Two polls here, inspired by Khizr Khan, who raised his pocket Constitution at the DNC and questioned whether Trump had ever read the document.
The last time I studied it was longer ago than I care to say (high school). I glance at the Bill of Rights from time to time on Wikipedia.
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Poll 1: How recently have you read the entire U.S. Constitution?
In the last year
In the last five years
In the last ten years
In the last fifty years
I wrote the damn thing
I really should read it some time
Not a USian, not my problem
What is this “constitution”?
0voters
Poll 2: How recently have you spent at least an hour studying it seriously?
In the last year
In the last five years
In the last ten years
In the last fifty years
I wrote the damn thing, now you want me to study it?
Took a community college Political Science class in 2015, and darn if I didn’t learn a lot. I remembered diddly-squat from high school. What I did remember was the preamble song from Schoolhouse Rock:
This surprises me, I was under the impression that the US values the constitution to such a degree that there’s of course a governmental and free-of-cost offer to order a printed copy.
Actually, I read the Annotated Constitution quite a bit. I like to follow the supreme court beat–ScotusBlog, Jeffrey Toobin, Dahlia Lithwick, and so on.
“Cheated” a little at this by once being enrolled in a series of US paralegal studies courses not that long ago. We didn’t have to study Con. Law with the same depth as lawyers but it was relevant for a variety of case studies that basically had me reread a bunch of it over and over. Though I admit the paucity of cases involving the Third Amendment basically means I’ve only really read that section a few times recently.
Funnily enough, when I turned eighteen and could vote, I felt an immense sense of responsibility to learn everything I could. So I bought myself a pocket copy and literally carried it around for about a year. I mainly read it when bored on MARTA. At the time I was Muslim and considered myself relatively devout. I can honestly say I carried both a pocket constitution and a pocket Qur’an at the same time.
I still have my pocket copy that I got in high school. Easier to just look online these days, but it seems like there’s a reason to go look at portions of it at least once a month. Normally, those opportunities are triggered by dingleberries trotting into this joint with bizarre claims of what rights are enumerated, or odd notions of what’s relegated to the States.
To the two people who were apparently in the room when the Constitution was authored, would it be fair to describe your legal philosophy as Originalist? Or have you moved on in your thinking?
