To what extent is the Constitution a living document?

Question

Consider, for example, different aspects of how the Constitution is handled, including the amendment process, the elastic clause, judicial interpretation, and legislative modifications.

Answer 1

Only insofar as we have to amend it from time to time due to human errors in its creation. That process is difficult for a reason: the document is not supposed to change much over time, because it lays out the basis for the function of the government and what it can and cannot do. The Founders knew very well that there would eventually be people seeking to change the Constitution as they saw fit in order to gain more power from it. The Constitution is neither alive nor dead; it simply is.

The same goes for the Bill of Rights: each document codified what the Founders knew to be the natural laws of the universe as had been discovered over the course of human history. New rights are not invented if a government decides they are; all human rights are inherent in ourselves, and no government may remove any of them, even the ones we have not yet discovered, without severe consequences.

On a more modern note, the idea that the Constitution is a living document comes from the idea that a government must enforce continual progress among its citizens. If change truly needs to be made, one must come to that conclusion on his own, and suffer the consequences if he chooses not to. Then there's the old adage: if it isn't broken to begin with, why fix it?