Questions, Questions, Questions

Everything that follows is summarized, excerpted, paraphrased, likely inaccurate, and otherwise selective and not verbatim.

Chairman Arlen Specter:

Is the Consitution a living thing?

Yes, in the sense that matters.  It is not terribly specific on certain things, but it sets out general principles and lets each generation apply those to specific situations that come up.  The liberty component of the 5th and 14th Amendments embody deeply rooted traditions of the country.  The principles don't change, but the factual situations do.

What of precedents?

"Super duper precedents" remind me of laundry detergent sizes in supermarkets.  Precedents are strengthened each time they are reaffirmed.  Stare decisis is a precedent on precedent, in that it holds that the merits of established precedent cannot be revisited.  But stare decisis is not an inexorable command.