I know that the term progressive and/or liberal is as pejorative as the terms you used LJ, but that is a result of the policies of the progressives and/or liberals. All conservatives need do is refer to one who belongs to these groups by the labels the groups themselves have chosen to be pejorative. We have no need of making up nasty names to call you by. Simply using the names you have chosen for yourselves is sufficient to the need.
The Constitution is only a living document to those that wish to invent new uses for it other than the one for which it was intended. The rest of us are satisfied with adding to it via the amendment process outlined in the document.
And yes LJ, I believe there will be good results obtained in my lifetime regarding the repeal of the 17th Amendment. I think there will also be success in the efforts to allow a governor or a state legislature to recall a Senator and send another in their place within my lifetime. To suggest that repealing the 17th Amendment would divest the people of the opportunity to choose their Senators would be to ignore the history of the nation. Prior to the adoption of the 17th Amendment, there were indeed states who held general elections to choose their Senators and simply had the state legislature affirm that choice. Some states had Senators chosen strictly by the legislature of that state and some had the Senator nominated by the governor of the state and confirmed by the state legislature. The point of recalling this history is to remind everyone that the states were originally conceived as mini-nations that were sovereign unto themselves. They were micro governments, testing and proving grounds for the principles of liberty, freedom and self rule. The role of the federal government was simply to ensure that all of these mini-nations got along with each other and to amalgamate them in the arena of foreign trade and diplomacy with other nation-states. That is the original meaning of general welfare of the United States. Not the individual welfare of the citizen, but the combined welfare of the union of the states regarding common defense, monetary policy and foreign relations. The states joined forces and instituted a government among themselves to oversee the combined interests of the different states, not the welfare or interest of the individual citizens residing within the states. It was then, and remains today, the obligation of the government of that individual state to do the job of looking out for their citizens. The general government looks out for the general welfare of the union, the individual state government looks out for the welfare of the individual citizen within that state. The Constitution spells that out pretty clearly in Article I Section 8 for those who are not looking to redefine what the definition of is is.
The progressives would do well to remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, whom they wish to conjure up as the founder of the party in which they have attached themselves.
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823
On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823
