"Are Conservatives Allowed to Amend the Constitution?"

Author: Brandon Middleton

This was the rhetorical question Reason's Damon W. Root posed in response to silly claims that conservatives are being hypocritical in discussing the Repeal Amendment.  Folks on the left find it hard to believe that conservatives and libertarians would dare to consider amending the Constitution.

What they fail to realize, however, is that while conservatives and libertarians do cherish the Constitution as it is written, we also value the ability to revise this important document in order to better ensure the blessings of liberty and a fidelity to limited government.  As Glenn Reynolds explained last week,

The amendment process, after all, is part of the Constitution. The Framers had no illusions that they were creating perfection, and believed in the sovereignty of the people and in the power of the people to revise the Constitution as needed, through the process they created. The idea that the text of the Constitution should be revised only through judicial reinterpretation is a modern conceit, and one that does no honor to the Framers at all.