Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The U.S. Constitution—An Inconvenient Document



By Kellene Bishop

Our U.S. Constitution. When I hear those words I swell up with pride and a sense of reverenced awe to realize that men from such diverse backgrounds and beliefs could have come up with such an inspired document. Yes, it is not perfect in light of the many unprecedented ails that our country experiences today, but I firmly believe that it is a heavenly inspired document. Just as the parting of the Red Sea, so did God cut through the clutter of biases, prejudices, and paradigms of those rather ordinary men to come together and create a guiding document that attempted to express and ensure universal fairness and a nation of true freedom. Sadly, today that document is condemned by the very persons who take an oath to uphold it as irrelevant, archaic, and outdated.

Many believe that to recognize our nation as unique is narcissistic and prideful. It simply is not. The fact that our nation was founded on the principles of true freedom—to act according to our own conscience so long as such actions did not tread on the freedoms of others—was based on the recognition of the true value of human life. As such this nation was indeed the first and still is the most unique nation in the world. No other nation has ever attempted to convey such freedoms to its citizens. No other nation has ever believed enough in its citizens to acknowledge that such freedoms even belonged to its citizens. The United States of America attempted to do that which had never been done before; to believe that a people would choose good over bad if permitted to make decisions for themselves, and as such to prosper in the pursuit of life, liberty, the pursuit of property, and happiness. This belief was so fundamental to the birth of our nation that the millions of those who toiled and plowed for such a standard gave their lives in the selfless sacrifice of time, money, and even blood to seal their belief of such a notion.

Have the history books ever mentioned any other document which has inspired such consistent goodness, sacrifice, and virtue before which influenced so many? When it was first created, was there evidence of any evil intent to have tyrannical power of the people of this nation? Even if the Constitution had conveyed a desire for power over the people at the time, it could not be enforced upon a people who were passionately ready for the responsibilities of freedom. They could fathom nothing less at that time and they would accept nothing less.

Today however, many attempt to dismiss the merits of the Constitution, not because its doctrines are faulty, but because such doctrines are seriously inconvenient to the duplicitous and tyrannical desires of those who are expected to uphold it.

For example, it wasn’t convenient for President G. W. Bush to wait until “probable cause” was evident prior to him taking down a suspected terrorist. So he simply created various acts to eliminate such needs so long as the government agents were willing to “claim” that their investigations “may” benefit the results of a terrorist investigation.

The government was greatly inconvenienced by not being able to spend as much as they wanted to. And according to the Constitution’s requirement of taxation WITH proper representation they were handcuffed. So, “inconvenience be damned”, they claimed to have ratified an amendment that enabled them to tax the citizens of this nation egregiously. (They never did ratify such an amendment, but they sure do like to pretend they did in hopes that we won’t pick up on it.)

Certain political parties are shackled with the merits of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, so they seek to create another bill, ironically called the “Fairness Doctrine” in an effort to eliminate those who would dare express any opposing views of the government with any semblance of influence.

And so it continues…

Unfortunately, the people as a whole are starting to get wise. Their freedoms are starting to be seriously inconvenienced by a government that was supposed to working FOR them for no other purpose than to uphold and protect the U.S. Constitution. Essentially, this inconvenient document is the ONLY thing that ensures our government officials even have a job! So the only way they can get around this is to attempt, with the help of the complacent media, to appropriately color that which is good, bad, and that which is truly bad, good. They are attempting to usurp the foundations of this country by completely ignoring the laws of the Constitution. Our government officials are also looking to other nations in hopes to uphold their decisions based on the improper popular decisions of foreign nations who never entertained our value system. (That’s like a doctor wanting to get surgical advice from a mortician.) “Well, the French courts ruled this way, so let’s try that,” or, “The U.N. seems to think like this, so let’s do that.”

Sadly, the U.S. Constitution has clearly become inconvenient to those who value freedom as well. We work all day, everyday to pay our taxes so that those we’ve elected to office take care of ensuring such freedoms, only to find that these stewards of the people have been asleep on the job. And they’ve slept through some of the most critical legislation in the history of our nation, to the point that they couldn’t even be bothered to read most of this legislation. So now, not only do we have to work to pay our government to do their jobs and provide for our own families, we have to take what precious time we have left to make our voices heard, let them know that we are indeed monitoring them, and in some instances, even doing their job for them. (see CNN article here) Talk about an inconvenience, right?

This nation was indeed founded on that which is good. It IS indeed unique—unique in that we were formed for the purpose of giving true freedom to the people, and empower the people to hire government officials to work for them to aid in ensuring such freedoms are upheld. I agree, it isn’t convenient to have to make decisions for ourselves and not have everything dictated to us. And it’s not convenient to have to take time to get educated about issues and candidates. But it’s our freedom to do so just as much as it’s our freedom to fail in doing so. While the constitution may be an inconvenient document for both good and evil causes, only a proactive inconvenience will ensure that it stands for that which we truly want. Freedom.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved.
You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

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