Don't even need that much print. Legalize freedom. Works every time.
Posted on 09/25/2010 1:04:09 PM PDT by Palter
One of the guiding principles of the tea-party movement is based on a myth
Wouldn't it be splendid if the solutions to America’s problems could be written down in a slim book no bigger than a passport that you could slip into your breast pocket? That, more or less, is the big idea of the tea-party movement, the grassroots mutiny against big government that has mounted an internal takeover of the Republican Party and changed the face of American politics. Listen to Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and tea-party heroine, as she addressed the conservative Value Voters’ Summit in Washington, DC, last week:
The Declaration of Independence and the constitution have been venerated for two centuries. But thanks to the tea-party movement they are enjoying a dramatic revival. The day after this September’s constitution-day anniversary, people all over the country congregated to read every word together aloud, a “profoundly moving exercise that will take less than one hour”, according to the gatherings’ organisers. At almost any tea-party meeting you can expect to see some patriot brandishing a copy of the hallowed texts and calling, with trembling voice, for a prodigal America to redeem itself by returning to its “founding principles”. The Washington Post reports that Colonial Williamsburg has been crowded with tea-partiers, asking the actors who play George Washington and his fellow founders for advice on how to cast off a tyrannical government.
Conservative think-tanks have the same dream of return to a prelapsarian innocence. The Heritage Foundation is running a “first principles” project “to save America by reclaiming its truths and its promises and conserving its liberating principles for ourselves and our posterity”. A Heritage book and video (“We Still Hold These Truths”) promotes the old verities as a panacea for present ills. America, such conservatives say, took a wrong turn when Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt fell under the spell of progressive ideas and expanded the scope of government beyond both the founders’ imaginings and the competence of any state. Under the cover of war and recession (never let a crisis go to waste, said Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel), Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and now Mr Obama continued the bad work. Thus has mankind’s greatest experiment in self-government been crushed by a monstrous Leviathan.
Accept for argument’s sake that those who argue this way have identified the right problem. The constitution, on its own, does not provide the solution. Indeed, there is something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today can be settled by simple fidelity to a document written in the 18th century. Michael Klarman of the Harvard Law School has a label for this urge to seek revealed truth in the sacred texts. He calls it “constitutional idolatry”.
The constitution is a thing of wonder, all the more miraculous for having been written when the rest of the world’s peoples were still under the boot of kings and emperors (with the magnificent exception of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, of course). But many of the tea-partiers have invented a strangely ahistorical version of it. For example, they say that the framers’ aim was to check the central government and protect the rights of the states. In fact the constitution of 1787 set out to do the opposite: to bolster the centre and weaken the power the states had briefly enjoyed under the new republic’s Articles of Confederation of 1777.
The words of men, not of gods
When history is turned into scripture and men into deities, truth is the victim. The framers were giants, visionaries and polymaths. But they were also aristocrats, creatures of their time fearful of what they considered the excessive democracy taking hold in the states in the 1780s. They did not believe that poor men, or any women, let alone slaves, should have the vote. Many of their decisions, such as giving every state two senators regardless of population, were the product not of Olympian sagacity but of grubby power-struggles and compromises—exactly the sort of backroom dealmaking, in fact, in which today’s Congress excels and which is now so much out of favour with the tea-partiers.
More to the point is that the constitution provides few answers to the hard questions thrown up by modern politics. Should gays marry? No answer there. Mr Klarman argues that the framers would not even recognise America’s modern government, with its mighty administrative branch and imperial executive. As to what they would have made of the modern welfare state, who can tell? To ask that question after the passage of two centuries, says Pietro Nivola of the Brookings Institution, is to pose an impossible thought experiment.
None of this is to say that the modern state is not bloated or over-mighty. There is assuredly a case to be made for reducing its size and ambitions and giving greater responsibilities to individuals. But this is a case that needs to be made and remade from first principles in every political generation, not just by consulting a text put on paper in a bygone age. Pace Ms Bachmann, the constitution is for all Americans and does not belong to her party alone. Nor did Jefferson write a mission statement for the tea- partiers. They are going to have to write one for themselves.
A number of judiciaries claim otherwise - I won't say they believe it, but they claim it nonetheless. In any event, either such judges are correct, and the Constitution really does grant a host of hidden rights nowhere mentioned by name or they're incorrect and are subverting their positions for their personal goals. Either way, it's an issue that must be addressed; and what's truly infantile is the author's thinking he can just brush the question aside based on his own preferences.
Bump
Major tailspin into an uninformative thud.
>> Indeed, there is something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today...
Possession where? The infantile editors at the Econimist?
Absolute left-wing marxist trash. What’s this writer’s IQ, 50?
infantile?
he can got to hail
figures he’s from hah vuhd
“Wouldn’t it be splendid if the solutions to America’s problems could be written down in a slim book no bigger than a passport that you could slip into your breast pocket?”
