Ideas of Founders still relevant today

Taylor Kessinger, in Friday’s column “”Who cares what the Founding Fathers thought?”” compares constitutional analysis to religious exegesis; a laughable assertion at best. While religious texts are often dense, allegorical, and (often intentionally) difficult to interpret, the Constitution, as a legal document, was purposefully written in clear, precise language by the Founding Fathers. A social contract with the people, it outlines the function of our government, the rights of its people, and serves as a measure of legality for all U.S. laws. This obtuse “”exegesis,”” as he derides it, is called Constitutional Law.

While it is obvious the Founders disagreed over nearly everything, the Constitution represented those ideas on which they all agreed. Unlike his assertion, the supposedly ambiguous second amendment has been unambiguously interpreted for some 230 years, District of Columbia v. Heller being the most recent case. It is clear what Kessinger really wants is for the constitution to be less clear than it really is, giving the “”living”” constitutionalists the ability to interpret as they see fit. What is really amazing is how much of the original constitution still remains in effect, and its incredible relevance to modern law. Habeas corpus, the freedom of speech and the separation of powers have never been more relevant.

To say the intentions of the prescient authors of this document are irrelevant is denying them their rightful place as the founders of the ideals which protect Kessinger’s very freedom to write in the first place. If they are so out of date, why does the majority of the language that they wrote continue to be the measure in which all American law is judged? Which begs the real question: Who really cares what Taylor Kessinger thinks, anyways?

Kai Kaapro

’08 Arizona Alum

Elites should pay for the rest of us to attend college

The $1000 tuition surcharge is inequitable. UA should consider what the excellent University of Wisconsin-Madison is doing: look at those who can afford these rates to pay them.

This is only fair as our colleges become more and more elitist. The elite should pay more. Also, I doubt any tuition increase is truly temporary.

Michael W. Simpson

American Indian studies doctoral student

Rec Center should play more exercise-appropriate music

There I was, standing on one of the Student Recreation Center’s three lifting platforms, getting ready to deadlift 305 pounds. I had done everything possible to psych myself up; slapping myself, sniffing ammonia, dousing myself with cold water, and so on. Three hundred and five pounds isn’t much, but I’m getting there, and it takes an enormous amount of mental focus to lift a lot of weight. And what did I hear emanating from the low-quality noise boxes the Rec Center calls “”speakers””?

The false falsetto of Akon. The whiny, musically stunted autotuned T-Pain. Other generic, low-grade “”hip-hop”” (read: poppish R&B masquerading as hip-hop) which depends on an overuse of fake hand-clapping sounds. Of course, if it’s not that, it’s the boring, bro-ish soft pop-rock of Jack Johnson or John Mayer, which makes me about as excited and pumped as a thermodynamics lecture. Whoever controls the radio in the Rec Center seems to demonstrate a total inability to select a station which plays music that actually makes people want to work out hard. Maybe crappy pop music is enjoyable for the ninety-pound girls who spend hours with the leg extension machine on the lowest setting, trying to “”tone”” their thighs. But for those of us who are serious about working out, it’d be nice to hear some heavier music like hard rock, metal, or rap – in other words, stuff that wakes us up rather than putting us to sleep or pissing us off.

Albert Cunningham

Tucson resident