The College Fix

Shortly after Constitution Day in September, The College Fix reported on a number of scholars who used the occasion to bash the document and what it stood for.

More recently, one of the scholars quoted in that College Fix article, Georgetown University law professor Michael Seidman, has made national headlines for his column in The New York Times titled “Let’s Give Up On the Constitution.”

It read in part that “our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.”

The Dec. 30 piece has prompted many critical responses in a variety of news outlets. However, Seidman has offered that mantra for a while now.

Here’s an excerpt from The College Fix article on Seidman’s post-Constitution Day comments:

A recent Drake University event featured Georgetown University law professor Michael Seidman, who stated in his guest lecture at the Iowa campus that “we should give up on the idea that we have an obligation to obey the Constitution of the United States,” according to an article in the Times-Delphic student newspaper.

The article also notes that Seidman referred to the Constitution as “outdated,” said countries such as England and Australia, which don’t have a Constitution, have better civil liberty records than America, and “that the Constitution prevents beneficial discussions from taking place in the United States.”

“We need to be clear about exactly what it means to obey a text. The only circumstance in which obedience takes hold is when, but for the Constitution, we would do something else, and only because of the Constitution we would do something that we would not otherwise do,” Seidman is quoted as saying.

Click here to read Seidman’s entire New York Times piece.

Click here to read The College Fix’s entire post-Constitution Day coverage.

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