I’ll add one more thing. I despise injustice wherever it happens and by whomever it happens. Christians who kill Muslims for no reason are just as bad as Muslims who kill Christians for no reason. Here, and all over the globe.
Our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to know that ANY group - if unaccountable - would be corrupted. The Christian church has had its times where it was murderous - usually because there was not accountability, and fallen man naturally rots if left to its own devices. The same thing holds true for EVERY governing body. Because mankind is fallen we will generally do what we can get away with. We expect that, unless we protect ourselves against it.
And that’s what the Constitution is really about. It’s intended to limit what government can do, because without limits government will oppress and become corrupt. All of this earth’s history shows us that.
It gives to the government the job of making and enforcing laws that will provide for individual liberty while protecting every person equally and allowing every person to have an avenue for grievances to be corrected.
That is what those who love America want. That is what most Muslims want. That’s probably what most Fogbowers want.
But there are people who DON’T want that. Some don’t want it because they want to have benefits or power that others don’t have (redistributed wealth...). Some don’t want it because they want the world to be rid of this or that group - religious, political, racial, whatever. Some don’t want it because they are sociopaths, anarchists, or whatever.
Unless the rest of us stand together to keep those people from getting power and running with it, they WILL get power and nobody will be safe. Some are afraid of Christian fundamentalists taking control and oppressing everybody else. Me too. Some are afraid of Muslims taking control and oppressing everybody else. Me too. What we need is the rule of law, and laws that allow for liberty and justice.
We need to stand together against those who seek to enslave or kill other people.
I would hope that’s something that we could all agree on. But I know that there will be some who won’t, because of the above reasons. The rest of us have to recognize those reasons that some people MUST be resisted by the rest of us, because there is no way those people can have what they want and everybody else still have liberty and justice.
Right now the people who don’t agree with the rule of law, liberty, and justice are winning. Those who love those things MUST stand together, regardless of “politics”, and defend the things we love, because if we don’t it will all be lost. I hope it’s not too late already.
I’m not worried about Muslims or Christian fundamentalists taking control and oppressing everybody. Because that is never going to happen. I do worry that leftists will take control and oppress everybody. And I am not sure that it’s possible to stop them at all.
RC, you are correct that the Constitution gave more responsibilities to the central government. The states were more like their own countries, with their own currency, roads, etc and the nation learned that some things need to be centralized, for practicality. So the centralized government was authorized to handle those things.
But the Founders still wanted to be very careful not to put too much power into the hands of any one entity, because absolute power corrupts.
That’s why the Constitution enumerated the powers it was giving the centralized government and said it could not go beyond those bounds.
That’s why it said that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, which cannot be changed on a whim by any entity but requires a difficult process to amend. That was to keep the voters themselves from having unchecked power. Constitutional governance is a check on absolute power by sheer democracy.
That’s why it divided the duties of the centralized government into 3 branches, each independent of each other.
That’s why it put in checks and balances to each of the branches of government.
That’s why it immediately had the Bill of Rights to prevent government abuses of the people and to establish the principles of liberty - freedom of press, association, self-defense,religion, and the means to get redress for grievances without resorting to revolution, as well as the privacy of one’s personal effects and the right to a fair trial.
All along, the idea was to have somebody or something who - in very real terms - was in a position to put a stop to corruption when, not if, it arose. If any of those checks and balances refuse to function, it makes room for those who don’t want liberty and justice but instead want to gain an advantage over others, want to destroy this or that opposing group, or seek to do crimes and create anarchy.
When GW Bush was in the White House, the opposition wanted the government to work like it’s supposed to, to limit powers. When Obama is in the White House, the opposition wants the governemtn to work like it’s supposed to, to limit powers. It’s SO much like the Shiite-Sunni divide in Iraq. The progress that was made there was after too many Sunnis died at the hands of Shiites looking out only for themselves while fellow Shiites looked on, and vice versa. The Anbar Awakening was the realization that government needed to be NEUTRAL and committed to JUSTICE.
America needs an Anbar Awakening.