the nature of reality: there is no truth of the matter.
Except that written by St. Karl of Trier, whose word is of course Holy Writ.
Young Klein appears not to grasp, inter alia, the irony of a “political science” (gotta love oxymorons) major who admits he can’t understand the Constitution.
I’m contemplating going back to college, flunking out as a political science major, and then switching to physics and graduating with honors – just to be the first person in human history to do so.
If Klein were able to speak honestly it’s not that the Constitution is confusing – it’s often very clear – he would say that’s it’s inconvenient – an inconvenient obstruction to achieving the changes in society that people like Klein believe in.
Ezra Klein says a stupid thing…
Note to neo: how about just posting when Klein says something intelligent? That’ll save so much time.
Occam . . .
It’s more fun to pick on him.
Hardly sporting, Promethea.
When you consider that Ezra Klein adores as president a “constitutonal scholar” who once said “The Framers [of the Constitution] had a blind spot when it came to slavery,” it is not suprising that he has no idea what it’s about.
I sent a link and article to neo.
the article espoused how the fifths of a person concept gave the south an advantage (which is 180 degrees opposite from the truth).
it was a big shame since one only has to read
go here…
teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1128