In class yesterday we were discussing the Constitution. I said that the proceedures in it implied substance, and so we should follow them aware of what they were supposed to mean. Someone else said that they were without substance, and she didn't really care what they were supposed to mean because we had "progressed" to somewhere different.

We later got into a discussion of the legal takeover of the Weimar republic by the National Socialists, and the prof asked if there was anything in the American constitution that prohibited it.

And today I realized the answer. Proceedurally, no. Substantitively, yes. Once you lose the Federalist papers, sure you gain the ability to claim that we constitutionally need gay marriage, but you also lose the ability to argue against any other bizarre idea that should come up.

It's kind of like deism . . . the first ones, the apostates, thought that you could rationally prove Christianity, without Christ, essentially. The next generation realized that it was all special pleading and went on to construct their own view of the world. Cut off from the source, nothing follows anymore.

Does this make sense to anyone?