On this day, the 225th anniversary of the Constitution, this might be a good time to pass along this commentary by an old and good friend of mine, Bob Densic. He’s the founder of a group called Back to Basics.
In our past seminars on “The Enumerated Powers”, I have asked the audience what is the main cause of our nation’s problems. Often I hear concerns of a federal government spending problem that gives drunken sailors a bad name. Occasionally someone will offer up a concern of federal revenue (not that often Thank God!). While these answers focus on the frightening economic conditions we find ourselves in, they often miss a larger issue: that of God-given freedom and liberty, or state control.
The Forefathers who came to this continent did so with a clearly established goal. “in the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten… by the grace of God… defender of Faith; having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith… a voyage to plant the first colony…do by these present, and in the presence of God, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic..” Apparently the Forefathers had not attended public education where they would be taught of “separation of church and state”.
Our nation’s Founding Fathers carried this vision forward throughout or Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
(snip)
Like so much of our nation’s history, we have forgotten from where we have come. We have ignored the lessons of the past and we have stood by as the principles that were fought and paid for with blood have been twisted or ignored. The Forefathers that came to this continent did so to maximize the freedoms they recognized as coming from God. Our Founding father fought a war with the most advanced, the most feared army and navy the world had ever seen. They won and secured that freedom not only for themselves, but for future generations.
It is our duty, it is our solemn obligation to carry on these principles. The book of Revelations warns us “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” (Rev 2:5). As Joshua was taking the nation of Israel to the Promised Land, representative from the twelve tribes carried stones from the riverbed of the Jordan River to create a memorial – so that future generations would learn and return to the ways of God-given freedom.
On Monday, September 17, 2012, we will celebrate the 225th anniversary of our Constitution. If we are to restore our nation, we must take up the burden of remembering the past, relearning the principles and returning to them. Please join me in these 10 simple steps and together, we will become the tireless, irate minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men!
The “10 simple steps” Bob cited come in an article on the anniversary written Friday by Julia Shaw of the Heritage Foundation, which I’ve found useful to link as well.
But it’s interesting to note a juxtaposition in the space of less than a week, and a change seemingly to suit those who don’t believe America is the “shining city on a hill” but rather just a space on the map, a nation no more exceptional than, say, Estonia, Peru, or Namibia.
We just went through a 9/11 which reminded us once again there is a group out there actively striving for “death to America!” Yet the prevailing mood conveyed by the current administration is one of devoting the day to service.
On the other hand, few take the time to celebrate or even think about the blessings of liberty bestowed upon us by our Creator and enshrined in perhaps the finest document to come from the hands and minds of men. Just think: these learned men could have been the tyrants, dukes, and lords of this fledgling nation, protected by an ocean from the mighty Crown that they just beat back. They couldn’t be blamed if they were feeling their oats, boastfully giving themselves a place in the hierarchy they’d earned through hard-won independence.
Instead, they yielded all that prospective power to a mostly uneducated motley group of people, many of whom were barely scratching out their existence in this new nation as common farmers and laborers. It would have been so tempting for these leaders to take the paternal attitude that they needed to take this nation by the hand and lead it where they believed it needed to go, but they resisted and trusted the people to have common sense. All they needed to do was live by the precepts spelled out in this wonderful document and they, too, could secure and maintain their God-given rights ceded to them by those who wrote the Constitution and could have been in a position to take full advantage.
But while we celebrate our independence with everything from fireworks to parades to crass commercialism, the annual passing of Constitution Day goes almost unnoticed. Perhaps that’s fitting since, as a regulator of the federal government, all the Constitution did was replace the weak and ineffective Articles of Confederation which had formed the skeletal governmental structure for the decade which had passed since independence was declared.
Yet the question has to be asked: why is it so unnoticed? What would be so wrong about a reminder, or even a government holiday? Sure, they would make it one of those generic Monday holidays just to give themselves a late-summer three-day weekend but it would still be a topic of conversation. (And yes, I can see the crass commercialism out there: three guys dressed up as our Founding Fathers debating whether the right to save 50% off a TV should be in the Bill of Rights. That right didn’t make it into the Constitution, but we’ll give you the freedom to save big at XYZ Warehouse this Constitution Day weekend!)
Perhaps there is a group out there, though, who would like the Constitution and its “negative liberties” to be forgotten by the public, the better to do their dirty work.
Unfortunately, most of us will be working today and not have the opportunity to give the Constitution the commemoration it deserves on this 225th anniversary of its unveiling. But the better way to celebrate would be a true day of service: making an active effort to bring about the return of those liberties granted to “We the People” and not a overbearing, Crown-like tyrannical government.