May 20, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Attorney Generals for both Presidents Barack Obama (Eric Holder) and Donald Trump (William Barr) received congressional contempt citations, the enforcement of either required action from DoJ personnel—their boss. So, with Holder nothing happened and with Barr nothing will happen. But there are big differences.
Many recall the refusal of Eric Holder to surrender 74,000 documents in his possession to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, that would bring to light the alleged gunrunning scandal now known as “Operation Fast and Furious.” The House was left powerless when Holder obtained from Obama executive privilege freezing the documents from congressional or public view—thus the cover up charge.
Executive privilege, or anything like it, especially withholding potentially criminal activity, is not constitutional. When Richard Nixon argued similarly in Watergate the media rightfully was all over him but they were amazingly quiet on the gunrunning story as potentially it could bring down a president long supported by them. Ironically Holder used the Nixon argument in his request that Obama assert executive privilege (Attorney General Eric Holder Letter to Obama, June 20, 2012).
From the 6,000 documents released of the 80,000 requested by the House, this is what is known or believed to be true. The Obama administration’s contempt for the Second Amendment was well documented. Previous attempts to get Americans to give up their right to possess firearms had failed. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rational that would turn most reasonable people against these rights and gun sales at gun shows.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, and then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels came from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rational and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story is full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry.
The transfer of illegal weapons to Mexican drug cartels was done without consulting U.S. law enforcement officers outside ATF or the Mexican authorities. The government would have succeeded with the scheme were not some of the illegal firearms found at the scene of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, one of which actually the instrument of his death.
Among the 6,000 released Holder documents was found an email wherein Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, charged with executing the “Operation Fast and Furious,” boasted to a colleague of the operation’s propaganda value, presumably to vilify gun shows. It read: “Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby” (“Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?” Americas 1st Freedom, April 2012). They knew precisely what they could do with the propaganda value of their sales—destroy the gun shows.
Wayne La Pierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, best expressed the seriousness of this illegal operation, apart from defrauding Americans of their constitutional gun rights, when he wrote. “In that ‘gun-walking’ operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled, and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.” Regular citizens, doing the same thing would serve time.
What was disclosed reportedly suggested that U.S. gun shows were not the source of cartel firepower, as this administration had repeatedly contended, they, through their ATF agents were, and Holder intentionally lied when he told Congress he heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media, as did other Americans. “One Justice Department official claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify,” elevating suspicion that, so far, we may see only the tip of the iceberg.
The documents sought by the House could have shed light potentially on one of the biggest scandals in American history. including evidence planting—the placement of 1,700 guns in cartel hands. But if true it could also have brought down the Obama presidency.
Holder’s contempt of congress was bi-partisan, Barr’s was not. Barr turned over the entire Mueller document minus some redaction that, he said, would unlawfully disclose sources and methods. He also had the unredacted version housed in another room for members of congress to view. Reportedly no Democrat chose to look at it. His contempt of congress was because he refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee because it had reportedly changed the rules allowing non-members of congress to ask the questions. The Constitution, and past practice, only allowed members of congress to interrogate. He insisted he would have testified, as he had the week before in the Senate Judiciary Committee, had they limited questioners to members of the committee.
With Barr hundreds did not lose their lives, thousands of documents were not withheld from a House committee, and no laws were broken. Very big differences.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 20, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
The Robert Mueller Report has been released in full outside legally required redaction that would compromise sources and methods. It’s over. The Deep State and their media outlets temper tantrum against Attorney General Bill Barr because he feels the need to investigate the beginning of the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax, now documented, will continue for a time but eventually will dissipate as new documents are declassified supporting Barr’s need to review. The infamous insurance policy to hide FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and other accomplices to the alleged coup d’e’tat to unseat a president of the United States, failed leaving them exposed to treason.
By the time newspapers print this column Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will have resigned. One of the things that Barr may wish to review, with respect to the coup, was the intent to use the 25th Amendment in their failed plot. In this, outgoing Rod Rosenstein takes center stage.
This was confessed on 60 Minutes by former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe who identified Rod Rosenstein as an accomplice having discussed with others removing the president using the 25th Amendment. This Rosenstein denies. Look for Rosenstein to be put under oath again before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding this and his offer to wear a “wire” while in meetings with President Trump to entrap him.
