President Obama's thoughts on the Constitution

I picked up a copy of The Audacity of Hope from the local library (this is President Obama's book, written back in 2006). In it there is quite a bit of good information that shows exactly what he thinks about certain issues. Here is a direct quote from page 90, in the chapter titled "Our Constitution:"

Ultimately, though, I have to side with [Supreme Court] Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution - that it is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world.

And a far more telling quote from page 93:

It's not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or "ism," any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity.

This is at the core of the Conservative's disagreement with President Obama; the above quotes could not be more wrong, however well intentioned. The Constitution does not reject absolute Truth, it appeals to it. The Founders appeal for our "unalienable rights" was to the absolute power of Nature's God; if there is no higher, absolute truth than our civil government, then we had no right to rebel in the first place. The struggle of reflecting God's higher, moral law into the laws that govern civil society should not be mistaken for compromise. The Founder's struggles were for principle, namely which principles to strive for when building this Republic. It was not about theory versus necessity, it was about the fundamental rights and responsibilities of men and governments.

We are living now in a country with a foundation of sand; to say that the Constitution is subject to interpretation by each successive generation is to rob it of its very meaning in the first place. If our Constitution is merely a social contract, arbitrary laws subject to the whims of men, then we have no foundation to stand upon when the storms of adversity come.

I hold our Constitution to be a standard for behavior, a standard for law. Far from being subject to our whims, we must hold firm to what it teaches, and go where it leads. The President swears to uphold the Constitution, to protect the standard so that it remains for all time; he does not swear to recast the meaning of the document to fit the circumstances of our time. The difference in philosophies between the Conservative and President Obama (as Mark Levin would call him, the Statist) is one of perspective. I start at the Constitution and argue how best I can live within its tenants; the Statist starts with himself, or the individual Citizen, and seeks how best the Constitution can serve his needs.

The danger for our nation is that tyranny often flows from "necessity;" that our only chance to survive and flourish is the sacrifice of some small liberty. But these small liberties, once dead, are nearly always gone forever. We must fight for our liberty at every opportunity, with our words and with our votes.