Should the Constitution Be Amended?

By Richard W. Rahn

This article appeared in Washington Times On August 27, 2013

What amendments to the U.S. Constitution, if any, would you like to see? The widespread belief is that the American constitutional republic, if not actually broken, is in a state of disrepair. In his new, best-selling book, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic,” Mark R. Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation and nationally syndicated talk-show host, proposes a number of amendments to the Constitution as a fix.

Mr. Levin argues that amendments are needed because the nation has entered an age of “post-constitutional soft tyranny” — as defined by the great 19th-century French historian and philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote in “Democracy in America”:

“It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”….To Read More….