They needed Trump to look crazy. This was planned before he was inaugurated. Reportedly Rosenstein told “Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment” (New York Times, “Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment,” Sept. 21, 2018).
But the 25th Amendment was never designed to undo an election. Even a casual look at it should end that issue. Deep Staters and their media outlets hated Trump and feared his exposure of their influence in the election. The amendment requires evidence of his mental or physical incapacity. The population had just voted that he was fit and was their best choice of many contenders.
The amendment created the temporary office of acting president which is filled by the elected vice president serving under the president in one of two ways. First, Section 3, by the president’s voluntarily removal of himself as before surgery which might result in death or second, involuntarily by his cabinet and vice president.
Section 4 is what Trump’s alleged conspirators sought to use. It begins “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore [currently Charles Grassley] of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives [currently Nancy Pelosi] their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Notice the word acting assumes a temporary status, which will automatically be returned to him when he submits to the above named authorities a “written declaration that no inability exists,” that he is fit. He resumes his duties “unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department … transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Should that happen Congress (both houses) is required to assemble within 48 hours to deal with the issue and is given 21 days thereafter to vote on the matter. If Congress “determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”
This amendment is designed to handle a president incapacitated by a stroke, as in President Woodrow Wilson, or a botched assassination attempt leaving a president incapacitated to do his duties, or in a disease like Alzheimer's for instance. This is not to be used to impeach a president as such is clearly outlined in Article II of the Constitution or to overturn the results of an election—more especially one just occurring.
At this point it might be well to review 18 U.S. Code 2385, Chapter 115, p. 2-6 on what constitutes Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities in Advocating an attempted overthrow of Government. This list includes activities respecting: “prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays.” In the coming weeks and months we may wish to review this law.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein looked mighty uncomfortable standing expressionless and statue-like behind William Barr when Barr announced the results of the Mueller Report as no collusion and no obstruction. Since he had much to do with the investigation and is the last standing original senior executive officer in the Department of Justice, he may have much to worry about. At least the Russian collusion focus will no longer be on Trump.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 15, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Harold Pease, Ph. D
As a nation under the U.S. Constitution we are 230 years old. It may surprise readers to learn that for the first 124 of these years we had no federal income tax and handled our expenses quite well. Today the 55% who pay federal income taxes (77.5 million do not), pay nearly a fifth of their income to the federal government. Prior to 1913 one kept what is now taken from them.
How would you spend it if not taken? You would spend the extra fifth of your salary on thousands of items that are made by others as well as services you might like. This not only would enrich your life but it would provide jobs for others making those items or providing those services. Many middle class folks could purchase a new car every other year with what they are forced to give to the federal government.
Would you spend it more wisely than the federal government? Certainly! Most of the money taken from you by the federal government is spent on perpetual war, foreign aid, grants to privileged portions of our society, and endless unconstitutional subsidized programs; the last two categories of which basically take the money of those who produce and redistribute it to those who do not. Even some non-tax payers get income tax refunds—so corrupt is the system.
Of course, those receiving and benefiting from these programs will defend them. But the fact remains that tax monies provide largely government jobs, which are almost entirely consumption jobs (jobs that consume the production of society but produce little consumable). Such jobs cannot produce for public consumption a potato, a carton of milk, or even a can of hair spray. They bring another person to the table to eat, but not another to produce something to eat.
What largely brought about the give-away programs of the Twentieth Century was the now 106-year-old 16th Amendment—the federal income tax. All three 1912 presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and their respective parties, wanted this financial water faucet that they could turn on at will. With it they could purchase anything—even people.
Prior to 1913 the federal government remained mostly faithful to her grants of power in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which left them with only four powers: to tax, pay the debts, provide for the general welfare, and provide for the common defense. Because the federal government has the inclination to maximize their authority the last two power grants, general welfare and common defense, each had eight qualifiers to harness them more fully. Outside these qualifiers the federal government had no power to tax or spend.
General welfare then meant everyone equally (general), as opposed to “specific welfare” or “privileged welfare” as it is today, targeting those to forfeit and those to receive monies. The Constitution did not deny states, counties, or cities from having such programs, only the federal government. But politicians soon learned that the more they promised to the people, from the money of others, the easier it was to get elected and stay elected.
