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Quiz I American Government
3) The American Constitution owes its staying power to its simplicity and
flexibility. What process is used to keep the Constitution flexible? Elaborately
explain your answer!
U.S. Constitution is both simple and flexible. But, from these two
characteristics, it is till applicable in present days. A simple constitution has its own
advantages. U.S. constitution was passed in 1787. If only the writers of the constitution
already included specific terms inside it, the constitution itself would only be applicable
may be in twenty years or less. Times change, people change, and rules also change.
I can note two ways to make constitution still up to date. The first is absolutely
through amendment. There is an interesting fact concerning amendment of U.S.
constitution. First ten amendments were ratified in 1789. They were called Bill of
Rights. What interesting for me is, the federalist insisted not to include specific human
rights when they drafted Constitution back then. But it was themselves, the federalist,
who insisted the amendment of Constitution in 1789 by including Bill of Rights in it.
However, the good point of this is that they are aware that Constitution is the product of
mankind. It should not be glorified and to keep its purity as we keep purity of other
religious books. Amendment is needed to keep in pace with development in society.
The second way is through judicial review. Supreme Court is given power to
interpret constitution – not the Congress nor the President. Hence, one issue may be
interpreted differently concerning the background, time, and other elements that make
up that issue. With this judicial review is then Constitution can be very flexible to be
interpreted by Supreme Court. Citing Woodrow Wilson’s saying in the Government by
the People “The Supreme Court is a constitutional convention in its continuous
session”. By having this duty is then Supreme Court is called as the guardian of
constitution.
Through amendment and judicial review, U.S. Constitution is kept up-to-date. I
think we should give credits to those who drafted constitution in 1787 because it was
because of their future insights so they can make an everlasting and enduring document.
4) The First Amendment freedoms have never been made absolute rights. What is
the way to prevent the making of these freedoms absolute rights? Support your
explanation with an example!
Human rights have always become interesting topic to discus in U.S. In 1787,
human rights issue emerged as being rejected by the Federalist. But the Federalist
finally impose to include human rights in constitution under the first amendment in
1789.
When the Bill of Rights was included in the constitution, automatically, people’s
right would always be guaranteed under the protection of constitution. For example,
during Theodore Roosevelt era, there were many muckrakers. They were journalists
who exposed the corrupt government by publishing sensational news of bad images of
government. What could government do? They could not ban those journalists because
their freedom speech and freedom of press had been protected under constitution. If
government insisted to ban them, the government could be accused to violate the
constitution. Hence, they preferred to reply muckrakers’ news by publishing news
containing doctrine that those who are so-called muckrakers were just people who
wanted to get profit as much as they could.
The issue of human rights is then very big. You can do everything under the
banner of “this is my right to do that!” However, is it the freedom that is looked for?
No. The first amendment should be limited and the way to do that is related to the
previous number, that is through judicial review. The Supreme Court and its state and
local Courts have the power to interpret constitution. So, the interpretation may be
different fro one state to another.
For instance, I want to give example concerning porn materials. Generally
making porn materials are included in the freedom expression. There was a case, a very
famous one, concerning about pornographic materials: miller vs. California. In this
case, there was a debate about what is called as obscene materials. Previously, Supreme
Court has declared that Obscenity in arts is not protected by constitution. Finally, from
this case, there was an agreement of what is called as obscenity. An obscene work is
defined as: “(1) The average person, applying contemporary standards of the particular
community, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest in
sex, (2)It depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically
defined by applicable law or authoritatively construed, (3)The work, taken as a whole,
lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”. From this issue,
government then has a constitutional right to do prior censorship to a movie. It is done
so that government can classify which movie that can be watched by all ages or by
adults only. Government has the right to ban a movie that contains obscenity as defined
at the three points above. With this prior censorship, government gives freedom to make
any film but at the same time gives limitation of what film that you cannot produce. If
the moviemaker still produces obscene films, government then can ban or even can sue
them for violating laws. So, those are the examples of the application of free but
restricted application of human rights in U.S.