Just how important is the "Constitution" anyway?

[kentuck]

Is it really anything more than "a piece of paper"? What rights do you have left? Honestly? Freedom of speech? Yeah, in some places but not everywhere. Freedom to assemble? Yeah, in some places. But in others, you will get your brains beaten in. Freedom to privacy? Well, we know about that one. Freedom to face your accusers? Habeus corpus? Oh, did we get that back? Freedom of religion? Really? Freedom of the press? Yeah, if you own it.

Is this Constitution just an illusion? Are we just wasting our breath talking about it? What is really left to defend? Or do we simply need to restore it? Is it relevant to discussion anymore?

[ananda]

1. It's only as good as the will to enforce it.

Right now the unitary executive dictatorship
just ignores it, abrogates it, and abuses it..
simply because they can.

[chimpymustgo]

2. And "our" side collaborates. We're on our own kids. That's change you can most definitely believe in

Ain't NOBODY looking out for "us".

[crankychatter]

8. another green party recruiter - do you get a bounty? nt

[Wapsie B]

3. In a country where some inhabitants consider the flag much more important than the Constitution

eg, The Elks Club, yes it is an illusion. The Constitution exists today for exploiting loopholes with regards to right to privacy or freedom of speech for example. If in the minds of some the right to privacy even exists,our so-called right to free speech ends at our employer's doorstep.
However, there are no restrictions on a business entity's "right" to free speech, in or out of the halls of government.

Right to privacy? Try telling a cop to get a search warrant before searching your car.

[cliffordu]

4. The Constitution has been replaced by Freedom of Choice.

You are free to choose any long distance plan you can afford.
You are are free to choose (mostly) any neighborhood you can afford.
You are are free to choose any car you can afford.

The Civil freedoms in the rest of your OP?

You nailed it.

[LWolf]

5. It's as important as what you are willing to do

to protect and defend it.

The majority of the U.S. isn't willing to do SHIT.

[Autumn]

6. It's really just a goddamn piece of paper ,

or so we have been told.:sarcasm:

[Hippo_Tron]

7. Presidents have been treating the constitution as a piece of paper since John Adams

Perhaps you have heard of the Alien and Sedition Acts. There's basically 200+ years of precedent for Presidents to completely disregard the constitution when it is inconvenient for them and to do so under the guise of "national security reasons".

And so while we would all like to reverse this trend we need to realize that George W Bush isn't the first president to ignore the constitution and he won't be the last. The current Congress isn't the first to cave and do absolutely nothing about it. We need to reverse 200+ years of precedent in order to restore the constitution. That's no small task.

Those who are suggesting that we should impeach Bush and then put him in an orange jumpsuit don't realize that Nixon took just as many if not more liberties with wiretapping than Bush has and nobody ever impeached him or prosecuted him for it. It wasn't until he got involved with an ordinary petty crime that he was impeached.