The problem with the federal government going off the list and funding things clearly not on it was that each time they did so the stronger the inclination to do so again. One minor departure begets another until one notices that what the federal government does has little or no relationship to the list. I ask my students what would happen if they took to kindergarten a lollypop and gave it to one child? What would the others say? Where is mine? Try taking away long provided benefits from a privileged group, as for example food stamps, and see how popular you are with that voting group in the next election.
So why does the government now need a fifth of everything you make and it is still not enough? Answer, because we went off the listed powers of the Constitution and every departure required more taxpayer funding. The solution to less tax is less government. A side benefit is more freedom. The productive classes would not be hurt. Seldom do they qualify for the federally subsidized programs anyway.
The fifth taken from the productive classes would be spent by them creating a haven of jobs for those who wished to work. The cycle of dependency would be drastically reduced. The federal government would no longer be an enabler to those not working. States would decide for themselves what assistance programs they could afford with some states offering more and others less as the Tenth Amendment mandates.
So, how did we cover the expenses of the federal government—even wars—our first 124 years? Products coming into the country were assessed a fee to market in the U.S. called a tariff. We got product producers in other countries to cover our national expenses and thus we were able to spend on ourselves every cent of what the federal government now takes, which inadvertently stimulated the economy. No one should be able to argue that our exceeding $22 trillion national debt is fair, has really worked for any of us, and is a better plan. I personally like the idea of being able to purchase a new car every other year.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 26, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Our national debt just exceeded 22 trillion dollars. To pay this debt today each citizen owes $67,033. Since children pay no taxes, nor do about 45% of our adult population, each taxpayer actually owes $179,908. Our largest creditors in order are: Medicare/Medicaid $1,091,280,000,000, Social Security $1,005,651,000,000, Defense/War 676,814,000,000, Income Security (welfare) $293,531,000,000, Net Interest on Debt $350,206,000,000, and Federal Pensions $272,980,000,000 (USDebtClock.org).
Even with the present robust Trump economy (the best in several decades) this cannot continue to escalate. We are on a collision course with Armageddon which, at this late date, may not be avoidable. Any hope depends on three things (1) our ability to make significant cuts in the top six expenditures noted above, (2) our not electing a big spending congress or president in the next decade, (3) our not entering into any new big funding events such as war, infrastructure overhaul, or open borders allowing new groups to “eat out our substance” without having already paid their way.
Of this enslaving debt, four trillion comes from eight years of George W. Bush and ten trillion from eight years of Barack Obama—the two biggest spending presidents in U.S. History. Obama alone accumulated more debt than all previous presidents put together. Donald Trump is responsible for over two trillion dollars in two years.
So what is a trillion dollars? To begin with a trillion is the number one followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. This still means very little to students who count their money in fives, tens and twenties.
One mathematician gave us a more practical way to evaluate our outstanding debt. One trillion, one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). If so, the debt incurred under President Obama alone, $10 trillion, would have reached the moon and back and to the moon again. Moreover, if you like traveling atop this stack of ones, our total $22 trillion in debt would take you to the moon and back three times and to the moon a fourth time and a third of the way home again.
I ask students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” “Go without!!!?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know, and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their share of the debt is $67,034 and up to $179,908, depending on how many of their fellow non taxpayers they can get to pay their fair share (see USDebtClock.org), due immediately, they are angry. Someone should have told them that government handouts are not free.
The 13th Amendment ending slavery has been rescinded, they are America’s new slaves. Bondage was given them before their birth, or while still in the womb, or before they were old enough to know what it meant to be sold into slavery. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children in order to have them.
The latest new theory to avoid fiscal responsibility and continue unlimited spending, used by Bush in late 2009 and Obama thereafter, is referred to as Quantitative Easing. Crudely it means printing more money out of thin air to cover our debt, but it is far more sophisticated than that. For Bush the money supply was greatly expanded by having the Federal Reserve purchase $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities (Harding, Robin. 3 November 2010, Quantitative Easing Explained. Financial Times). Obama purchased $600 billion of Treasury securities over a six month period of time beginning in November 2010 in what has been called Quantitative Easing or QE2 to distinguish it from QE1, the Bush expansion of the money supply (Cesky, Annalyn,3 Nov.2010, “QE2: Fed Pulls the Trigger” CNNmoney.com. Retrieved 10 Aug. 2011).
