The Constitution and Monotonicity

Whenever people observe that the constitution is a living document my head goes straight to a useful engineering condition: monotonicity.

Monotonicity refers to a condition whereby a function can vary by increasing or decreasing but not both. A monotonically increasing function's output always grows or stays the same, it never decreases. The opposite is true of a monotonically decreasing function. Monotonicity is useful, for example, in computer science because it helps us establish guarantees about how an algorithm behaves (e.g. when describing an algorithm's efficiency).

I'd prefer it if the constitution were a living document where variances in rights are monotonically increasing. You can add rights or you can tweak wording, but you cannot decrease the sum total of rights (call this total liberty). Want to take rights away? Go play in traffic.

A complication: What if slavery were a constitutional right? Perhaps we can agree that the sum total of "rights", however we quantify it, increases by ending slavery. When it comes to the second amendment, what about the "right" to live? I don't consider this a right. No one can guarantee the positive (that you get to live), only the negative. A "right" that cannot come with some degree of a positive guarantee is worthless.

Worthless, like any right in a "living document" that can change without resistance and for better or worse at the will of short-sighted tyrants.