> Not to mention they're just some random people, nation building or not. No rational reason to treat their work like some higher command centuries later.

We treat their work "like some higher command" because it literally is that. Their work (the Constitution) creates a framework that overrides anything enacted by contemporary legislatures. The reason that's so important is because we often (usually?) don't agree on what rules should be. America has large numbers of people who think guns should be banned completely, and also large numbers of people who think teachers should carry firearms. The Constitution is a meta-rule that mediates those disagreements. Of course, to the extent we don't like any particular meta-rule, we could amend it with a 2/3 vote. We don't do that because we don't agree on what the alternative meta-rule should be!

It's entirely rational for everyone to adhere to those meta-rules. Democrats in New York can't just decide to ignore the Second Amendment because once that's out the window, Republicans in Alabama have no reason to respect Roe v. Wade. Everyone tries to interpret the rules to sanction their specific approach, but declaring that we can just decide for ourselves what the rules will be, without reference to the meta-rules, would lead to total breakdown.

>We treat their work "like some higher command" because it literally is that. Their work (the Constitution) creates a framework that overrides anything enacted by contemporary legislatures.

That's just a choice (not even a popular ie. majority choice, just a choice pre-made by how the founding fathers set up the system, nobody is actually asked about it). It could be totally abolished tomorrow like such things have been countless times in past and present societies.

It's not a natural law or god given framework. So it's in that sense that it shouldn't be treated as that.

You write: "Of course, to the extent we don't like any particular meta-rule, we could amend it with a 2/3 vote. We don't do that because we don't agree on what the alternative meta-rule should be!".

But nobody was asked whether we "do that" not. It's not that we don't do it because "we don't agree on what the alternative meta-rule should be" and thus we are fearful of doing it. It would have been that if we had voted about it, and decided so. But instead, it's not that we don't do it, but that we're not allowed to even vote on doing it or not (well, US citizens aren't allowed that is).

>but declaring that we can just decide for ourselves what the rules will be, without reference to the meta-rules, would lead to total breakdown.

I don't know about that, seems to work for other countries with no holy "founding father" dictums.

> It could be totally abolished tomorrow like such things have been countless times in past and present societies.

It could! There is even a legal mechanism for doing so.

> It's not a natural law or god given framework.

It’s even more important than natural law! It’s actual law.

> But nobody was asked whether we "do that" not. It's not that we don't do it because "we don't agree on what the alternative meta-rule should be" and thus we are fearful of doing it. It would have been that if we had voted about it, and decided so. But instead, it's not that we don't do it, but that we're not allowed to even vote on doing it or not (well, US citizens aren't allowed that is).

You and your friends probably never voted on whether to frame one of your group for murder, but it would be entirely fair for you to assume that such a vote, were it to be taken, would fail.

We proposed and amended the constitution 11 times in the 20th century (not counting one amendment that was proposed in the 18th century). During any of those times, if anyone thought there was support for more sweeping changes, such an amendment could have been proposed.

> I don't know about that, seems to work for other countries with no holy "founding father" dictums.

Those countries aren’t 50 separate sovereignties connected by a basic legal compromise.

>No rational reason to treat their work like some higher command centuries later.

I think the "rational reason" over time really is that no one has come up with better ideas.

My theory is that we look at the past through the filter of a lens, and this lens typically only lets the brightest shine through. Like them or not, Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin left behind writings that were objectively superior in utility to many of the other founders. If you ever had the misfortune of being obliged to do an analysis of something like the Lincoln-Douglas transcript, you really can see that one set of ideas is so much better thought out than the other. American blacks had numerous leaders, but the reality was that MLK had ideas that were simply objectively superior to many other black american leaders. Throw in the almost Periclean eloquence of most of the guys I highlighted there, and you end up with a bar that's impossibly high to get over. It takes a generational type of steward to meet that kind of a standard.

Which is why, over time, that standard starts to seem like a "higher command".

You can set new standards that are in opposition to the established ones. However, you really would need well thought out ideas. Those ideas would have to grow the segment of people benefiting from the current ideas in a society. Finally, to top all that off, you'd need a steward for those ideas with a fervent commitment to them, an almost Socratic wisdom, and a Periclean eloquence. All these conditions are difficult to meet. In fact, it's only natural that all these conditions will rarely be met simultaneously.

On balance I think this is good. I mean, at the other extreme we'd have the ideas of some user named MonkeyAnal on Youtube being taken as seriously as the ideas of Jefferson. Stability demands Jefferson's ideas carry the weight in that situation. At the same time, it is possible to attack Jefferson's ideas and change the standards he set. You just have to be Lincoln writing to Ripon, and not MonkeyAnal ranting on Youtube. Again, an almost impossibly high bar, I'll grant you that, but at the same time that bar provides certain safeguards.