It could fit on a slip of paper “Get rid of those who hate America and support the Conservatives and entrepreneurs. Study the Bible throughly and follow its wisdom.”
Now - how much space did that take?
We (as Americans) must believe in the "consent of the governed." That consent is embodied in the founding documents, and is protected by the limitations put upon our government within them.
It isn't a matter of government worship - It is a liberal mind that even conceives that notion. It's all about enforcing the original contract.
Bzzzt. The 14th amendment ruined all that.
There is something infantile in the belief of half-educated British media poofs that human nature has changed at all since the 18th century.
It can be criticized as crap but it is also part of the other guys agenda i.e. our Constitution is a living document and is and should be subject to change. It is wise to know if not understand what we are up against. They are out there.
Don't even need that much print. Legalize freedom. Works every time.
this from a country that lets illegal squatters throw a elderly man out of his house and the police are too PC to deal it or deal with the yobs
“either…the Constitution really does grant a host of hidden rights nowhere mentioned by name”
That’s not really what we’re dealing with. The source of our rights is our Creator, not the Constitution. Our Constitution is to prevent our government from interfering with our rights, but it does not claim to enumerate all of those rights.
See Amendment IX: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The argument over whether a certain right exists in or is granted by the Constitution is just the left’s plausible diversion. We should be arguing the real issues, which arguments they must lose.
These are:
1. Given that we are endowed with our rights by our Creator, *could* such a right exist? (Bear in mind that no right could exist that is contradictory to God’s nature.)
2. If the answer to that is “yes,” then *does* our Creator endow us with this right?
Apply this to abortion. Rather than wasting time on blatantly bogus crap like an imaginary “penumbra,” start with question 1.
God has told us that deliberately slaying the innocent is wrong. (Many abortion proponents apply that principle to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but not, oddly, to the Rape of Nanking or the slaying of preborn babies.)
Syllogism:
God forbids the deliberate killing of the innocent.
Abortion is the deliberate killing of the innocent.
There is not, therefore, a right to “choose,” nor could there ever be. It is contrary to what God has told us of His nature, and for that reason could not exist. Period, end of story, in saecula saeculorum.
Apply it to Amendment II.
Syllogism:
God has told us that we have the right to defend ourselves against wrongdoers.
We cannot protect ourselves against wrongdoers without guns on our persons and in our homes.
Therefore, we have a God-given right to keep and bear arms.
It is pointless to discuss the issue further. Those who wish to do so are witting or unwitting enemies of the Constitution. If they won’t sit down and shut up, they should be made to sit down and shut up—as was done in America until the left infected us with madness.
(God created man, but Sam Colt made them equal. There’s only one way a woman can protect herself against men, and only one way a man can protect himself against bigger, stronger men.)
Just what we need. Another newbie telling us that the Constitution is outdated and inadequate for “modern” times.
Get lost.
I said no such thing. Don’t imply anything from just a post.
Pssst--hey, copy editor---"venerated" means "revered". So, if these documents were "venerated" for 2 centuries, where is the "peril of Constitution worship"?
IATZ?
Learn the difference between “imply” and “infer” noob.
Seems to me that the only thing that the original Constitution did was form the monster in Washington. It was written in language that invited the usurpation that has taken place for over 100 years. Thank God some folks saw the shortcomings and insisted on that list of “negative rights for the government” before they agreed to ratify Mr. Madison’s document.
The first 10 amendments are the only part of the Constitution worthy of high esteem and they exist to protect us from the entity created by the original document. Judging by the number and scope of the usurpations by that entity, they really haven’t done a good job.
Don’t think anybody considers any of the Constitution sacred but it was the agreement between the states when they created the monster and we would just like to get back to that point. We were a free people when the monster was created and now; not so much. Sort of like “Restore to a prior date”.
Please remember, as you read this silly article that might be rejected by the editor of a local high school newspaper, that this article comes from a society that believes:
The individual has no right to protect himself, even when attacked. If they do protect themselves they will be prosecuted for hurting the muggers or robbers.
Pointy tipped kitchen knives are weapons of mass destruction and should be outlawed.
The more surveillance cameras you install, the safer you are. Since this has proven to not be the case as the perps simply wear hoodies, attempts to shut down these cameras have been made. The bills have failed. The UK is now the most surveilled country in the world. Without any effect whatsoever.
A documented agreement can only go so far. Commonly held ideas are what shape societies. In the 19th century, socialist ideas came of age and spread throughout Europe and America, for the worse. The Gramscian "long march through the institutions" is what destroyed classical liberalism, as socialist thought spread throughout the cultural institutions (schools, media, entertainment) that shape common wisdom.
To reorder society, we need to re-conquer these institutions. Glenn Beck has the right idea, and is acting as the point of the spear.
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