So says Lawrence Hunter here, who thinks the expedient of a Bill of Rights was only a parchment barrier to begin with:
The Founders gave us The War Power Clause of the Constitution vesting the exclusive power to declare war with Congress. Politicians replaced it with The War Powers Resolution and presidential wars of whim.
The Founders gave us myriad constitutional restrictions on the powers of the federal government both explicit and implicit. Politicians and judges replaced them with a series of court rulings, on the Commerce Clause for example, so sweeping in their expansion of the federal government’s regulatory powers beyond the Constitution’s writ that, in the words of Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, “The Commerce Clause has proven voracious enough to swallow the rest of the Constitution. Any scraps left over will be devoured by the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.”
The Founders gave us habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment, protecting against arbitrary arrest and guaranteeing that people would be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Politicians replaced them with The Patriot Act and the Homeland Police State, preventative detention, rendition, unauthorized wiretaps, secret searches and seizures and TSA.
The Founders gave us the Fifth Amendment, guaranteeing the people protection against over-reaching police and prosecutors, forced self-incrimination and double jeopardy, and against laws that would confiscate private property without due process and just compensation. Courts and Politicians gave us a series of rulings and legislation allowing the police, prosecutors and judges to act arbitrarily in the name of the general welfare, public safety and national security without regard to the cherished Rights of Englishmen that were passed down to us through the United States Constitution.
The Founders gave us the Eighth Amendment protecting the people against the imposition of excessive fines and infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. PB&J gave us RICO, prosecutorial charge stacking, extortionate plea bargaining, lawless and pathological judicial/prosecutorial misconduct, GITMO and water boarding.
