Constitutional Commandments

For those people who defend the intractability of the Constitution, the 10 commandments stand as a monument and example of immutable pemanence as a form of truth. The commandments haven't changed during their entire existence. If the commandments haven't changed why should the Constitution?  With this conundrum in mind let's compare the Commandments to the Constitution and see if we can arrive at more perfect documents.

The "documents" differ from one another in terms of legal versus religious context, origin, scope, detail, application and enforcement.

The Bill of Rights is a legal document. The Commandments are a religious and moral code. The Bill of Rights was added to the United States Constitution in 1791 to address issues with the original constitutional articles. The Commandments are much older and have religious origins, traditionally believed to have been given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.

The Bill of Rights consists of ten amendments addressing specific right and protections. The Commandments are more concise and provide general rather than specific moral and ethical principles. The Bill of Rights applies to the relationship between individuals and their government, protecting citizens from government infringement on their rights. The Commandments guide individuals in their personal lives and protect them from their neighbors and themselves. The Bill of Rights is enforceable through the legal system that can result in consequences like lawsuits or criminal charges. Violations of the Commandments have moral consequences in many Christian religions the consequence of violation is eternal suffering in Hell.

Ouch.

The Bill of Rights which is itself a group of ten amendments has been amended 17 times since it's inception. The Ten Commandments have never been amended because they hold significant religious, historical and moral importance for many individuals, and proposing amendments to them might be seen as a sensitive matter. Check out the Inquisition for example. Nobody wants the double fire...first at the stake and then in hell forever. Don't mess with the commandments. No amendments please. We good.

Yeah but good can always be better.

Stay tuned.

I'm about to jump into the fire and take some of y'all with me. 

But before we go there, let's take a step back into the past. 

Once upon a time, while pounding draft beers, I had the capacity to convince the people that were pounding along with me that I momentarily knew what I was talking about. That's about as close as I got to draft ratification in my drinking days. 

Now that those days are gone and I'm not so self assured, I limit my drafting to the printed word. Every so often, I'll feel the need to draft something. Occasionally, I can make my readers believe that I know what I'm writing about. Every time a draft attracts a 'like', I feel better about its ratificationability. I suspect this very draft will be ratified by some of the most intelligent people on earth and/or some of the biggest lunatics. 

I don't know what the hell would happen if I was pounding drafts while typing drafts. I'm kind of afraid to find out as written words have a tendency to hang around. 

This is why I'm a big fan of the guys who came up with the grand daddy of all drafts and then had that draft ratified by a bunch of guys who were mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. 

When ratified that draft became the U.S. Constitution. 

The words would stay. 

Still it was only a draft and Jim Madison had some other ideas. 

According to John Lennon 'if you had the luck of the Irish, you'd be sorry and wish you were dead...if you had the luck of the Irish.....you'd wish you were English instead. 

This leads me to another draft. 

The story of William Wright. 

William Wright was an Irishman in Massachusetts before it became cool to be an Irishman in Massachusetts. 

One night William and a few of his buddies had more than a few drafts and headed to the town square. 

William got up on the soapbox and started blarneying' about the old country. As the drinking, swearing and weeping continued to grow...William began talking about the Druids and the miniature Stone Henge that he and some Micks had built in his backyard one night while stoned. The assembly soon drew the attention of the local constabulary who weren't too crazy about Catholics, Irish guys or Druids. To the constabulary Druid equalled wizard and wizard equalled witch and witch equalled Salem. 

Everybody agreed THAT was a god damned mess. 

Plus these wizards had guns. 

So the constabulary broke up the 'energetic' gathering after relieving the Mike and Ike's of their weapons. Everybody went on their way except for William Wright. He was arrested and thrown into the shithole that they called a jail. 

They didn't know what to charge Wright with so they figured 'just let him rot awhile'. While Wright rotted, the good folks took his horse and tore down the Stone Henge in the backyard. 

They ate his chickens and sucked down his honey. 

They more or less forgot about Wright until one day a few months later he was dragged to the tavern that they called the 'court' and the local drunk after many drafts found Wright guilty of something or other and decided to warm up the tar and get out the feathers. 

 Jim Madison happened to be passing through town that day. He stopped into the tavern to enjoy a draft when he caught wind of what was going down and hollered 'whoa'. 

Madison experienced a moment of clarity. He had been working on the latest draft of the Constitution and was kinda hung up. He wanted to add thirty nine changes to the draft in order to appease his anti-federalist opponents who felt that the Constitution gave the government too much power. Big Jim wanted to make sure that consistent with ideals upheld in the Magna Carta, the Constitution needed some built in freedoms to American citizens. 

When he learned of the situation of William Wright...Jim realized that there should be freedom of speech, religion and public assembly. Americans should have the right 'keep and bear arms and should be protected against unreasonable search and seizure. Crime suspects should not have their personal effects confiscated by governmental authorities without probable cause. A grand jury indictment is required before bringing those charged with serious crimes to court and all defendants should be entitled to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of his peers. Big Jim didn't bother laying all that out in the tavern....he simply over-ruled the drunken judge and took William Wright to Philly with him. 

After buying everybody in the tavern a round of drafts. 

Along the way to Philly, Jim's ideas crystallized through conversation with William who he began to call Bill. 

By the time they got to Philly, Big Jim had figured out what he needed to add to the draft of the Constitution. 

He didn't know what to call these amendments to the constitutional draft. 

Then he looked over at William Wright. 

'Ah' thought Big Jim. 

The Bill of Rights 

And the rest is history.