The Constitution - A Crippling Burden We Can't Escape

Ronald Dworkin writes

If the Court does declare the act unconstitutional, it would have ruled that Congress lacks the power to adopt what it thought the most effective, efficient, fair, and politically workable remedy—not because that national remedy would violate anyone’s rights, or limit anyone’s liberty in ways a state government could not, or be otherwise unfair, but for the sole reason that in the Court’s opinion our constitution is a strict and arbitrary document that denies our national legislature the power to enact the only politically possible national program. If that opinion were right, we would have to accept that our eighteenth- century constitution is not the enduring marvel of statesmanship we suppose but an anachronistic, crippling burden we cannot escape, a straitjacket that makes it impossible for us to achieve a just national society.

I believe this is illustrative of how liberals think about these issues.  They believe the purpose of the Constitution is to provide technical rules (the President must be 35, there must be two senators per state, etc.) and that's all.  Congress and the President then have (nearly) unlimited power to do what they think is in the best interest of the public.

Dworkin offers his idea of what the government should be empowered to do: when they have a specific goal in mind, they should enact "the most effective, efficient, fair, and politically workable" solution as long as it doesn't "violate anyone's rights or limit anyone's liberty in ways a state government could not."

Of course, the former requirement is pretty meaningless when you think about it.  You'll never find a proposition that is simultaneously the most effective, efficient, fair, and politically workable.  Compromise among those four pillars would be necessary.  That would make any policy possible.

If that's what liberals want, then they should propose a Constitutional Convention and draw up a new Constitution that explicitly says so.  But right now, the Constitution says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are reserved to the states and the people.

I think it's important that we have a document that constrains the power in the federal government.  I feel that liberals would prefer that the government have few constraints so that it could ensure we live our lives how liberals want us to live them.