Being a Constitutionalist

For every political stance, party or movement there is a title. Of course you have the standard parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, but you also have the Green Party, the Independents, the Socialists and now the Tea Party, not to mention all the ones that I forgot. Then there are all the other titles that go along with political affiliations, conservative, liberal, libertarian, centrist, progressive and so on. Depending on your mode or who is in office you can change parties without anyone questioning you; sure there may be one or two of these that you don’t fit into but that too can be left to interpretation. The truth is that with most of our politicians you would have trouble pinning a tag on them based on their actions; in fact you could say the same about most Americans. There is one title or belief that you don’t hear very often these days, in fact I can’t remember the last time I did hear it when talking about our politicians, Constitutionalist.

Being a true Constitutionalist is a tough thing. Sure you can run a politician campaign on upholding the Constitution, the problem is carrying through. Once they get into office they forget all about the Constitution and upholding it; in fact most of our politicians are not even sure of what the Constitution says, much less what it stands for. Politicians use the fact that most Americans have no idea what is in the Constitution while touting that they are upholding the Constitution. The general publics ignorance on the Constitution opens the door for Politicians to interpret and manipulate any part of the Constitution to their liking, all the while they are selling away our freedom and independence. The favorite one to use now is the preamble of the Constitution, specifically the general welfare clause. Politicians have written numerous unconstitutional laws based on the general welfare statement in the preamble; the preamble is just an opening statement, not a fact of law. Somehow Politicians have convinced us that the preamble overrides all other parts of the Constitution.

Politicians are not the only ones that manipulate and misinterpret the Constitution; every special interest group out there does the same thing. Special interest groups will pick one section or one Amendment that roughly fits their cause and manipulates the wording to further their cause. One of the best examples of that is the 1st Amendment, specifically where it states that Congress will make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. During his Presidency Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in response to a letter they wrote to him complaining about the States view on religion. Thomas Jefferson was a believer in separation of Church and State and stated so in his response. His statement in that letter has been misconstrued to be a definition of the 1st Amendment and to apply to all the States as well. The 1st Amendment was written to ensure that Congress could not establish a nationwide religion and therefore could not write any laws restricting the observance of any religion. States on the other hand could establish State supported religions or write laws restricting religions within their States as they saw fit, in fact the Massachusetts Constitution specifically states in Article III “Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”. Anti religious groups have incorrectly used the 1st Amendment and Thomas Jefferson’s letter; they have used it to literally outlaw Morning Prayer in schools and the display of religious articles during celebrations such as Christmas.

The 1st Amendment is not the only Amendment that has been misinterpreted and misused. The 2nd Amendment restricts the Federal Government from writing laws that will restrict American Citizens from owning and bearing arms, guns. On the other hand the States retain the right to allow or restrict gun ownership to their citizens. The NRA and other groups such as the NRA fight for the rights of gun owners all across the United States, regardless of what their States Constitutions say. The NRA will take cases to the Supreme Court claiming States laws to be unconstitutional. The most recent case being the McDonald case from of Chicago, IL. According to the Illinois State Constitution Article 22 of the Bill of Rights states “RIGHT TO ARMS Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. If the NRA should have argued that the Chicago gun bans were against the IL State Constitution, not the United States Constitution. The Constitution of the State of New York has no right to bear arms written into it, therefore the State can write whatever laws it wishes without being unconstitutional by either the State or the United States Constitutions.

There are other instances throughout the Constitution and the attached Amendments where the words have been misconstrued, misinterpreted, or down right twisted to fit the moment. There are also other instances where the issue is not covered at all by the Constitution and should not be, but the Politicians, special interest groups and lobbyists will find some phrase, Article, or Amendment in the Constitution that is just vague enough for them to use as being fact that the Constitution is 100% behind their cause. The 14th Amendment is one that gets used often to “protect the rights” of anyone at anytime, unless it’s not convenient. The 14th Amendment was written and ratified to protect freed slaves and their offspring from being thrown out of the country since up to that point they were citizens of no country. That Amendment has been used to legalize the off spring of persons that have crossed our borders illegally and to argue for separation of Church and State.

All of the above are just a few of the examples of the misuse of the Constitution. Being a Constitutionalist is tough. It means that your moral beliefs and your political beliefs may not always match. You have to accept what the Constitution says and not try to interpret it to mean what you want it to mean. I fully believe in the right for all citizens to keep and bear arms but I have to support the Constitution’s limitation on the Federal Government. If my State wants to restrict the ownership and the right to bear arms then I have to accept that fact. Being a Constitutionalist also means that you believe in the both the 9th and the 10th Amendments, the ones that retained all rights not enumerated in the Constitution for the People and the States. Today we as a country seem to have forgotten both of those Amendments. We are not holding our States accountable for their actions and the States are not standing up to the Federal Government to protect their citizens. We have also lost our personal identities, rather we have given them away; we want to be taken care of, we want our entitlements. I use the term We to mean the general population of the United States. Being a Constitutionalist means you accept responsibility, you care for and protect your freedom, your liberties, and your beliefs. That is what the Constitution tried to give to the People of the United States of America. The Constitution was written with free and responsible People in mind, not to take care of everyone.

Steve Avery
1/30/2011