I am not longer going to even listen to the Constitution freaks. You know, those dudes who walk around with pocket copies of the Constitution–those people who replaced those geeks who walked around with slide rules first, and the pocket protectors.
The Constitution is simply a frame-work. It doesn’t begin to address all of our body of laws and rights. It is the bare bones. If we depended on just the Constitution, one of our most cherished rights as Americans would not have even happened until the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. Of course I am referring to the right to vote. No where is voting mentioned in the Constitution until the 14th amendment. My right to vote would come along later, in 1920, when the 19th amendment was ratified:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
I am not so sure anyone has been taking notice of my right to vote these days. For the past 3 weeks I have been trying to get an absentee ballot. To date, I have not been successful. First off, I resent having to apply each election. Why can’t I simply put in a one time request for a mail order ballot each general election? I understand that for special elections and party primaries I would have to communicate but for a general election?
I resent having to tell them why I want to do this. I resent having to provide my social security number. I hate the complicated form that I must fill out. I hate the small print. What if I don’t like waiting in long lines? Isn’t that a good reason? Why, if I am using disability as a reason, must I tell them what’s wrong with me? It’s really none of anyone’s business. I am asking for a mail-in ballot, not the keys to the church or the Republican headquarters.
I called up the local registrar’s office on Thursday and asked how long I should expect to wait for my ballot since I mailed in my application about 3 weeks ago. I was told I should have had it and that they would mail me another. It came in the mail on Saturday. I opened the envelope that felt a little light and what to my surprise–another application, not the real ballot.
OK, maybe I am a chump. Why can’t I get an [expletive] ballot for this election? Did I fill out the application wrong? Did I miss a signature? Did I make a mistake when only putting in the last 4 numbers of my social? Did the ballot get sent out and end up at someone else’s house? Did Mr. Howler lose the mail between the mailbox and whatever corner he decided to dump the daily mail? I don’t even know if a ballot was sent out.
All I know is, I want to vote absentee. It shouldn’t be this difficult. Voting is the right of any American citizen, whether stated implicitly or explicitly in the Constitution. I could buy a gun easier than I could get an absentee ballot. So I am filling out another application. There is no mail service tomorrow because it is Columbus Day. I will call the registrar’s office back on Tuesday and this time be a little more forceful with my questions. It should not be easier to buy a gun in Virginia than to vote absentee.
UPdate: After rereading, I see where I could have left the impression that I hate the Constitution. I do not. It is a framework for thinking people to build on. Many people today are misusing a document that has been an inspiration to freedom-loving people around the world. Those are the people I won’t listen to.
Thanks to Scout for pointing out my misdirected frustrations.
The Atlantic: What Does the Constitution Really Say about Voting Rights?
If you carry a pocket Constitution at all times, please just don’t tell me. I will be biased by that knowledge.
I don’t carry one in my pocket (most of the time), but there is always a copy ready at hand. Of course, I use it in my work, but, even if that were not the case, I’d like to have it readily accessible.
I think some (if not all) of your impatience is misdirected. The Constitution is not the problem these days. The problem is a lot of facile, cynical, opportunistic misrepresentation, over-interpretation, and wishful thinking about what it says and does not say, and the significance of the choice of words and the absence of words.
In music (another field that attracts a lot of my time and attention) there are notes and rests, the latter being signals for silence. Even the silences are important in a work of music. If the musicians ignored the silences (the rests) the work would be a jumble. This is true of the Constitution also. It is a work of genius. I know of no other document in the history of humanity that so effectively, in so few words, did so much to create a workable system of government that permitted a high degree of human liberty within a strong republic. It is under tremendous pressure now, and at no time have the beneficiaries of the Constitution really understood how much they benefit from its protections. It seems there are always a lot of folks willing to trample the document under the guise of pushing this cause or that. But, it endures.
Ignorance and incompetence can bring it down, and at no previous time in my long life have I felt the Republic so much threatened by loud, public ignorance and incompetence, traits amplified by electronic social media. But if we don’t kill the Republic with our choices of elected officials, particularly in the next few weeks, I have some confidence that the Constitution can endure as the fundamental enabling document of a strong America.
Oh it’s definitely the carriers of the pocket constitutions that enrage me, not the constitution itself. They are usually people who won’t leave home without it. If they just carried it, it would be fine. but those who are self appointed Constitutional lawyers tend to be louder than everyone else. There are a whole bunch of people out there who would stand the rest of us down saying if it isn’t in the constitution, the feds or the state have no right to be doing it.
I also got that way about the Bible, Scout. Too many people out there interpreting the bible for the rest of us. Too many people telling us what God thought or meant.
If I have a need for either while I am away from home, I can always use my cell phone to sneak a peek at either.
You are right. I am very frustrated. I don’t like how difficult it is to vote. I don’t think there are serious issues of voter fraud in this country yet there are always new laws about voting on the books.
“There are a whole bunch of people out there who would stand the rest of us down saying if it isn’t in the constitution, the feds or the state have no right to be doing it.”
I wouldn’t want to “stand you down” …but…. that IS the nature of the Constitution.
Those are the rules. If it is not authorized by the Constitution, then the gov’t does not have the authority to do it.
@Scout
After rereading what I wrote…I probably need to do some rewriting. Scout hit the nail on the head. It sounds like I am blaming the constitution rather than the self proclaimed ones.
Well stated, sir @Scout
Maybe we can replace some of the Virginia legislature next year with people who want to see the the largest number of voters possible get their votes counted. I’d like to see the rules for acquiring an absentee ballot expanded….and earlier voting, possibly starting on the weekend before the scheduled election if not earlier.
Those who are most vehement about improved voter ID (which, in principle, I have no trouble with) would be much more credible if they were also the people most aggressively trying to enroll as many voters as possible and making their notions of improved ID freely available to everyone. This would entail going into every neighborhood, every health care facility, every town, village and city regardless of voting history, regardless of demographics and polls, and signing people up. But you never see that when people start lobbying for increased ID requirements. My suspicion always is that they are trying to shrink the electorate. And it’s always folks who have glommed on to my political party (the Republicans) who are advocating this kind of thing. It seems reasonable to assume that they are afraid of voters. That’s a helluva thing for a political party to be, isn’t it?
It always seems to me that those being targeted are either young people, minorities, or working class people. There is a lot of overlap in those three subgroups. I am thinking of Virginia and North Carolina. The NC situation is far more egregious.