Most Conservatives (me included) voted for Trump primarily
of the disaster a Crooked Hillary would present to the further depreciation of
the U.S. Constitution corrupted incredibly by President Barack Hussein Obama. President-Elect
Trump made a number of promises that I enjoyed hearing but kind of would like
to see the proof of the promised pudding.
The Heritage Foundation is
launching a back to the Constitution agenda which points to an article at the Daily
Signal (a Heritage Foundation apparatus).
JRH 11/30/16
*****************
The Continuing Relevance of the Constitution
By Larry Arnn
November 28, 2016
Public policy is often exciting and urgent. When a war begins
or ends, when votes are counted in an election, or when a major bill is passed,
everyone senses the magnitude of the event.
Some struggles end and new struggles begin. Consequences
carry far into the future. Compared to this, and especially given the way we
think today, the Constitution seems like a boring subject.
But how do we know whether the public policies we adopt are
good? How do we know whether the results of the election will be happy? How
even do we know if the war we have fought was worth it?
Those questions cannot be answered except by reference to
things that are outside the immediate excitement and even our immediate needs.
These larger and more enduring things cannot be understood
without understanding what we are, how we should live, how best over the long
term we can achieve a good life and be free. Somehow, urgent things have to be
judged in light of ultimate things.
The profoundest example of this is in our famous Declaration
of Independence. The people of America decided to form their own country. It
was an act of rebellion. It would carry a death sentence for many if the
revolution failed, and it did carry that sentence for many in the subsequent
war.
How remarkable that in this urgent moment, they would base
what they did upon the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” They were looking
upward toward the eternal as they began their battle. That is one of the
essential reasons why they succeeded.
How can we remember to do this kind of thinking, when so
many urgent things press upon us and when hundreds of millions of us participate?
The answer is given best of all in history by the
Constitution of the United States, the partner of the declaration, prefigured
in its middle passages.
The purpose of the Constitution is to ground the government
in the people’s authority. It is also to make both we and our government
thoughtful. “It is our reason alone,” writes James Madison, “that must be
placed in control of the government. Our passions must be controlled by it.”
Under the Constitution, it takes time to do big things: We
must think before we act. The Constitution divides power across the land and
between levels and branches of government; the people and the parts of the
government must cooperate if anything is to be done.
To get a majority, they must give reasons—out loud and in
front of millions. This encourages candor and discourages the rankest forms of
partisanship.
Yes, it is still partisan, but at our best moments we are
better than anywhere else. Moreover, the Constitution limits what we can do to
each other, teaching us self-restraint and independence.
In recent decades, our country has suffered public policy
disasters. We have fought many wars without decisive victory. We have spent
many trillions without removing the problems they were designed to remove. We
have become a great debtor nation with fewer reserves, even if our reserves are
still great.
These facts are connected to the compromising of our
constitutional practices. We have changed the way we make laws. The government
is less accountable, and the laws are more numerous and impossible to
understand.
We have made government more centralized, and so its proper
central functions—especially defense—are starved for resources.
As the government gets bigger, the people get smaller. They
are regulated in their private lives, obstructed when they strive, subsidized
in many cases into failure. This is just what the Constitution was designed to
prevent.
No institution has done more to describe and promote public
policy from the conservative point of view than The Heritage Foundation. It was
born decades ago for specifically this purpose. It has always had an interest
in the Constitution.
Now, it is bringing together all of its efforts relating to
that great document into the Institute for Constitutional Government, launching
Nov. 29, to achieve better focus. As a friend of the Constitution and of
Heritage, I am proud of this.
It can only be good. Our freedom is at stake. We will not
save it without restoring our Constitution.
___________________
Larry Arnn is the president of Hillsdale College and a professor of
politics and history, teaching courses on Aristotle, on Winston Churchill, and
on the American Constitution. He is also a trustee at The Heritage Foundation.
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