Reflections From a Murky Pond

There’s jabbering from the Left, especially from those intelligentsia who’ve learned so many of the wrong things in the course of their (mis)education and indoctrination, that America should abandon the Constitution.

What Americans have to realize is that this is nothing new. Liberals and Progressives have felt constrain by- and loathed the nigh on holy writ of America’s highest legal document since almost before the ink on it was dry.

President Calvin Coolidge even had to deal with it in the early part of the 20th century. Others had to deal with before him.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary.

— President Calvin Coolidge
“The Inspiration of the Declaration,” July 5, 1926

Liberals and Progressives don’t, have never, and will never gracefully accept that the words and core principles of the US Constitution are carved in stone, metaphorically much as the Ten Commandment delivered to Moses by Yahweh were so. They would have to give up all hope for their agenda, which is predicated upon an authoritarian government that the Constitution expressly forbids, were they to do so.

Also, despite or because of the nature of their educations, they forget or never understood that, if one relegated America’s Constitution to history, that is final and it is total. Both those portions that they loath and those they tolerate, possibly prefer, and definitely rely upon will be lost.

They seem to forget that there are others, quite different from the Liberals and Progressives, who also believe that the Constitution needs to be remanded or rewritten, though not in ways that the Left would, with a few exceptions, like.

Tags: America | Coolidge | Declaration of Independence | History | Leftists | Liberals | Politics | Progress | Progressives | Regress

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2013 at 10:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.