I don't want to wade too much into contemporary politics with this article. I'm sure everyone here (like everyone in the country) has strong opinions about Donald Trump. Feel free to vent your opinions in the comments, but I would ask that we keep our main focus on the following question...
Regardless of how much Donald Trump may or may not respect the Constitution of the United States...
Do we?
Do we respect the American Constitution?
First, have you read it? If so, how many times? Could you pass a high school social studies test on the Constitution?
Have you read about or studied the context in which the Constitution was written and ratified? Have you read The Federalist Papers (at least some of them)?
Before you say, "Yeah, I studied all that in school" and leave it at that, consider how long ago that was. Have you brushed up on early American history since? Would you want your doctor to never look at a medical textbook again after medical school?
One last thing...
Some of the people ranting today about Donald Trump undermining or not respecting the Constitution have been the very same voices that have denigrated the American Founding Fathers. You can't have it both ways. You can't, in one conversation, hold up the Constitution as a good thing, but in the very next conversation, condemn the United States as being rotten to the very core of its founding!
For years... YEARS! ... I have blogged about the nobility and honor of America's Founders, especially George Washington. Often, my praises of the Founding Fathers have been met with attacks on the Founders for all their sins and imperfections. Yes...newsflash...the Founders were human. They didn't get everything right. It amazes me how this is supposed to be seen as (pardon the pun) revolutionary.
It's fine to point out the areas in which the American Founders fell short. That's called learning from history. But it's quite another to argue that the American Founding was hopelessly corrupt and therefore the United States of America is irredeemably evil. If that's your view, then please don't criticize Donald Trump for undermining the Constitution.
It's understandable, even commendable, that our hearts be broken over the sins of our past. But it's nauseatingly hypocritical to expect any American today, including our President, to respect what you don't. And, let's be clear, if you don't respect the American Founders, then don't tell me you respect their handiwork: the United States of America and its Constitution.
However you vote and whatever your feelings are regarding Trump 2.0...
I hope that this period of American history will serve as an opportunity for all Americans to reflect on the importance of our Constitution and the value of what our Founding Fathers gave us.
2 comments:
Everything I know about the Founding era I learned or RE-learned writing for this blog, beginning in about 2008. Brian, did you get the email about this blog being named one of the Top 70 American history blogs on the internet?
If not send me your email. I'm at esqtvd at aol
The constitution is a law and properly respected. Among the things modal opinion within the legal academy and the appellate judiciary would have it is as follows:
==
A. That the distinction between 'inter-state' and 'intra-state' commerce is factitious.
==
B. That a few phrases in the 14th Amendment are a roving mandate for courts to annul any piece of legislation they care to.
==
C. That if an appellate judge cannot identify a constitutional provision which disallows something, he can just wing it.
==
Brass tacks the implications have been that states cannot use their general police power to proscribe the practice of abortion (an assertion now withdrawn), that federal judges have plenary discretion to seize control of local school districts, that civil service examinations for which the pass rate differs from one demographic segment to another are invalid, that state referenda debarring racial discrimination in higher education are invalid, that state referenda which transfer authority from a subsidiary jurisdiction to a superordinate one are invalid if they inconvenience Anthony Kennedy's favorite grievance floggers, that conventional matrimonial law is invalid and that communities must recognize the affiliations appellate judges tell them to, that state governments cannot defend their borders contra infiltrators from abroad, that executive orders issued by one administration cannot be withdrawn by another administration if the signature on the order is "Donald J. Trump", that the Census Bureau cannot pose questions John Roberts does not want asked, that one administration can let 12 million aliens over the border and the next one cannot expel them, that people accused of minor offenses can be kept in preventive detention for two years.
==
Did I mention the cast of characters who put Derek Chauvin in prison? How about Juan Merchan? Letitia James?
==
Someone may respect the constitution, but not the characters bound to respect it, tasked with enforcing it, and tasked with elucidating it.
==
Post a Comment