The Founder’s Protections Ridiculed

After golf the other day my oldest grandson questioned the relevance of the “300 year old” document called the Constitution of the United States of America.  I was aghast;  I told him I wanted to meet his high school civics teacher so I could beat the living spit out of him.  Make no mistake, my grandson is neither a kid nor a dummy – he is well informed and means what he said.

Part of the political polarization in the nation today is a renewed populist propaganda campaign to overturn every aspect of what America’s Founders had in mind.  This comes, of course, primarily from the traditional, radical left who would slice up the Golden Goose in order to “care for us all” from cradle to grave.  These folks have no confidence in any form of government other than direct democracy – government by twitter.  And this appeals to the cooperative minded, social network oriented younger generations.

Here is an example of the plausible sounding attack against the continued viability of the Constitution by Adam Liptak, legal writer and columnist for the NYT.

‘We the People’ Loses Appeal with People around the World

By Adam Liptak

Published: February 6, 2012, NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=1&ref=adamliptak 

Convinced?  I am animated with outrage.   

·         Liptak points with pleasure to documents created by lefty activists and hopes to equate them with actual governance.  Has any European nation adopted the nonsense in the European Convention on Human Rights?  No. 

·         That food, education and health care are entitlements rather than things to be earned and charity when given is un-American anathema – it’s conceptually worse even than communism.  Think about it. 

·         The presumption of innocence is a corner stone of American law – see the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments as well as countless decisions by the SCOTUS.  Only a lawyer could see otherwise. 

·         It should be axiomatic that a thinking person would be informed by the actions, conditions and thinking around the world.  But unless we wish to give up on American exceptionalism and base our rule of law on something other than personal liberty, then we must address ourselves to our own system and not concern ourselves with outsiders calling us parochial. 

·         Lefties want world government;  sensible people look at the UN and are prepared not only to wait but be very watchful in the interim – don’t drink the kool-aide, no nation does otherwise.  Shall we decide for ourselves about gay marriage, guns, capital punishment, election funding, et al or must we take an international poll? 

·         It is true that Justice Ginsburg and others are impatient with our system but many more, even on the left, join former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in attempting to revive the teaching of civics in our high schools. 

·         Jefferson is indeed misused by modern activists of every stripe but what he had in mind was periodic refreshment of the Founder’s intent, not its dismantling by each successive generation.  

·         The Constitution of the United States of America is no more “18^th century thinking” than democracy is 6^th century thinking.  The Constitution is an essential component of an exceptional system and is not to be treated lightly let alone abandoned. 

If other nations are advancing the cause of liberty or democracy, that could not be more wonderful.  But do we really want the Supreme Court of the United States to base its decisions on those taken in India or South Africa – how about France or Germany?  Do people have no sense of history? 

This nation was founded on the principle of individual liberty – nobody is supposed to be able to make us eat our broccoli.  The Founder’s distrusted monarchy, factionalism and most of all, populism [the tyranny of the majority].  They constructed a government intended to have no power other than to protect the rights of individuals against government and the nation against attack.  They installed mechanisms to keep the government in check and to make changing these things a slow and deliberate process. 

The cause of progressives is seriously hampered by these mechanisms – thus their frustration.  Personally, I am not only comfortable with that but ready to use the system to test some of what they’ve already accomplished.