What is the difference between a living constitution and a dead document? People are using the constitution for a lot of fighting is it their right to use it or not?
What is the difference between a living constitution and a dead document?
Are you actually asking the question?
If so, a living constitution is one that changes with the times, some poeple find the "right to bear arms" archaic. And think it should be removed. A living constitution would allow the government to do that.
In Canada, I believe the requiremnts to change our constitution are 50% of the population and 70% of the elected officials. Or it is 70% of the population and 50% of the eleced officials...
If a constitution is "dead" that means it never changes from the moment its written. Which would basically make it pointless and irrelevant in the end.
In the U.S., there are two primary schools of thought on how to interpret the U.S. Constitution. To view it as a "living document" means that we can and should develop different interpretations of the same articles or amendments as society changes. Blu mentioned the 2nd amendment "right to bear arms" which is a good example. The amendment reads as follows: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." But this was written when the U.S. didn't have what we would consider today to be a standing army. People who fought had jobs and lives outside military service to come home to. Today, we have professional soldiers. Those that support gun control could argue along the lines of a living constitution that this amendment no loner applies - or at least the intention of it.
On the other side are those who believe the constitution was thought out and written for specific reasons and should only be taken at face value. This has some interesting consequences. The Constitutions prohibits the use of cruel or unusual punishment against prisoners. However, at the time it was written, there were methods of torture and punishment that we would consider today to be abhorrent.
With this in mind, it would seem that the course of U.S. history has leaned more towards the notion of a living constitution. But that certainly doesn't make this interpretive method the correct one. Either way, the debate continues - and for good reason.
