It’s not often that a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University launches a nationwide push to retire the U.S. Constitution to the dustbins of history, but that’s exactly what Louis Michael Seidman has been doing for roughly the past month (though he may have begun earlier in the classroom).
TheBlaze has featured his efforts several times in the past, but it appears Seidman is only doubling down on his efforts.
Appearing on CBS News Sunday Morning this weekend, the professor was introduced by the question: “”Is the U.S. Constitution truly worthy of the reverence in which most Americans hold it?”

(Photo: Shutterstock/Sascha Burkard)
CBS News has transcript of the professor’s remarks:
I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution.
I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie.
For example, most of our greatest Presidents — Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts — had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.
To be clear, I don’t think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago.
Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn’t a natural-born citizen. So what?
Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control.
I understand, though, that’s not everyone’s view, and I’m eager to talk with people who disagree.
But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do. So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago.
Worse yet, talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion. Instead of a question on policy, about which reasonable people can disagree, it becomes a test of one’s commitment to our foundational document and, so, to America itself.
This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.
If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document. [Emphasis added]
Much of what the professor said is recycled from previous interviews, but what’s noteworthy is that he continues to find new, large audiences.
Watch the entire clip, via CBS News, below:
(H/T: Newsbusters)
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Related:
- CBS News Political Director’s Astonishing Advice: Obama ‘Must Go for the Throat,’ ‘Pulverize’ & ‘Declare War’ on the GOP
- CBS’ Bob Schieffer Groups Gun Lobby in With Civil Rights Opponents, bin Laden, and Nazis
- Here’s Why This Constitutional Law Professor Thinks America Should ‘Give Up the Constitution’

























































































































Comments (191)
thequeenbee
Jan. 30, 2013 at 6:59pmThere are planes, trains and boats leaving this country every day Mr Seidman. Get on one and don’t let the door slam you on the ass on your way out. Trust me, we won’t miss you.
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calebjim
Jan. 29, 2013 at 10:10amWe also need to disregard the talks of old ancient college professors that tend to teach what they want rather than what he/she needs to teach. If he/she is not pleased with the constitution, let them find a country with a constitution that they approve of and go there to teach their craft. In short college is a waste of time and money based on the quality of the teaching.
I have two degrees but got them when teaching was a profession and not a left wing effort to “change” history to siut a situation.
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Ernie Kaputnik
Jan. 29, 2013 at 8:14amJust another beard-scratching Communist.
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kabookieslap
Jan. 29, 2013 at 12:12amThe guy lists Wilson and the two Roosevelts as Great Presidents. That is why he is an idiot. I wrote that communist an email telling him to go f himself and reminding him that he is what the communist called “a Useful Idiot” and that they usually killed Useful Idiots after they got into power
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Salamander
Jan. 28, 2013 at 9:46pmRemind me NOT to send my kid to Georgetown!
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The Third Archon
Jan. 28, 2013 at 8:16pm“This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.”
Yup
“…but what’s noteworthy is that he continues to find new, large audiences.”
But of COURSE he does–the Constitution is for the most part an archaic mess made in a pre-industrial society, applied to a post-industrial society, responsible for much of our electoral and political difficulties and stagnation, one that is damn near impossible to adapt to changing needs–and as a consequence, virtually ALL of the positive political changes we have made have been IN SPITE of, and at times in great tension with, the Constitution.
So yes, the authors of the Constitution were NOT god, and we DO need an update.
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chicago76
Jan. 28, 2013 at 7:05pmTraitor your name is college professor. You give up your constitutional rights first mr. college professor. Not hardly. He wants us to give up our rights. After all, he is tenured(union) and therefore superior to all of us. It is the way of all these groups of people who work together in unions. It is why all of them must go. They no longer listen to anyone but each other. All unions are anti-American in nature.
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pavepaws
Jan. 28, 2013 at 6:28pmTripe
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Lover of America
Jan. 28, 2013 at 6:05pmCan you say moron? And if you don’t like our Constitution, maybe you should move to some third world country.
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