Most Americans are aware of that phrase in the various oaths of office that are taken throughout the United States, but I'm just wondering what it means to most of us? To you: does it mean to preserve, protect, and defend the text of the Constitution or, more broadly does it mean to preserve, protect, and defend the principles behind the Constitution or does it mean to preserve, protect, and defend both the text and the principles? To me, I believe it's the principles the country was founded on. The principles have gone back several decades before the Constitution was written and are, in my eyes immutable and irrevocable.
The principles. It isn't like there is a Ranger Battalion surrounding the National archives to protect the actual document. I think it is pretty cool you can go to the National Archives and see the actual Constitution. But even if there were a disaster that destroyed the document it wouldn't really matter. I am not a person who thinks the Constitution is sacrosanct. It has many flaws. But the ideals espoused in it are still superior to the crap most politicians advocate for.
