Imagine if you will, Ogg the caveman. Ogg is a very intelligent cave man. He is brilliant. He is the Einstein of cavemen. While we do not know who exactly it was that invented the wheel, the lever, the pulley and fire, let us assume that Ogg is responsible for all of these things for purposes of this exercise. How hard would it be for Ogg to imagine Quantum mechanics?
Oh, you could, if you went in a time machine, and spent a good amount of time talking with Ogg about the idea...you might be able to get him to accept the basics. But bear in mind you have no tools with you, no obvious instruments besides your ability to appear in a time machine and your ability to understand one another. Even assuming you were able to teach Oggs the basics of Quantum mechanics, is Ogg really going to be good at it? Without thoroughly studying the work of those who came before, the arguments and observations that took place, how could Ogg possibly grasp the finer nuances of super string theory or the incredibly complex equations of the building blocks of our universe?
And really, Ogg is still human. So even if Ogg could possibly accept all this impossibleness, despite his talent and intelligence, what are the real odds he would bring his own baggage to the question? Einstein, brilliant and ground breaking though he was, could simply not accept Quantum mechanics and many of the elements that his own theory promise about Black Holes and the like. Were Ogg greater than Einstein, maybe.
Newton once said, "I have only accomplished what I have by standing on the shoulders of giants." Our society progresses. Our understanding progresses.
And, most important of all, on his 40th birthday, Ogg declared himself King and his eldest descendant to be king for all time. I, I assure you, am the rightful descendant and heir of Ogg. I am your king. Bow before me.
What, you say? Not going to do it? But...but...why? Ogg was smart. Ogg was brilliant. Ogg declared the law and ALL of the other cavemen at the time threw their feces at him which, in their day, indicated that they accepted this social compact.
It's all nonsense. Every bit of it. You're no more going to accept me as your king based on the fact that I say I'm Ogg's descendant than I would accept you.
Indeed, even if I were to take you back in time and produce genealogy stating that not only am I the heir of Ogg, that Ogg was in fact brilliant, and that every living human was descended from these feces flinging cavemen would you be likely to accept me as your king.
WHY? After all, our anscestors swore to it. If I can provide proof, you are LEGALLY bound to be serfs and slaves unto me.
Oh. Well, perhaps we can use a dollop of common sense, shall we? The vast majority of people do not WANT me to be king, and even were I to provide proof positive that Ogg and I were all the things we claimed...so what? How could Ogg possibly know who we are as a society now, much less be fit to govern us? Indeed, the very act of flinging feces to indicate worthiness as a kingship is disgusting. I didn't fling feces for Ogg, and neither did you, so why should he have any bearing on what we do today in our society?
So what then is the difference between 20 million years and 200 years? What is the difference between Ogg and the Founding Fathers save a closer locality and time and a greater understanding of science. True, the founding fathers were brilliant and worthy men. So was Ogg. True, our ancestors voted to accept the constitution in a due and valid election....so did our distant ancestors that flung feces at Ogg.
There are several counter arguments to be made at this point, but I'll try to make them in the most relevant order.
The first of course is, the military. That is to say, Sergeant Valiant and his platoon of Very Scary Marines, or our Navy Seals or indeed most of the worthy members of our military have sworn to uphold the constitution, not the Word of Ogg, and since they're the ones with the nice shiny guns and the most powerful military on earth, they're going to listen to what the President says, not Me, rightful ruler of us all by Declaration of Ogg.
To which I reply...I didn't vote for the constitution. I voted for our president because he was the least worst choice. I was born a citizen but I, personally, find no more relevance to men who lived 200 years ago than Ogg does. Ogg was worthy, so were the founding fathers. Worthiness does not mean relevance.
But let us be clear...the REASON I am not declared king has nothing to do with the arguements being made but because those with the power to enforce the desires of themselves and the rest of society BELIEVE IT TO BE SO. The constitution is an idea, nothing more. On a practical level, blessed with supernatural powers of argument, I could in one in a quadrillion possible universes convince people that I, as rightful heir of Ogg am the true king of us all and that they should follow me, and because they believed me, I WOULD BE KING.
This is all insane. But it is also very clearly reasoned. Our laws are laws because we believe them to be laws. Our constitution is relevant because we believe it to be relevant. And we are only restricted by it because we believe ourselves to be restricted by it.
Men who died, who are all dead, from 200 years ago, have only slightly more understanding of our society than Ogg. More importantly, they had ideas that we would consider utterly repugnant today; sexism, racism, classism, elitism, and in some case theological superiority. Some of them really did believe that their particular brand of Protestantism was superior to all others and wanted to establish their particular brand of religion as the founding religion. Thankfully, the majority of them did not.
