And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

... that some of us firmly believe that our Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they produced the Constitution of the United States, and think “original intent” should be the guiding principal in determining the constitutionality of an action.
Others claim the constitution is “a living, breathing document” and constitutionality should be judged on what it might mean today. They point to the fact that it has been amended.
Constitutionalists note that it is really quite difficult to amend the document, intentionally so, to prevent knee-jerk reactions to possibly transient conditions.
Various judges of the Supreme Court have been, and are, on opposite sides of the discussion.
Several presidents have tested the Supreme Court with varying degrees of success. Our current president, who has “a pen and a phone,” seems inclined to, as often as he can, ignore the constitution, the court, and the legislative branch, and rule by fiat using executive actions.
So the living, breathing document may be on life support. Amnesty for illegal aliens perhaps being the latest effort, as hinted at over the weekend.
Government officials, from the president on down, take an oath to “support and defend” the Constitution. There is no parenthetical phrase that reads “unless I disagree.”
Modern means of communication sometimes confuse us older folks.
One elderly man was complaining about something he felt was unfair, and told his grandson that someone should do “one of those hash brown things” to make his point. The grandson said “it’s hash tag, Grandpa, and it’s a symbol.” The old man said he knew what a cymbal was; he played them in his high school band years ago.
Apparently even presidents forget that everything that is said in public is recorded or captured by somebody.
In answer to a question from a reporter about an article in a newspaper, the president said he paid no attention to the media because whatever they know, he knew first. One TV network then played a handful of remarks from the president about various controversies in recent years in which the president said he knew nothing about the situation until he learned about it from the media.
Both can’t be true.
One grade school nun, in discussing lying, said it may seem easy at first, but is really harder. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said. But if you lie, you have to remember exactly what you lied about,” she suggested.
Words to live by.