And, that's what I'm saying is wrong. You're presenting a false dichotomy. "But, muh Constitution!"
It's boring, and doesn't acknowledge the things that went wrong in all these years of the American experiment.
The only other option is to appoint some small pool of people to try to get us all to collectively pretend that the words mean something other than what they plainly say. That is the path to the rule of man, and I for one prefer the rule of law. There is no middle ground, give or take clarifications. And for clarifications, the burden of proof must be on the government, or the system fails.
Spoken like a true fundamentalist. I've heard that exact phrase from evangelical street preachers.
I understand what you're saying; and have understood it every time you and dbcurtis have said it (in a variety of ways). I am disagreeing with the underlying premise of it. I am not disagreeing that the constitution has built-in mechanisms to change it. I am disagreeing with you that the government the constitution has defined has any ethical right to govern people who did not consent to it. It doesn't matter if it can theoretically be changed, it is premised on a notion I reject.
I would like to point out, however, that clearly the authors of the constitution did not think they had written a final document once-and-for-all, as evidenced by two things: 1) including three different means of amending the document, and 2) the very authors of the document proposed a package of 12 amendments as one of their first priorities during the first congress.
I would argue that there are only two ways to view the constitution: 1) it means what it says and if you don't like that, do what the authors did, amend it, or 2) make shit up as we go along. I'm for #1.