restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
How Can Bush Write a New Iraqi Constitution When He Doesnt Follow Our Own?
As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why dont we just give them ours? Think about itit was written by very smart people, its served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, were not using it anymore. Tonight Show host Jay Leno
It has been said that Americas most original contribution to political theory has been the fact that it has no theory. In one sense this is true. American political thought is an aggregation of slogans, phrases, shibboleths, and traditions that has never been reduced to a single doctrine, unless one wishes to follow the example of Procrustes.
Yet our Founders, whose leading ideas were incorporated into the charter that was to be cornerstone of American political institutions, were not ignorant of political theory. Together they rejected the mystically-based state and the notion that government was divinely ordained. Because they felt that human nature could not be trusted where political power was concerned, they produced a Constitution with a system of strict checks and balances. The federal Constitution was based on the assumption that men were not angels. Government was therefore to be laic, libertarian, and limited. These ideas are seen not only in the Constitution but also in our most notable quasi-official documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Washingtons Farewell Address.
Today, however, an entire generation of Americans has grown up without a clear picture of our republican history. Our schools fail to teach children the Declaration of Independence and the principles of the Constitution. Few Americans understand the foundation for our freedoms. Even less do they understand where our freedoms are threatened today. The principles that guided our Founding Fathers are almost totally ignored. Freedom as a pervasive ideal and goal as incorporated in the great documents of American life has been replaced by government mendaciousness and coercion. The traditional emphasis upon freedom from government intervention has been replaced by the extreme of the warfare/welfare state. The American ideal, once rooted in the concept of personal freedom and limited governmentthat is, government shorn of its powerhas become a shabby and despised creature. The philosophy of the less government we have the better no longer permeates the American mind and attitude.
The masters of Iraq and their spokesmen defend their occupation on two main grounds: on the basis of Americas self-interest in the Middle East and on the threat to American national security posed by Islamist terrorist groups. In pursuing these goals there is no problem if we send our sons to die for an undeclared and unconstitutional war, or if we waste billions of taxpayers dollars on rebuilding a nation that has the second largest oil reserve in the world, or if Saddam didnt plan the attacks on America, or if the president misled the public when he said we were in imminent danger from WMD (which, after six months of searching, are still missing). Surely the irony is not lost on the American public. Bush wants to write a constitution for Iraq while freely breaking our own.
Though fully alive to the vigorous and widespread protest movementson the part of the middle class, intellectuals, deployed soldiers parents, etc.Bush fails to sense that the time is ripe for some sort of action against the unprecedented steps taken by his administration. Freedom in our country has turned out in practice to mean perfect freedom for the powerful to wrong the weak. In no other country in the worldnot even in Blairs Britainis there such contempt for the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
For better or for worse, the president serves as a teacher to the nation, both by precept and example. If nothing else, Bush has helped crystallize world opinion concerning the use of American power and the meaning of the balance of power in international relations. What his next step will be, no one can know. But one thing is certain: The consequences of the current Bush policy for the future of America will be incalculable.
September 30, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is currently finishing his latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.