Friday, August 03, 2007

The Best Defense: Protecting the Constitution

Come Down From the Battlements

I am not inclined to follow my leaders blindly. To those who say, "Yes. But there's a war on. We have to support the president," I say, only God deserves that kind of attention from me. But even God gives us permission to ask questions, and He/She's been locking horns with Evil for millenia!

Questioning God is a tradition for my people. Abraham questions God at Sodom and Gomorrah; Moses questions God at the burning bush; even Jesus questions God as he is dying on the cross. They required no credential to ask. They sought no permit. They asked because as human beings we have the gift of giving voice to reason, and a hungry mind yearning for understanding.

As surely as America's Founding Fathers questioned the will of King George, I am allowed to ask for redress from my government.

"We the People" are the heart of the Constitution. We breathe life into it at the ballot box; we bleed life into it on the battlefield. Yet the old document's heart has been pierced by the arrows of an army of elitists. They have mounted an assault on progressive nationalism and individual liberty.

The Fight as It Is

Those who stand in our defense, stand atop a tall, broad and deep stone wall emblazoned with the Constitution. From their battlements, they fire down on to the megalomaniacal marauders' merciless attack. Somewhere on the battlefield, Cheney eats grapes and shouts orders from his litter, as his mind plots how to make the Constitution a classified document (along with the Declaration of Independence).

Though we stage our fight from high on the wall, we remain behind the great document. But this is not a position from which our defense will succeed. By keeping the Constitution between us and them, we are allowing them to take pot shots at it, daring them, really, to destroy it. We treat it like a talisman, like a cross to a vampire, but they don't shrink away. They won't stop until they have turned our Constitution into an instrument of control.

I Will Not Be Controlled

I will not be controlled by this administration. The president tells Congress he wants this. The president tells Congress he wants that. He is not in charge of me, and despite what his first six years in office may have been like, he is not in charge of Congress. He cannot tell the Congress what to do; he can only ask. He is only the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces - not the people.

The Way Forward

The way to protect the Constitution is to come out from behind it, for it is a poor shield against those who hunger for power and wealth. We must come down from the battlements, because the only way we can defend our constitutional guarantees is by standing between Bush-Cheney's sleepwalking minions and the codified liberties we strive to protect. That is where we must draw the line.

That is why we elected the Congress we did last year. They were supposed to take that ground for us, but now they buzz about in parliamentary disarray, and serve neither people nor party. So it is up to us. The only recourse we have left, the only government forum in which we can at least get our arguments a fair hearing, is in the courts.

The courts are all there is between the Constitution and those who violate her, so this is where we must choose to fight. We fight with words and with reason - the principals of our Founding Fathers. We fight because those on whom we counted, those who vowed to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," have broken their promise.

So open your mouth, people of reason. Ask some questions, people who seek understanding, and maybe, just maybe, God really will bless America.

-PBG

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