I recently took one of those neat, nifty little quizzes on selectsmart.com, (great site, btw.) gauging what your political affiliation was. Not that direly needed the assistance from an online questionnaire, but it's fun to play around with these things once in a while.

While I got the "Conservative" result, (shocker!) one of the questions piqued my interest. It read "Do you believe that the Constitution of the United States of America should be considered a 'living, breathing document?"

It took me back to a couple of years ago, when I was convinced that government was the worst evil in existence. (In some cases, I still do. But it is much more mild now, thank you very much.) I took something that the authors called the "Best political test in the world." And yes, it was on Facebook. Thank you for asking.

In this quiz, a question very similar to this one now at hand popped up: "Is the Constitution 'Living and Breathing?" Without hesitating, I clicked "Yes, absolutely."
My thought process went something like this: "Because the Constitution is our Supreme Law of the Land, and it is still being acted upon today, it therefore must be a live law, in contrast to the law in Hawaii where you can't stick a coin in your ear, which is a dead law, because no one pays any attention to it." (No joke, it's a real law. Look it up.)

I was pretty proud of myself for going through that line of reasoning back then. Now, I wish I had done a bit more studying.

When a politico references the "Living, Breathing Constitution," he or she does not question if people still pay attention to it today. Rather, he or she questions the INTERPRETATION of the Constitution.

Picture it like this: The "Living, Breathing" Constitution is a man living on a farm for half his life. He gets accustomed to making brick, to driving a tractor, to getting up at 3:00 every morning to milk the cows. Suddenly, his farm gets repossessed and he is forced to live in the city for the rest of his life. Without his mortar, without his tractor, and without his cows, the man has no choice but to get accustomed to city life, i.e. 7:00 mornings, making paperwork instead of brick, and the only milking he does is the milking of his financial assets.

In this example, the "Living, Breathing" Constitution, the man, had to conform to the customs of the society in which he was placed. He lived according to the dictates of technology, to the new experiences, and the new limits on what he could do. (Unfortunately, most apartments don't allow tractors.)

So it is with our actual Constitution. According to the "Living, Breathing" theory, (Let's just call it the LB Theory.) the Constitution has to conform to the customs of society. For example, the 9th and 14th Amendments reference the idea of "equal protection," meant to apply to strictly to the rights of Life, Liberty and Property at its drafting. Now, it must encompass all other "rights," such as privacy, marriage, and choice.

On the flip side, some believe that the Constitution is, in contrast to the LB Theory, dead. This viewpoint states that the original intents of the drafters of the Constitution, for better or for worse, must be preserved and utilized as much as possible. For example, on the issue of speech, the Founders probably did not anticipate all the forms of speech going around today, such as the internet, television, and radio. In the recent case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchant's Association, (the Violent Videos Games in California case) Justice Clarence Thomas said that the "original intent" of the 1st Amendment's free speech clause, an issue in this case, only covered stuff like public forum, printed word, and other such communication. Justice Thomas argued that the Constitution could not be re-interpreted to fit this situation, in other words, it is not "Living and Breathing" when it comes to Video Games.

Sorry if I confused you a little bit. I tried to make it as clear as possible.

The Bottom Line is that the Constitution is still being observed today, so that is NOT what people mean when they say "Living and Breathing." It is a reference to interpretation. Should the Constitution have its interpretations reflect society, or should interpretation reflect original intent? Or is it a conglomerate of sorts?

It's all yours. You form your take on this.

By the way, if you want to know more about the Brown case referenced above, you should read this article. It's kinda funny to hear Justice Antonin Scalia talk about things like "Mortal Kombat" and "Sonic the Hedgehog."
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/07/01/1551217/justice-scalias-violent-video.html