Leftists *Contra* The Constitution

Needless to say, such things should--must--be discussed, especially at universities.

But one of the problems is--or so I'll put it now--that the left listens too much to its intellectual wing, and too much to its leftest wing, and there's too much overlap between those wings.

Should this view take hold--and I'd bet some money that it will--it won't remain purely theoretical. The left always wants to put its crazy ideas into practice--and to do it now. 

I have a professional obligation to think about crazy ideas. But, having done that now for 30-odd years, I've--provisionally--come to the Peircean conclusion: philosophy and practice must be kept apart (as much as possible) for the benefit of both. Merging 'em wrecks both of 'em.

This possible dispute, should it turn actual, would be representative of the broader divide between conservatives and the left. The conservative view would roughly be: we won the government lottery; the Constitution is the product of genius and experience; it's stood the test of time and done its job better than the Founders probably had any right to hope, and better than we probably deserve. DO NOT FUCK WITH IT. Not in any major way anyway. The leftist view is: Oh, hai, I just had this, like, SUPER-fun idea that I came up with on the basis of a Chomsky podcast I didn't finish and this one queer theory course I got a 'C' in...let's ditch our whole form of government and start from this here scratch I just thought up!

I may not be giving the left its best case there. But I'm fed up with 'em.

Nobody thinks total stasis will work. 

But I now think that conservatives are deeply right about the Burkean point: slow, deliberate evolution is almost always preferable to revolution / radical change. 

Imagine a new Constitution written by the dim luminaries of the contemporary left. That thought ought to be enough to put the stop in dystopia.