The biggest problem with expanding the money supply is that it reduces the value of the money that you have in your pocket. Prices go up. My Camaro, purchased in 1968, cost $2,700, purchased today at least ten times as much. In this instance money has lost 90% of its value since 1968. Those on fixed incomes are robbed as surely as if a thief had lifted their wallet or purse. They cannot return to their employer for a raise to compensate for the loss caused by their own government.
Still, with all the sophisticated “doublespeak,” as for example quantitative easement, it means that we will print whatever money we need to purchase whatever we wish. Neither party is serious about stopping the debt and removing the bondage that we are imposing upon our children and grandchildren.
Democrats propose “free” college and a salary for everyone, whether they work or not, under their proposed Green New Deal. Donald Trump’s proposed trillion-dollar infrastructure program, also does not suggest a change. Who cares if our debt of dollar bills stacked upon one another can go to the moon and back almost four times so long as the government fills our stomachs and, in the case of Obama, purchases our cell phones
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 18, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
(Presidents’ Day, Article)
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Perhaps America’s most beloved and respected president was Abraham Lincoln, who now shares a national holiday—Presidents Day—with George Washington. Today most Democrats would oppose him, as they once did in 1860. He opposed slavery and socialism. He saw nothing in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, worthy of emulation.
On the ownership of property Abraham Lincoln’s feelings were especially strong, he said, “Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprises” (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, pp. 259-260). Lincoln might have added “which produces jobs for those not rich.”
To him there was no need to take by force the wealth of those who produce and give it to those less productive, as has always been the prescription of socialism. The “share the wealth” philosophy of socialism brought on by “envy politics,” so articulated by the Democratic Party today, was a foreign ideology to the Civil War president, who had read and rejected Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
The answer to ending poverty is not class envy, first identified by Aristotle some 2,500 years ago as being the natural inclination of those with less, a philosophy implemented by Lenin in Russia when the communists identified those holding property as enemies of the state and liquidated some four to eight million farmers, the “Kulaks” (“The Russian Kulaks,” InDepthInfo.com). Then, they wondered why the country had such a horrific famine in 1921-1922 when millions starved.
No money was set aside for, or provided to, any class or special interest group in our Constitution. The power distributed benefited all equally and at the same time. The federal role was as referee only. Our Constitution does not redistribute wealth; it leaves the individual to do that for himself by his work ethic. It remains the fairest way.
Will income inequality be the outcome? Yes! Free men are not equal and equal men are not free. But all will have more under capitalism than had we instead forced income equality by taking from those who produce and giving it to those who do not. We remain anxious to share our wealth producing philosophy with our less prosperous neighbors and the world so that all can have more, but individuals stealing it from us, or using the government to do it for them, known as legalized plunder, is just wrong and disincentivizes those who produce.
Lincoln’s answer to the poor, from which he sprang himself, “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence….” Unfortunately, many in our society have forgotten the “labor diligently” part of his phrase and have come to expect the government to provide, from the industry of others, their every need. On that score Lincoln said sarcastically. “You toil and work and earn bread, and I will eat it.” He viewed this principle as a form of tyranny/slavery on those who work. Today approximately 47% of the adult population pay no federal income tax; many actually receive benefits for which they have paid nothing.
Watching others acquire wealth was, in fact, a sign of a healthy economy for Lincoln. “I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.” Nor would he have supported the hundreds of laws that we have today that disincentivizes a man trying to acquire wealth.
His view sounds similar to those expressed by President Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address. “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination and control. We are BORN FREE, and we will STAY FREE. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will NEVER be a socialist country.”
The new calls for socialism in our country referenced above were recently dropped by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's long-awaited Green New Deal endorsed by recently announced Democratic presidential candidates, Senators: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand seemingly each attempting to “out socialize” opponents.
Paying the estimated $7 trillion price tag required would result in a 90% tax take which, ironically, is the definition of slavery—the very thing Lincoln is credited as having ended. It would end air travel and radically effect every other aspect of life. It would also redistribute vast new sums of less valued printed paper money making all equally poor.
