The Constitution Has No Fixed Meaning, That Being Whatever The Whim Of A Supreme Court Majority Says It Does - An Answer

I would not marry a lawyer man, he tells too many lies. 

Jean Ritchie: A Farmers Wife*

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL,  you can use that stupidest of all widely babbled formulations in the American language,  "That's unconstitutional!" because the document is just words on paper.   There isn't any reality to it except WHAT IS PERMITTED TO HAPPEN IN ANY PLACE IN WHICH THAT BUNDLE OF PAPER IS HELD TO HAVE JURISDICTION.  What is permitted to happen with actual impunity for the one doing it.   And far beyond that as the history of American military power has shown,  it can mean whatever is allowed to happen by Americans, especially those with great power and great wealth, without there being any legal consequences for them.   

That has always been the case but it has especially been the case since the earliest years when the Supreme Court usurped the power to overturn duly elected federal laws in the Marbury decision.   The objection to me pointing out that that denies that it was, perhaps, the earliest but certainly most decisive overturning of the actual form of government set up in the pieces of paper, John Adams' formulation of "balanced powers," was permitted to take root by the other two branches acquiescing to that power grab only for it to find its first and poisonous fruit in the Dred Scott decision in which, to extend slavery IN FACT to all free territories and states.  Dred Scott is beyond doubt the model of the John Roberts Court in its re-imposition of American apartheid.  

The infamous Taney Court nullified the Missouri Compromise, which was a duly enacted federal law in which the Congress and president banned slavery in certain territories.   The Taney Court weren't content to do just that, though, they said it was legal for slave holders to bring slaves into any state IN WHICH THEY WOULD REMAIN SLAVES.   I have no doubt that if they had been given the chance,  they would have nullified, formally and officially all state bans on slavery in that way.    Something which I have no confidence in the proposition that the Republican-fascist majority on the Roberts Court OR ONE THAT WOULD BE PACKED WITH EVEN BOLDER PARTISAN REPUBLICAN FASCISTS THEY CLEARLY HOPE TO CEMENT INTO THE FUTURE, would not complete the work of Taney and his corrupt majority in that case.  

They have reimposed much of the worst of Jim Crow and American apartheid in order to cement into place a permanent minority Republican-fascist regime, overturned huge swaths of the Civil War Amendments and turned any Republican-fascist president into an impune monarch with, in fact, more power than George III had when the founders fomented their revolution.   The Roberts Majority, including that most depraved of degenerates, Clarence Thomas,  has done exactly that. 

Whatever curbs that Roberts and one or two of his Republican-fascist colleagues may attempt to put on the monster they intentionally created - after the unitary executive theory they imbibed from fascist law profs at the Ivy League level schools - will not do a goddamned thing to stop that.   It's impossible, though they are stupid enough to believe they are clever enough to be able to, FROM THEIR LAW OFFICES AND THEIR BENCH, be able to do that.  They ARE that stupid. 

The only thing that would nullify the Roberts Court's Republican-partisan, oligarchy, bought and paid for corruption of the Constitution would be for them to nullify it which won't happen under a Republican-fascist majority (and I would be surprised if a Democratic majority would, entirely or effectively enough) or a blue-wave of tsunami strength overturning those corruptions through very quickly passed Constitutional amendments.  

BUT WITHOUT ONE THAT OVERTURNS THE MARBURY POWER GRAB ANY FUTURE SUPREME COURT COULD OVERTURN OR "INTERPRET" THOSE CORRECTIVE AMENDMENTS TO GET US RIGHT BACK TO THE STATUS QUO 2026 or 1897 or 1857 or 1845.   

You also didn't like me pointing out that the problem of that is embedded into the very structure of government set up in the Constitution.   One of the more interesting pieces of evidence that that has always been a danger to us is given by the son of John Adams,  when he was facing the very slave power on whose behalf the Dred Scott decision was rendered and which,  in a de facto fashion, the Roberts Court is in the early stages of reviving.  And not just within the confines of the United States and its territories, the grabbing of Texas which was the motive in what he said, was the US Constitution as practiced by the government outside of the borders of the United States as certainly as Trump is extending the reality of that in Venezuela and Iran. 

The Constitution is a menstruous rag, and the Union is sinking into a military monarchy to be rent asunder like the Empire of Alexander or the kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah

John Quincy Adams:  Diary February 19, 1845

If you think that was overwrought,  it is exactly what happened fifteen years later, after he was dead.   It is exactly what I regretfully hope will be the effect if drastic action isn't taken to cut the Court down to the size of a supreme court under the modern democracies which had, among other things, the very bad example of the U.S. Constitution over scores of decades to inform them on how bad it could go.   The Dred Scott decision, that first significant use of the Marbury power was about the strongest of reasons that the traitor states seceded, the Civil War was fought and, the Congress foolishly not overturning the Marbury power grab, their great Civil War Amendment repairs to American aspirations of democracy were at first gradually and then with accelerating power,  nullified by the Supreme Court.  Only they called that "interpretation" and "judicial review." 

I'm rather struck that you, you champion of the quaint notion of the fixed reality of the U.S. Constitution are opposed to the one thing that could give it that meaning,  getting rid of the status quo in which such corrupt lawyers as now comprise a majority of "justices"  have, through that Marbury power, made a mockery of it in the way that John Quincy Adams noted was always a potential threat under the Constitution.   Trump v USA should have been the last straw that broke that asses back but it hasn't so durable is the phony,  As Seen Singing And Dancing On Broadway bullshit lies about the entire thing.  

Maybe my biggest point is that when you hear the MS-Now or Democratic lawyer-congress lawyers claim that something that the courts and, especially and ultimately the goddamned Supreme Court OR WHATEVER CORRUPT OR MERELY COWARDLY DEPARTMENT OF "JUSTICE" has allowed is what the Constitution is "unconstitutional,"  that is absurd.

WHAT ACTION IS ALLOWED BY THE ACTUAL FACT OF THE LEGAL PROCESS, NO MATTER HOW CLEARLY IN CONTRADICTION OF THE LETTER OF THE GODDAMNED CONSTITUTION IT IS, IS WHAT THE CONSTITUTION IS IN REALITY.   The rest is just lawyers lying, which they are trained to do and which they hold to be the included in the ethics of their profession.  

And, as can be seen in the Roberts Court, Roberts gang's lying pretense of "textualism" or Amy Coney Barrett's lying  originalism THEY WILL BE THE ONES THAT MAKE THE BIGGEST LIE EVER OUT OF THE THING.   

Centennial was right, the thing is fatally flawed but even he didn't realize how true that the Marshall Court would make that, and that was only the original corruption of it which has been allowed to stand for centuries, now. 

* Listen to the question and Jean Ritchie's husband, George Pickow's answer after she sings the song.  

He wasn't a lawyer, in case you're wondering.  He was a lefty photographer and film maker.