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

For God and Country

"I do solemnly swear..."

"Hear O Israel the Lord our God,
the Lord is One."

"...that I will faithfully execute..."

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty
... and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary..."

"...the office of President of the United States..."

"There is no God but Allah
and Muhammad is His prophet."

"...and will to the best of my ability..."

"This is suffering;
this is the origin of suffering;
this is the cessation of suffering;
this is the path to the cessation of suffering."

"...preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United States."

SO, HELP ME GOD.*
*comma optional

SO HELP ME GOD: Washington, DC is not Jerusalem.
SO HELP ME GOD: The Constitution is not the word of God.
SO HELP ME GOD: The President of the United States is not descended from the House of David.

Meanwhile, the evangelical voice of the U.S. charges forward
with a programmed zeal, droning in an Orwellian trance:

Sunrise in America. It's another chance to face the light.
Why wouldn't you want to? Who wants to keep walking in darkest shadows
when one need but turn around to change direction and go toward the light?

Honestly, I hate that drivel. It is presented as if we are all bats in the shadows, flitting through the darkness after sinful and misguided prey. Sadly, they fear us, because to them, we operate hidden in a veil they cannot penetrate. It's like on those cop shows, where the suspect is interrogated in a bright room behind one-way glass, while the minions watch from a darkened space. We can see them, but they can't see us. We could be corrupting their children, and they wouldn't know it. We could be sinning and they wouldn't be able to see us, that they might save us.

I suppose it bothers them that we are blessed (you should pardon the expression) by the Constitution with a right: the right to choose how we live our lives. The door to the church is just as accessible as the door to the bar (though only relatively recently on Sundays).

With all the talk recently about the three branches of government, it is still somewhat comforting to know that Theocracy is not the fourth. Citing God as the "creator" in the Declaration of Independence does not automatically mean that we have been deified. I know there have been many polls recently that have dealt with Americans' beliefs about the existence of God. The Founding Fathers believed in God too. That doesn't mean that they wanted to establish a holy and sacred country.

In fact, the founding principle is that God loves the entire creation, that we are all imbued with rights by virtue of being a piece of that creation. The architects of our republic understood that the moment we begin to raise ourselves, to declare ourselves as better in the eyes of God and first in the heart of Destiny, we will no longer tolerate the possibility of God's blessing in others.

These days, other countries, their regimes and their people are non-grata unless and until our government bestows a "most favored" knighthood upon them. The result: what our leaders hope is setting the devil to quivering in his boots, is actually a descent into global resentment.

Humility. You were wondering how we counteract the resentment? Humility must replace blind Texas machismo. It also happens to be the one quality that defines Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha. Truth and strength will out with just a little introspection. Otherwise we're just big gorillas with small guns and lots of money.

-PBG

Manifest Destiny: The Crusaders in the Capitol

This is my response to the "Blog Against Theocracy" blogswarm that I missed this weekend. Please check out all the entries by following the link.

(Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors designed the "Blog Against Theocracy" logo.)

When a government is allowed to hold its people hostage at the end of a crusader's sword, assembling armies of red-tie legislators and black-robed judges, spouting totalitarian, pseudo-religious, master race moral superiority, it is our own moral imperative to draw a line in the sand and hold it. Manifest Destiny may have been a convenient excuse to build this country, but it is a weak and insecure administration that uses a land grab policy as a way to take control of the moral compass line we toe.

I used to think that Americans were smart enough to know when this type of abuse of might had gone too far. I always thought there were enough of us who saw through political demagoguery to know the difference between political pandering and god-awful policy. It seems I was wrong.

Even the changes in Congress last year are only a burp, more about Iraq than anything related to God and morals.

The problem is we count on politicians to do right by us much in the same way some parents expect their children's teachers to parent their kids. It is a responsibility we cannot, must not, abdicate to those in power. They will only do as much as they can get away with, and maybe slightly more if there's enough money involved.

God, like good character, starts in the home, not on Capitol Hill. Like past mistakes, one's feelings toward God should inform one's actions, not control them. If those who would put our necks to the sword could understand that, perhaps they would stop trying to control the rest of us.

-PBG