A Constitution Is Nothing Without Its Enforcement

Obama has promoted quite a few unconstitutional or borderline constitutional policies in his first term as President. From trying to screw Chrysler debtholders to White House political hacks manipulating the census to trying to punish AIG employees who received their contractual bonuses to nationalizing healthcare (I'm sure I've missed quite a few things). One thing we have to remember is that it is not the actual words within the Constitution itself that protect us from tyranny but our willingness to actively enforce and defend that Constitution. As an illustration, let me excerpt sections of Chapter X, The Fundemental Rights and Duties of Citizens from the 1936 Constitution of the USSR (aka "Stalin's Constitution"):

• ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

As a Soviet Jew, I can tell you there were severe restrictions on the jobs we could get.

• ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

Somehow they forgot to tell the people who were confiscating bibles and taking down names of people going to the only Moscow synagogue.

• ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

• freedom of speech;
• freedom of the press;
• freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
• freedom of street processions and demonstrations.

No real comment necessary as it's pretty clear to everyone but a certain New York Times reporter about what Stalin thought about these rights.

• ARTICLE 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.

I guess Stalin's definition of "court" was flexible.

• ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

Note that Soviet envelopes were made to make it easier for the KGB to steam them open.

As you can see, it is our duty to enforce and defend the Constitution in order to keep it from being worth about as much as the paper this post is printed on.