America
Re-Constituted … Returning to First Principles
Published in Marietta Daily Journal Jan.17, 2015
It’s not that we don’t care. Neither is it that we can’t grasp the magnitude
of the issues we face. We are simply so
busy working and living that we forget we are fellow citizens, fellow
countrymen, and closer neighbors than ever.
Our forgetfulness leads to escape. After a day’s work we escape to our
dwellings, thinking we can let the world
go by.
Not all Americans have chosen escape. Some of us attend political meetings, read up
on issues and political candidates, and then vote. Even fewer, understandably, run for
office. Those of us who do none of these
are content to let representative government slide.
So negligent have we become in
participatory democracy that we now have government we don’t like and political
leaders we don’t trust. As Jefferson put
it, “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance,” but we have not been vigilant. Government has become our master, not our
servant.
So now we’re all snarly, those who
have participated and those who haven’t.
Something’s just not right. That something is the over-reaching tentacles
of government. It’s the reality of an
incoherent tax code, laws that went unread before they were voted on and passed,
and inattention to our borders. It’s economic uncertainty. It’s watching America’s standing in the world
slip.
It’s
also the dashed hopes caused by candidates who said they would do thus and such
but instead joined the political class and began making excuses for why they
can’t do what they campaigned on. No
wonder dissatisfaction shrouds the land.
Nothing can re-direct or re-focus
minds as can returning to first principles.
Shall we blame schools for not teaching the first principles? No, schools teach them. The U.S. Constitution is taught throughout
the country. How can we expect students
to remember what they were taught on the Constitution anymore than the rest of
us can remember what was taught in geometry or grammar? People forget things.
That’s why the nation needs to
re-read and talk about her first principles. It takes only minutes to read the
U.S. Constitution. Unlike statutory law,
state and federal, that is always written in unreadable English, the
Constitution is clear. Its portions
written in the eighteenth century are a bit ornate, but certainly don’t prevent
understanding as do most modern laws.
How can we hold our elected
officials’ feet to the fire if we ourselves don’t know what’s in our most
foundational governing document?
I say the nation needs a class. Almost anybody who can read can be the
teacher. But where can the class, or
thousands of classes, be held? (Here’s
where the joy of re-discovery starts in re-Constituting America.) Classes can be held in living rooms, at
Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, the bridge club, homeowners’ associations, county
political party meetings (how novel), state political party conventions (more
novel still), 4-H meetings, and any other willing venue.
What would take place at these class
meetings? A leader would read or have a
“student” read the Preamble and several Articles. Another meeting, the remaining Articles and
Amendments. Discussion would ensue. Or would it?
On most things, our governing document of first principles is crystal
clear, inviting almost no discussion.
But “class members” would see the light:
government is doing things which the Constitution never ever sanctioned or
mentioned. Education? Not mentioned. And the 10th Amendment informs us
on who should handle those things not mentioned in the Constitution. Follow-up activity? Call your Congressional delegation, assert
that the Department of Education is un-Constitutional and insist it be
abolished.
In 621 B.C., workers repairing the Jewish
temple discovered a copy of the Pentateuch.
Struck by its forgotten contents and ambitious to re-direct ancient
Israel, King Josiah held class. After
several mass readings from the forgotten document, reforms were made in Israel
that re-ignited national fervor.
In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote his line,
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
On Christmas Eve of that year, George Washington ordered one of his
officers to read to his beleaguered troops the entire paragraph from Paine’s
“American Crisis.” The next day, 4,000
ragtag American farmers and small merchants surprised and defeated 20,000
Hessian troops.
A re-discovery of our first
principles will probably make us angrier than ever, but it could also give us
the freshly informed backbone to say to our leaders, “Get with the Constitution
or go home. Your programs and
regulations are abridging our liberty.
We now know what our governing document says.”
My first class will be held in my
home or in a nearby location, come spring.
Stay tuned, stay snarly, and bring your Constitution. Then hold your own class. America itself is at stake. And the joy of re-discovery – and freedom –
awaits us.
Roger
Hines
1/13/15
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