Conservative talk show hosts have been blasting Ruth Bader Ginsberg lately over her remark that the U.S. Constitution might not be the best model for a new country's constitution. She favored the Canadian and South African constitutions, and while constitutional scholars might be able to find weaknesses in those two, the U.S. Constitution isn't exactly perfect, either.
Take the Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It took over 200 years for that language to get some clarification in District of Columbia v. Heller. (Ginsberg was on the wrong side, by the way.)
The reason the U.S. Constitution works so well is because the people in the U.S. have so much faith in it as a founding document. Without that faith it would be a useless piece of old paper, and perhaps that causes a little bit of insecurity at the mere mention that it wouldn't serve as a good model for others.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Justice Ginsberg, but her suggestion that there might be better constitutions shouldn't be one of them.
For more, see Ganging up on Ginsburg — way too quickly via Volokh.com.
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