Posted on 02/07/2003 5:27:37 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well … but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters … but they mean to be masters.
— Daniel Webster
My friend Lawrence Smith, a fellow Volunteer from Savannah, Tennessee, often emails me comments and shares his thoughts on a wide range of topics, especially Biblical issues. He has given permission to share these lines he recently wrote:
'We give 85% of the worlds charity … yet they call us greedy. We whip the world and give the countries back … yet they say we're building an empire. We tax the widows and orphans of Americans killed in combat and give the money to those who killed them … yet they want more' … even as, I would add, they shower us with hatred and contempt.
Those stark contrasts between objective reality and what some people see through their ideological filters got me to thinking about another contrast, between what the Founding Fathers established and what America has actually become.
Most Americans, unburdened by the social and political philosophies of Marxists, atheists and various other anti-American types, are not so confused about the Founders' very clear intentions as our professors and other elites. However, preoccupied with the pursuit of the American Dream made possible by the political and economic freedoms the Founders established, and harboring a mistaken confidence that our leaders would always exhibit the same integrity and moral character of the Founders, we've been guilty of a complacency that enabled the government 'of the people' to be gradually taken over by career politicians and lifelong bureaucrats. These people possess only such character that invites contempt, or dread, and are not those we would consciously entrust with walking our dog, let alone the business of government.
As Founding Father George Mason noted: 'Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.' But, long sheltered in their positions by a 98+% re-election rate, our pampered politicians have nothing to fear from their scurrilous deeds, nor from a distracted electorate.
As a result, America today is the mirror image of what the Founding Fathers established and intended. At casual glance the images in a mirror seem to be accurate, but a closer look reveals that, in reality, everything is backwards, the exact opposite of the real thing. A clock face now runs counter-clockwise; raise your right arm and the mirror image raises its left; put your left hand to the mirror and it meets the right hand of the image, and so on.
That's what America, both the idea and the nation, has become … a Bizarro-type society, where up is down and bad is good, where what was intended has been replaced by something else, often its opposite. Here, following Lawrence's model, are some other simple contrasts that support that claim —
Free markets worked for 200 years, creating the most materially prosperous nation in history, but commerce and business is now strangled by government micro-management and regulation. Now the economy is in shambles … might there be a connection?
In public schools our children learn how to put on condoms, that sodomy is normal and that America is evil, but they can't do basic math, write a decent paragraph or tell you what made America different from the rest of the world. Perhaps that's why there is no Constitutional role for the federal government in education … its funding, organization and standards were supposed to come from the local and state levels.
Racial discrimination has been outlawed in all areas, but today black skin is more valuable than money in admission to college, government (and, increasingly, all other) jobs and many other areas. The Supreme Court outlawed 'separate but equal' decades ago, but today blacks choose and even demand separate groups, dorms, facilities and even treatment.
The feel-their-pain crowd moans and wails against the 'barbaric' execution of 'innocent' criminals, yet with equal passion defends the murder of 40 million truly innocent babies.
We ejected G-d from schools, and now wonder why drug addiction, sexually transmitted disease and illegitimate births are rampant, and why our children are killing each another. But without a Biblical moral foundation, 'character education' can't possibly work, for kids quickly discern that all other standards are simply arbitrary. If G-d isn't good enough for the classroom and city hall, why should they pay attention to His principles at any other time?
Samuel Adams wrote that our natural rights to life, liberty and property were bolstered by 'the right to defend them in the best manner they can.' Thomas Jefferson said that the strongest reason for the people's right to keep and bear arms was 'to protect themselves against tyranny in government.' And Patrick Henry said that nothing would preserve public liberty except force, and that 'when you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed.' Yet leaders today dispute those tenets, and tout gun control as necessary for our safety?
The First Amendment guarantees our G-d-given right to free speech, yet Congress' Campaign Finance Reform bans that speech prior to elections, when it makes the most difference to our ' … life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.'
The First Amendment also guarantees freedom of religion, but political correctness — i.e., the value-neutral speech of the amoral, no standard-is-the-best-standard crowd - and supposed 'tolerance' has removed G-d from schools, courthouses and the public arena. Everything is tolerated except the Christianity upon whose principles this nation was founded.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees 'the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures … ', but our government instead suspends our Constitutional rights and calls it 'protecting homeland security.' Unwilling to enact any action against immigrants, foreigners or other potential terrorists, or to even stop their flow into the U.S., the federal government has made American citizens the substitute target for invasion of home, bank accounts, financial, computer and email records, etc.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments clearly specify that all rights not clearly given the federal government are retained by the people and the states, yet state politicians have willingly given those rights up - and we let them — in return for federal dollars. Imagine a prostitute loaning money to a John for him to give back to her so he can … well, you know. Yes, she's getting money for being 'used,' but it's her money! Ultimately, all she's getting is screwed … and she's paying for it.
The Sixth Amendment provides for 'the right to a speedy and public trial,' but plea bargaining, which always provides for more lenient sentences than the crime deserves, is done in private between lawyers. Speedy? The average time between death sentence imposition and execution is over eleven years!
It has happened slowly and piecemeal, but our Bill of Rights now lies in shambles.
The Founding Fathers, men of strong moral character, were committed to clearly defined principles, yet politicians today will endure any humiliation, kiss any butt, brown-nose, kowtow, flip-flop on issues, lie, cheat and anything else to get or maintain political office. What else could come from such people but corruption, waste and the dismantling of our Constitution? When asked, after the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government America was to have, Benjamin Franklin said, 'A republic … if you can keep it.' We have not kept it.
James Madison, the author of the Constitution, said: 'I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.' Edmund Burke, British defender of constitutional principles, wrote: 'The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.'
The mirror in which we see ourselves today is such a delusion, for it lulls us into a deadly complacency. We've abandoned our moral and political foundations and allowed elitist fantasy to strip us of rights and freedoms purchased by the blood and sacrifice of others. The results are a twisted, distorted America, not the one we hold in our hearts.
The American Dream has been corrupted into what the Founders feared most, a government-controlled society. And it has happened mostly on our watch, in the past three decades. For the Founding generation who, for the cause of liberty, suffered and lost so much, and for our children and their children, so they won't have to, and finally, for ourselves … we must re-establish our democratic republic and restore our Founding principles. Whatever that requires is but our rightful payment for the dream we've lived.
"The American Dream has been corrupted into what the Founders feared most, a government-controlled society. And it has happened mostly on our watch, in the past three decades. For the Founding generation who, for the cause of liberty, suffered and lost so much, and for our children and their children, so they won't have to, and finally, for ourselves … we must re-establish our democratic republic and restore our Founding principles. Whatever that requires is but our rightful payment for the dream we've lived."
I couldn't help but notice that not much ink was spent on how we were to do this. I think perhaps, as I, Mr. Scates is not holding his breath in anticipation of this ever happening.
It has happened on "our" watch. If the thread grows it will be repleat with the blaming of "them".
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