A Quote by Lawrence Lessig

Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter. — © Lawrence Lessig
Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter.
The Constitution I uphold and defend is the one I carry in my pocket all the time, the U.S. Constitution. I don't know what Constitution that other members of Congress uphold, but it's not this one. I think the only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution, not this one.
It [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted.
I used to say that the Constitution is not a living document. It's dead, dead, dead. But I've gotten better. I no longer say that. The truth is that the Constitution is not one that morphs. It's an enduring Constitution, not a changing Constitution. That is what I've meant when I've said that the Constitution is dead.
The King has a right to make political remarks. He is a Thai citizen and has his rights and freedoms under the Constitution. Each of you is under the Constitution, and so is the King. I am using my freedom under the Constitution.
Clearly what differentiates the U.S. from other countries is the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution defines us as a people. Without the Constitution, we would be a different country. Therefore, to lose the Constitution is to lose the country.
I feel that the constitution is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peacetime and in wartime. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile.
Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution, and it was designed to eat the Constitution, to progress past the Constitution.
Progressivism is the cancer in America, and it is eating our Constitution. It was designed to eat the Constitution, to progress past the Constitution.
The Constitution is not a law, but it empowers the people to make laws... The Constitution tells us what shall not be a lawful tender... The legislature has ceded up to us the privilege of enacting such laws as are not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States... The different states, and even Congress itself, have passed many laws diametrically contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
A 'living constitution' is a dead constitution, because it does not do the one and only thing a written constitution is supposed to do: provide parameters around the power of officials.
even the best of constitutions need sometimes to be amended and improved, for after all there is but one constitution which is infallible, but one constitution that ought to be held sacred, and that is the human constitution.
The laws are, and ought to be, relative to the constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and proceed against offenders.
In explaining the Constitution, James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper 45: 'The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peach, negotiation, and foreign commerce.' Has the Constitution been amended to permit Congress to tax, spend and regulate as it pleases or have Americans said, 'To hell with the Constitution'?
[The Massachusetts constitution] resembles the federal Constitution of 1787 more closely than any of the other revolutionary state constitutions. It was also drawn up by a special convention, and it provided for popular ratification - practices that were followed by the drafters of the federal Constitution of 1787 and subsequent state constitution-makers.
Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.
When all is said and done, the Constitution of the United States is a set of words on a piece of paper. The only way that the Constitution can protect us is if we protect the Constitution.
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