Louis Michael Seidman is a Georgetown Law Professor who is very critical of the Constitution of the United States. To this end he has written a book entitled On Constitutional Disobedience, which argues against obeying the constitution (Crawford). In an interview with Smithsonian.com, this author asserts that Americans should do away with the constitution because it is a document that is outdated, impracticable and superfluous.
At the onset of the interview, Seidman tells Amy Crawford that the constitution is outdated because its drafters lived in a different reality from the current one. He is particularly uncomfortable with the methodology of electing congressmen and presidents because it disenfranchises people. The don believes that the constitution cannot be amended to remove undesirable clauses since this requires a ‘supermajority’ that is impossible to get.
Moreover, he claims that the constitution is not practicable because it imposes the ideas of one generation on a different one. That is why this generation should not write an entirely new constitution because it will be unfair to the future society. Seidman argues that it is not the constitution that prevents chaos from occurring but the willingness of people and their belief in shared resources and destiny. By negating the constitution Americans would also have more productive deliberations on divisive issues like gun control instead of being restricted to a dated document. He argues that some former American presidents had doubts about some constitutional provisions while others actually disobeyed the previous constitution because both documents were not pragmatic.
In addition, Seidman believes that America does not need a constitution because institutions can hold the nation together and institutions are controlled by political power and not constitutional obligations. The author asserts that society can resort to its traditions, norms, commonsense and experience to protect basic rights and make crucial decisions instead of being restricted to a conservative document. He concludes by claiming that the role of the constitution is to inspire and not to command thus making it unnecessary to the current society (Crawford).
Works Cited
Crawford, Amy. “Should the constitution be scrapped?” Smihtsonian.com. 5 Feb. 2013.
Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