But we have another church. This church is the Church of the Constitution. The constitution is both a blue print for our society and a symbol. As a blueprint, it is OK, though we could do worse. As a symbol it is held as important, though it is my personal observation that conservatives tend to revere it as a symbol more than liberals, who view the declaration of independence with a bit more reverence. This is purely anecdotal, but it is relevant in one capacity....
In the middle ages, church theologians argued how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. This was very serious to them, because it determined the nature of angels, the nature of god, and potentially the nature of matter itself. And yet, even were one to assume that God and Angel's existed, would not their existence be independent of that as constructed by the monks? If God and angels really wanted the monks to know, why not simply tell them? If five angels could dance on the head of a pin as compared to six...how MUCH of a difference would this make? Since the monks could not really affect this one way or another...it was to a certain degree mental masturbation.
Arguing over an interpretation of the Bible or the Koran or the Torah is kind of the same thing. God has His own interpretation but doesn't seem to see fit to tell people. And yet people will argue. Why? Well, perhaps because in part if they can convince enough people that they are right, they can get people to follow their way of thinking. But on a practical level are they right, or simply more skilled in convincing others of their beliefs?
If the constitution as symbol is relevant to us only because we believe it to be relevant (as compared to the word of Ogg) so then are the many sophistries of the church of the constitution so much wind if we can decide that the constitution isn't really relevant to us.
Which is why I argue against it. If the constitution, at its root, is inherently flawed, why should we be bound to it. I, as a follower of Christ, don't really care what your interpretation of the Koran is. Now, if I'm in Saudi Arabia, and you're pointing a gun at me, then to the extent I am willing to put up with not being shot, your will matters. So the interpretations of the Koran matter about who is pointing the guns at whom based on how they can persuade others, but the Koran is the Koran and at least to me, it is not my scripture. But if you are pointing a gun at me, then it is relevant but only to the extent that you are controlling my actions through force. Your arguments about what it means are only relevant to the degree to which I accept it as a symbol.
So too, then, as a society, are the arguments of the adherents of the church of the constitution relevant only to the degree to which we accept the validity of the symbol of the constitution. If enough of us cease to recognize this as a symbol, then sure as the sun shall rise in the morning, it shall be us telling the church of the constitution what we want our society to be, rather than the other way around.
This is not to insult Ogg, the Koran or the founding fathers. This is just a practical reality. Until God sends Angels to make us behave in a particular way, tis the folks with guns that make the rules as they are enforced.
Which is why silly columns like this one are so silly. You talk about Calvinball or some other rules, but you're just arguing different points about the Doctrine of your holy constitution. The pristine holy constitution as pictured by the Holy Constitution does not exist. It is a platonic construct in their minds, and since they are human minds, constitution purists today will interpret the document differently than purists tomorrow. The meaning of the words will change as will those who interpret them. On a practical level, adherents to the church of the constitution really usually invoke it to deny us our rights as defined by the morays of our modern society. A right is what we say it is. A moray is what we say it is.
Men two hundred years ago have no more moral authority over us than Ogg. To say otherwise is to lie.
Now if you are going to argue that we should honor it for stability's sake, I've already covered that point here. A social contract is best made by the living members of that society. A flexible document is a more stable document and prevents the tyranny of the minority as exercised by the current zealots of the church of the constitution from denying us the things we want and that make sense. It isn't that liberal ideas can't be made to work on a practical level...look at Europe. It is simply that some regions of our country want to use the constitution as an excuse to keep their outdated ways of thinking in charge.
Fine. Get rid of the constitution if that's the case. It's a flawed symbol anyway since the stink of slavery is written into its very fabric. Talk about 'self-evident truths'....can anyone really honestly expect us to believe owning another human being against their will is morally acceptable? I find it far more plausible that Ogg would find the idea abhorrent, don't you? Especially if we asked Ogg to be a slave?
BSDM events might have folks volunteering as slaves, but outside of that, we don't have many people volunteering for the job, especially rich, white southern property owning Christian males. That being the case, I think we can agree that slavery is not only evil, but that symbolically, anything that apologizes for it or accommodates it is morally tainted.
Like the United States Constitution.
Let us throw off the chains of the past and build something better. We can do better. We must do better. And if we must, expel the region that insists on being a chain, as it has for the last two hundred years, on improving our country and let them have their state established religion, the Immaculate Shrine of the United States Constitution...a document that is meant to serve the people, instead of the other way around.
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