I wish to take a moment to start a discussion about the Constitution of the United States, the principles and ideals behind this unique document, and where we are today in relation to the founder?s intentions. This is a wide topic and has many different interpretations and opinions (Please allow me to disclose that I do not consider myself to be an expert and that none of my ideas or opinions should be taken as such). What I wish to cover in this post are some of the philosophical attributes behind our form of government and offer up some tools that I have used in talking with people that were either unaware of them or who disagreed as to what the role of government should be.
To start we must ask, what is our form of government? Many of you are probably already aware that we have been told for around the last 60-70 years that we live in a democracy. However, the word ?democracy? do not appear in the constitution and our founding fathers vehemently opposed a democratic form of government. A simplistic summary of a democracy would be two wolves and a sheep voting over what?s for dinner. In other words, 51% can control 49% all of the time with no regard for the personal freedoms or rights of the 49%. This idea is explained quite well in a video by the John Birch Society.
The John Birch Society or JBS, another group much loved by the SPLC, has long been a huge proponent of teaching people about the founding of our country. Their goal is to restore a constitutional republic as our founding fathers intended. Their website can be found at:
www.JBS.orgThey have produced and published a wide array of informative and educational books, newsletters, and movies. For those not familiar with them or their movies I would like to bring their
Overview of America to your attention. This is a short 30 min. movie covering the importance and significance of the founding principles in our Constitution.
Overview of AmericaOne of the most important things explored in this video series is the philosophical principles behind our founder?s intentions. The ideas that our founders placed in the Constitution were not new. They were ideas that philosophers had been debating for thousands if not tens of thousands of years. Yet, the collection of these ideas being written into law as a document to control government and clearly lay down the boundaries the government must stay within is entirely unique. One of the most important philosophical problems that they attempted to address in the Constitution is how much government do we need and how much should we have?
The boundaries for government set within the Constitution have lost much of their intended restrictions. Today, many liberals / progressives (and unfortunately some Republicans) argue that the Constitution is a living document. This is a word used over and over by people who hold the perspective that the meaning of the document changes over time. For example, the word
militia had a much different meaning in the 1700s than it does today. Their argument would be that because of this we can interpret the world militia in today?s meaning rather than through the understood meaning of the founders.
One would think that if we were allowed to consider the Constitution a ?living document? that we would then also have to allow others to make similar interpretations regardless if we agree with their view or not. In essence, let?s play some poker with a ?living deck?. I make the rules whenever and wherever I want. Sound like fun? How about we gamble with your rights and liberties?
So where has the Constitution gone in all of this? Well, it has obviously (at least imo) been interpreted, re-interpreted, and trod upon during the process. This is a slow death where we (collectively people of the past and present) have allowed the people in control of the government to overstep their constraints because their arguments seemed plausible at the time. There are many historical examples of this, even immediately after the formation of the United States with the alien and sedition act (Judge Andrew Napolitano covers this in the next video I will link).
We have been led to believe that it is okay to take away this right or okay to let government step in and take control of education, food, etc? because their argument at the time seemed persuasive. These abuses or oversteps have taken place slowly over time and have become part of our normal every day lives because mainstream thought and our overall response has been one of placidity. You need some of my rights to fight terrorism? Hrm? well, I guess that?s okay because you need it just for a little bit, right? Historically speaking, once government gains an inch, they take it a mile. Remembering that the 1st objective of any bureaucracy is to stay alive (not in their stated purpose), in order to stay alive they need to justify their existence, in order to justify their existence it is convenient to have a large budget and to find problems real or imaginary to fix. Which creates an opportunity for huge abuses of power and allows government to grow exponentially.
I would now like to turn you over to a much better source in this fantastic speech given by the honored Judge Andrew Napolitano, who happens to be one of the greatest Constitutional Scholars that I know of. The following speech was given at the
Mises Institute , a fountain of information about the Austrain School of economics.
This is, hands down, one of the best speeches that I have seen or heard. Napolitano covers a wide variety of ideas and simplifies them into very easy to understand arguments.
For example, at 36:20 in the video Napolitano asks, ?how many ways are there to make wealth?? The then goes through the three different ways covering inheritance, hard work (physical, mental, or economic), and the intimidation model, ?your money or your life?. How does the government get its wealth?
These are just a few of many ways we can look to addressing the Constitution and founding principles. Videos such as the two that I linked to today go a long way towards breaking what have become complex arguments into more simple and easier to understand points. Typically we find the polarized sides of Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative to consistently take the stage in any debate. We have been conditioned to define a perspective or value based off of the two party system. Unfortunately, these are subjective and constantly change (I would argue there is little difference between the two ? I?ll leave that for another time). Yet, what happened to the benchmark of the Constitution? The only objective and consistent benchmark is the concrete language laid out in the Constitution.
It is not a living document. If we allow ourselves to be deceived that our views, wants, or needs can be interpreted differently within its lines then we are opening ourselves to further abuse by those we do not agree with. In order to maintain the philosophies, principles, and most importantly, constraints on the government we must be willing to follow the rules. There are opportunities to make the Constitution better but it has to take place through amending the document not our wants and desires to see words as having different meanings than they were intended.
That?s it for my first post and exploration of the Constitution. I look forward to see how this thread may evolve.
Thanks!
