If you’re looking for a single image that sums up what a constitution is for, and why it’s important to follow one, a good candidate is Ulysses passing the Island of Sirens.
Lashed to the mast, and with beeswax in his crew’s ears, he was unable to respond to the lure of the sirens, which would have destroyed his ship and killed his crew.
In other words, by limiting his options ahead of time, he was able to avoid disaster when perspective was replaced by desire.
As someone said,
While amending a constitution is generally a lot more trouble than just pushing a bill through a legislature with a bare majority vote, it’s meant to be more trouble, so that short-sighted, momentary passion can be restrained by measured, thoughtful, forward-looking consideration; and so that we will, when feelings are in danger of overwhelming reason, be firmly reminded that governments are formed in order to protect rights, and that constitutions are written precisely to place out of the reach of government those ‘solutions’ that would undermine that purpose.
In politics, there are always sirens trying to lure us with promises: that we can spend money we don’t have, that we can make ourselves safer or happier by curbing the rights of people who scare or annoy us, that we can improve the lives of others by limiting their options, and so on.
Is it frustrating to have to listen to those seductive songs, without being able to respond to them? You bet. But not as frustrating crashing your ship on the rocks chasing something you can’t have, and wouldn’t, in your more lucid moments, even want.