Socialists may hate the “Walmarts” or the “McDonalds” all they want, but these provide the poor tens of thousands of jobs. Do not bite the hand that feeds you, then wonder where the jobs and prosperity went, as did the early Russian socialists. The “share the wealth” philosophy, which Lincoln opposed, and endorsed now by the Democratic Party, has never brought long term general prosperity for any people, any place, or any time.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 4, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
By now Beto O’Rourke’s unflattering comment referencing the Constitution, “Does this still work?,” is old news. He was suggesting that government is now too complicated for it to deal with 21st Century problems. What isn’t old news is that there was no backlash from the Democratic presses or Party regarding this ill-informed comment, nor pressure on O’Rourke to end his intended run for president because of it. Such would have ended the run of any contender twenty years ago. Do Democrats now oppose the Constitution?
Neither major political party has followed the Constitution, as first consideration, in more than 50 years. Of the two, Democrats rarely cite the document and seem almost contemptuous of it. In fact, most of what they propose is easily argued to be outside the Constitution. They once defended parts of the Bill of Rights but I no longer see much of this. Republicans sometimes carry the document on their person but do not hold to it and thus much of what they propose is also outside the Constitution.
Constitutional ignorance is so prevalent. Have we reached a day when a major political party is openly against it ? President Barack Obama came close when he told the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2014, referencing the U.S. Constitution. “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century.”
The obvious dig shows a definite lack of respect for the Constitution that he swore by oath to “preserve, protect and defend” (Article 11, Section 1), but Democrats did not wish to rebuke or confine their president. Still, Obama’s phrase was a mockery of the Constitution and should have been unacceptable to every American, whether said by a Republican or a Democrat. Ironically the Constitution is designed to harness presidents just like him, just like his predecessor George W. Bush, and his successor Donald Trump, but it will never work if the party in power runs interference for their own constitutional abuser as also has happened for over 50 years.
It also shows a lack of understanding of the Constitution (whether ignorantly or intentionally), which is based upon time-tested human nature and natural law which do not change from century to century. Man and governments are still beset by the same sins as expressed in all ages. There will always be those who wish to rule over others. Government will always attempt to grow its power at the expense of the people. There will always need to be a list of the things governments can do and they will always need to be harnessed to that list. There will always need to be division of power and checks on each branch of government and presidents will always, as James Madison said, “have a propensity for war” and wish to use military power without consent. And there will always be those who wish to use the force of government to redistribute the wealth so that they can, in effect, purchase elections by “gifting” voters.
The magic of the Constitution is that it, as designed, does not distribute benefits or preferences to anyone. These are the reasons that it is said to be outdated by those who wish to take from us our liberties. Lawmakers having problems with the Constitution are those that do not wish to be restricted in their governance of us and thus they belittle it and seek to convince us to give them more power in another one. Thus the ignorant comments regarding it by O’Rourke.
One of my favorite college courses to instruct was Contemporary Political Topics. Students were given a copy of the Constitution and required to problem solve with it and natural law rather than political party or philosophical persuasion. This base is justified because every politician has sworn to “protect, preserve and defend” this document. It is the instrument by which everything should be judged. The students loved it. Amazingly, from food stamps to climate change, we never found an issue that the Constitution did not address. Century, language or culture were irrelevant because human nature remains the same.
The “rule book written in a different century” is still as reliable as before. What we need today are presidents legislators and judges that know its limitations, love and interpret it as written. In this quest we are embarrassingly in short supply. Why?
Constitutional principles were once taught at every level of education and stories of the sacrifice of our Founders frequently recited with admiration. Today few schools teach these principles in grade school and fewer still in high school. In college the Constitution is tucked in the back of textbooks as an appendix in U.S. History and Political Science courses, hence very few actually read it. The history of the Constitution’s origin is housed in a chapter but constitutional principles seemingly have only informational value.
Constitutional illiteracy is almost universal to the point that those qualified to defend the Constitution as designed are becoming extinct. Students are not likely to defend it if they have never experienced it being defended. A real danger exists that if too few know or value its principles we will lose it—perhaps we already have. Some, like O’Rourke, say it is no longer relevant for our times. They couldn’t be more ill-informed.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org..
