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In church today there were a number of things spoken related to Independence Day. One of the people who spokle wa a woman from the UK who noted that the celebration was of independence from Great Britain. Of course that is a natural perspective, but I think that we need to recognize that that what we are really celebrating is independence from oppresive government. In Eighteenth Century America the government of Great Britain was the embodiment of government oppression.
Today we should still be mindful of any government oppression and assert our continued independence by participating in the system and holding government accountable because freedom from government oppression can only be had by clinging to an authority higher and more lasting than the current administration. That is why each officer of government at all levels pledges to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States – now if they would all keep their pledge.
- A Thin Red Line (0.717)
- The Liberty Line (0.658)
- Prosecuting Religious Beliefs (0.560)
- When Mandates Are Not Optional (0.560)
- Established Patterns (0.560)
- Undoing Past Progress (RANDOM - 0.500)
2 replies on “Independence From What”
It’s easy to keep that pledge when you believe that the Constitution is a malleable instrument that can be re-interpreted to mean whatever you want. We wouldn’t tolerate this with any other legal document, but somehow people think it’s OK to do so with our most important legal document.
A co-worker recently told me that it’s necessary for the Supreme Court to re-interpret the Constitution sometimes because it is out-of-date — it fails to adequately address issues our Founders never could have foreseen. I told him that they anticipated all such matters with this simple little device called a Constitutional Amendment. But, he retorted, amendments are nearly impossible to pass.
This is a weak excuse for judicial overreach (often with the willing complicity of the other two governmental branches). If the courts staunchly refused efforts to regularly reshape the Constitution, legislators would be forced to deal more seriously with amendment issues.
The difficulty that stands in the way of constitutional amendments is a convenient excuse to subvert the rule of law, but if we took the time to understand the reasoning of our founders in setting up the system the way they did we might come to appreciate the genius of our founding father in attempting to hobble the horse of government to keep it from straying too far from the pasture.