As the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was wrapping up,
Benjamin Franklin was asked this question: “Well Doctor what have we got, a
republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic ... if you can
keep it.”
That has been one of America’s greatest challenges ever
since, and there certainly are numerous discernible threats to our republic
today.
Certain of our institutions play a critical role in
sustaining the republic and promoting and protecting the unique character of
the United States of America, and they therefore have a tremendous obligation to
operate ethically and honorably. To the extent that they abandon their
obligation, the country’s fundamental character is threatened.
Those institutions are: the justice system, the education
system, and the information media.
Imagine you have a business renting apartments. One of your
tenants, who has rented a place for $1,500 a month for three years sends you a
check for only $900 for the current month.
You contact the tenant and are told that he views the lease
that both you and he signed as a “living document,” the meaning of which may be
altered as circumstances change. Having lost the job that paid $73,000 a year,
his new job pays only $45,000, and he says he can now only afford $900 rent a
month.
That is precisely the rationale that activist judges apply
when they abandon the clear language of the U.S. Constitution and the laws of
the land to make rulings they say are in line with current circumstances and
the “mood” of the country, and because the Founders and those who enacted older
laws were unable at that time to imagine current circumstances, that old stuff
must be modernized.
However, the laws or Constitutional principles that activist
judges disagree with must be amended or repealed through existing formal processes,
not ignored or altered because they are viewed as inconvenient. If momentary interpretations
are all that matter, and the Constitution is merely a “living document,” we
don’t have a Constitution and we are not a nation of laws.
A nation needs its history and culture – all of it: the
good, the bad, and the ugly – to be passed down from generation to generation
so that its people will know who they are and where the came from, and can properly
determine where they want to go and why.
While families should pass much of this along to children,
we largely entrust this duty to formal education. To guide the learning process
and assist students in learning an array of important and useful subjects and
life lessons, we employ teachers, professors, instructors, and such, who coach and
assist students.
Most of us had at least some teachers, professors, coaches
who inspired us and helped us learn difficult subject matter, develop our
skills, and learn how to think critically and logically. Hopefully, we did not
have any that strayed from their professional duties and tried to tell us what
to think about things, rather than developing the ability to think for
ourselves.
Today, among the great number of effective educators there are
too many who stray from the straight and narrow, especially in colleges and
universities, where education too often takes a back seat to political and
ideological indoctrination and politically correct policies. Imposing beliefs
on students is worse than merely disrespecting the student; it is an outright
abandonment of integrity and principle.
Along with an accurate base of knowledge about the country’s
founding and history presented to them in schools, the people need to be well
informed about current events. Information journalism contains two parts, and
they must be kept separate. One is news about events, which must be accurate,
honest and objective. The other is opinion, and must be clearly defined and
omitted from straight news.
But far too often, opinion and political considerations
sneak into news reporting, and also into the selection of what news gets
reported and how it is reported, as well as what news does not get coverage.
This is like playing golf blindfolded. You might find your driver, your ball
and a tee, and you might tee up and actually hit the ball, but after that, you
are literally in the dark, depending on the honesty of those around you to accurately
describe the situation for you.
The American Left – liberals, progressives, socialists, etc.
– has a vision of America that is in many ways sharply at odds with the
founding principles. Both beneficial and harmful ideas that the Left pursues are
at odds with the ideal of limited government, because using government to force
things on the people is the Left’s tool of choice.
Fortunately, there are obstacles to using government to
“fundamentally transform the United States of America,” as a former leftist
president pledged. These obstacles are difficult to remove, as they should be.
So the Left resorts not infrequently to re-interpreting the Constitution and the
laws; managing and manipulating the information coming through much of the mass
media; and sometimes indoctrinating children.
We all need to remember that worthy and broadly beneficial
ideas will sell themselves; they don’t need people to take short cuts or cheat
to get them accepted.
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