Happy Birthday America!
Most people associate July 4th with our nation’s “birth” (the day was declared a national holiday after all), overlooking the fact (or perhaps they’ve never been taught) that it was two days earlier, on July 2nd, when the Continental Congress actually voted to pass Virginia’s resolution calling for independence. Writing the next day to Abigail, John Adams gushed:
“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
The day after Adams wrote those words, the draft of the Declaration was “wordsmithed” and finally approved, leading to our national holiday being recognized on that day instead. The story of the passing of Lee’s resolution is full of drama and intrigue. Enjoy the read.[1]
While it is fitting and proper to wish the nation a “happy birthday,” it is also fitting and proper to note the precarious situation the country finds itself in. Immense challenges: economic, cultural and constitutional, threaten our future prosperity and freedoms.
Take time to celebrate – and then get back to work reversing the wounding of our great nation that has taken place over the last eight years.
Article 3 – The Judiciary
Showing us in vivid detail the value of term limits for federal judges, Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit declared study of the original Constitution to be a complete waste of time,[2] at least for judges: “I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation,” waxed the jurist, who was appointed to the bench in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan (who probably regrets the appointment). I agree in part with the judge, however. The Supreme Court has indeed turned the Constitution into a system of common law, judge-made law, departing from the idea of a fixed standard of law, to be modified only by “amendment in the way which the Constitution designates.”[3]
The judge’s amazing statement joins a host of equally controversial ones in the past that make it unlikely (in the eyes of some at least) that the judge would ever be nominated to the Supreme Court. Condemning Justice Antonin Scalia for making politically charged public statements[4] while doing the same hardly enlarges one’s credibility. So, since Congress seems unwilling to propose a term limits amendment, even one focused exclusively on jurists, and since the Article V Convention project is still being rabidly fought by some on the Right, it appears unlikely that we will ever have access to a mechanism for removing jurists whose opinions make them unsuitable for continued service. Oh well.
1st Amendment – Right of Conscience
As I’ve hinted numerous times in these pages, if you want a chance to express your right of conscience, you best do it soon – the right may not be around much longer.
If you care to let your conscience peek out on the campus of the University of Northern Colorado, at least in some non-politically correct way, you might find yourself the subject of an inquisition by the “Bias Response Team.”[5] At the moment, the teams seems content to merely point out apparently unperceived “bias” (translation: anything the Left does not believe in); but how long will it be before an unfavorable ruling by the “bias police” results in disciplinary action or worse for some unlucky college student?
In related news, the Mississippi state legislature’s attempt to provide some protection to their citizens to act within the limits of their conscience came screeching to a halt as a U.S. District Judge ruled[6] that Mississippi’s House Bill 1523,[7] violated the U.S. Constitution. The Bill was an attempt to pushback against last year’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing homosexual “marriage.” LGBT groups applauded the ruling.
Hopefully, the ruling will be appealed but at the moment that is not certain.
So the question remains: is there any aspect of Christian faith/Christian conscience which should be allowed to inform your public actions? What do you think?
2nd Amendment – Never Let a Shooting Go To Waste
Sensing a change in the mood of the American public over whether persons on the government’s “no-fly” list should be allowed to purchase guns, Congressional Democrats are preparing to turn their “sit-in demonstration” into a road-show. If you are comfortable with people who find themselves, for whatever reason, on a secret government list being denied the ability to purchase a gun, than go about your business, nothing to see here. I see potential problems.
Recommendations and Events:
Constitution Seminars. I have no Constitution Seminars scheduled at the moment. If you have a group of 10 or more individuals within a day’s drive of Yorktown, Virginia, and would like one presented, let me know via email to: gary@constitutionleadership.org. Keep in mind that I’ll be unavailable from 1 August to 18 September.
Lessons in Liberty. On Monday, July 11, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. EDT, The Foundation for American Christian Education’s Lessons in Liberty series will welcome Jim Wallis, who will speak on the topic: Was Jesus a Socialist? You can attend in the FACE classroom in Chesapeake, Virginia, or live online via Livestream.
This lecture explores the divergence of both Christianity and the Jewish people from their covenantal, Hebrew roots. And will take on a related questions such as, “Was the early church communal in the modern Marxist sense?” and “How about the Moses/Joshua Hebrew model, was it a republic or a theocracy?”
The cost to attend, either in the classroom or online, is $10. Register at http://www.face.net/.
On Friday, 8 July, we’ll begin a new feature on “We the People, the Constitution Matters” that I will call, for lack of a better term: Constitutional Tennis. Just after the break at the midpoint of each show, one of our three commentators will pose a question about the Constitution, to be answered by any caller who knows the answer. The first caller to answer the question correctly will be allowed, in turn, to pose a question of their own to any of our commentators. If the question can’t be answered on the spot that commentator will be assigned the task of researching and answering the question at the start of the following week’s show. “Team Listener” will get a point for each correctly answered question and “Team Scholar” will get a point for each on-the-spot question answered correctly. We’ll announce the running point total each week.
You can listen to “We the People, the Constitution Matters” at www.1180wfyl.com each Friday from 7-8am EDT. The recorded show is also re-broadcast each Saturday at 11am and Sunday at 2pm.
On 8 July, we’ll resume our continuing discussion of the principles of the Declaration of Independence by examining the principle that a “long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evince[ing] a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” is a necessary precondition for a people to legitimately change their form of government. We will also contrast what comprised that “long train” in 1776, with what we are experiencing today. It should be an interesting comparison.
[1] http://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/4467/article3.pdf;jsessionid=6CF19E9A57FD05120A914311C63B1D7C?sequence=1
[2] http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/06/has_richard_posner_committed_an_impeachable_offence.html
[3] George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796.
[4] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalias-political-outbursts/story?id=16694778
[5] http://www.gopusa.com/?p=11819?omhide=true
[6] https://mississippitoday.org/2016/06/30/federal-judge-strikes-down-house-bill-1523/
[7] http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2016/html/HB/1500-1599/HB1523SG.htm