Our local newspaper, a periodical to which I cancelled my subscription long ago, is called the Newark Star Ledger.  Given its editorial policy I, some time ago, suggested that its name be changed to the Red Star Ledger.  The Red Star over Jersey chose July 4th to propose that it was high time to change the U.S. Constitution.  According to the Editors (Commissars?), this would be a perfect opportunity to get rid of those parts of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to which the Editors, and by implication, all reasonable people, should object.  The Constitution, which all committed liberal comrades consider to be an obstruction, rather than the font and guarantor of our precious liberties, is flawed you see.  Were it not fundamentally flawed, our government would not be suffering “the constipation of gridlock.”  Putting aside the observation that all liberals rightly ought to be committed, the Ledger is wrong again.  As support for their proposition, the Editors quoted Thomas Jefferson’s 1789 letter to James Madison, to wit, “Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years.”  Surprising me not all, the Editors overlooked some important things in that letter.  The bulk of Jefferson’s 19 year sunset proposal argued that current leaders should not impose public debt upon future generations.  “But with respect to future debts, would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare, in the constitution they are forming, that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself, can validly contract more debt than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years?”  I certainly agree with Jefferson on that. The so-called Progressives that the Editors seek to benefit by discarding the Constitution certainly do not.  You think the Constitution is out of date?  Jefferson derived his 19 year limit from French life expectancy tables of 1789, which provided that half of all persons above age 21 would die within 18 years 8 months.  Average life expectancy for males was then about 34 years.  Clearly, the Editors failed to notice that that number is now around 80 years.  The Editors also cited to Jefferson’s 1816 letter to Virginia lawyer Samuel Kercheval, in which Jefferson criticized those who opposed amendments to the Constitution.  Jefferson was indeed opposed to what he termed a “fossilizing” of our founding document. In his 1789 letter, Jefferson had considered the then brand new Constitution too difficult to amend.  In the letter to Kercheval, he had reconsidered his earlier opinion, writing of constitutional provisions, “I do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended.” Perhaps Jefferson changed his opinion because he noticed that the Constitution had been amended 12 times between 1789 and 1804. The point is that the Founders did not give us a perpetual or “fossilized” Constitution.  Article V provides the means for amendment, a process we have exercised successfully 27 times.  The Founders didn’t make the process easy, because they knew that exposing our fundamental freedoms to every passing whim or crisis could put our republic in the hands of a tyrant, which is what the Ledger Editors prefer.  If, as the Editors suggested, and I agree, the Congress is too gridlocked to accomplish the amendment process, those men in powdered wigs and silk breeches didn’t tie our hands.  They anticipated the problem by permitting the State Legislatures to propose amendments.  Of course, now that more than 30 State Legislatures are controlled by Republicans, I’m sure the Red Star Editors did not have that part of Article V in mind.  What would the liberal masterminds like to change?  One suggestion was that it’s just not fair that California has the same two Senators as a small State like Wyoming, although it has 65 times the population of Wyoming.  Really, what good would imbecile progressives be if they were just reckless and not stupid as well?  The Constitution created two bodies in the Legislature.  The membership of the House of Representatives is apportioned by population.  That’s why California gets 55 members and Wyoming only one.  The Senate was designed to ensure that the small States would have a voice and not be at the mercy of the large States.  You see, what the Editors, and all progressives choose to ignore is the fact that the States created the federal government, not the other way around.  For 125 years, the Senators were chosen by the State Legislatures.  The House was the voice of the people, and the Senate was the voice of the States.  Without such an arrangement, there never would have been a Constitution in the first place.  Federalism, hence the name, the federal government.  The progressives managed to water down this constitutional safeguard with the 17th Amendment, which provided for popular election of the Senate.  Under the original system, with 30 State Legislatures now in Republican hands and 8 split, there now would be 64 Republicans in the Senate.  There would be no gridlock then, but the Red Star Editors don’t want that.  You see, the liberal masterminds really aren’t upset that there is gridlock, instead they are upset that Republicans have anything to say on any issue at all.  So, liberal know-it-alls, if you want to amend the Constitution, Article V provides the means.  Have at it.  But if you want to make changes, choose wisely.  The words of the 4th Amendment, which protects us from illegal searches, were written in 1791 and have never been changed.  Despite this, those 18th Century words have been interpreted to protect succeeding generations from illegal searches involving the tapping of telephones, thermal imaging, global positioning tracking and internet monitoring.  Those supposedly obsolete words, written by white men, some of whom owned slaves, have saved members of every racial and ethnic group from unjust conviction.  The wisdom of the Founders had no expiration date.  Thomas Jefferson did have a number of opinions that were at odds with the Constitution.  For instance, in his 1816 letter, Jefferson told Samuel Kercheval that he opposed life tenure for judges. I’ll sign up for that right now.  The Editors won’t.  If the superior minds at the Red Star Ledger seek to apply Jefferson’s ideas to today’s problems, they be should be careful what they wish for.  Jefferson also told James Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing.”  Maybe he had something there.