For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights
Liberal and conservative constitutional arguments--"original intent" versus "unenumerated rights," and so on--are very stale, but Yale Law School professor Amar and attorney-writer Hirsch aim to change that by attacking the assumptions of both camps in apopulistinterpretation of the "grand corpus of democratic rights" contained in "the Framers' Constitution." Other scholars, Amar and Hirsch argue, undervalue sections of the Constitution, scrutinize each section in isolation from other sections, and focus on "the Madisonian dilemma" (majority rule versus minority rights), without recognizing those rights the document grants or acknowledges that belong, not to individuals, but to "We the People." They discuss these rights in terms of four "boxes" (ballot, jury, cartridge, and lunch), presenting constitutional readings so different from recent decisions thatFor the Peopleis sure to give Court TV's usual suspects apoplexy. A healthy challenge to conventional wisdom, with significant implications for public policy, from how we change the Constitution and state statutes and who serves on juries and in the military to what a constitutional government owes its citizens.Mary Carroll--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.