Essay, Research Paper: The Constitution: Alive Or Dead?

October 26, 2000
English 4CP, Period 1
Topic: Think of a question that is important to you and answer it.
Question: Is our Constitution Still Alive?
The question of whether our Constitution is still alive in America today is a difficult one. Some could say it is and some could say the opposite each with potent evidence and reasons for their beliefs. I feel that modern America is not keeping our original Constitution alive. When it was first made, it was definitely more alive than it is today. So many things have been changed, added, our revised that our Constitution now is almost a whole different document than our original. While some amendments and rules in the Constitution are still followed, I feel that the main ones are being forgotten or too modified. I want to say that our modern day society and government is not doing what our Constitution says that our country will do. I would just like to point out a few examples. Domestic tranquility is not ensured, our freedom of speech is limited, and justice is not being established.

One of the lines in the preamble is that the Constitution will ensure domestic tranquility. Our government is doing a horrible job of doing that. We hear on the news all the time about spouse abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, and murder going on in households. This is not good. A spouse or girlfriend of some evil man is beaten every five seconds, I read in some paper before. This has got to stop. I think that our law enforcement agency is too lenient on people who abuse their spouses or children. Most of the time, the victims deny that someone abused them, even though they may have a broken nose or black eye. I think that if a report is called in by a neighbor hearing a confrontation, which is how most reports are made, the police should immediately arrest the man responsible. Other people may say that the police already interfere too much by sometimes not having a warrant or something, but what is more important; following orders or saving someone’s life?
The first amendment is about freedom of press, religion. and SPEECH. Freedom of speech is annoyingly limited in our country today. Censorship is all over the place, even though I read somewhere that they declared censorship unconstitutional. Whether it is unconstitutional or not, censorship is severely violating the rights of some people. Demonstrations are stopped, protests broken up. Sometimes these start riots. Citizens should be able to say what they want, then they want with no interference. On the other hand, citizens do not want their children to be exposed to profanity, nudity, and violence, which I can see as a good point. Although I am all for free speech and no censorship, I am totally against that whole “gangster rap” thing. Freedom of speech should not be abused by talking about gangs, guns, drugs, rape, and discriminating women. I still feel that freedom of speech is not as free as it should be.
Justice is hardly enforced in our country and there is so much evidence to prove so. Take the OJ Simpson case. Enough said. It seems now that our justice system is all run on money, like so many other things in our country. Again, domestic life is certainly not tranquil because of our justice system. I don't know much about it, but what about this whole thing where Clinton cannot be prosecuted while he is president for whatever he did, despite the evidence they might have? Media greatly influences our judicial system by brainwashing our community to believe certain things. I think the death penalty should be enforced, harder. Giving cops the right to shoot anyone with a rag on their head would be a pretty good start. Overcrowded prisons are ludicrous. We have to start using capital punishment again. I was really impressed with the death sentence of Davis, I can’t remember his first name, who raped and killed that 12 year old girl, Pauly Klaas. We should go back to an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth way of justice.
In closing, I feel that our Constitution is not practiced today because of domestic conflict, limited free speech, and our corrupt justice system. We have to go back to the roots of our Constitution; no money laundering or any of this political mumbo jumbo. When our forefathers made the constitution, they had some good ideals for a good society. It’s just too bad that their dream is not much alive today.


Word Count: 766