Follow Only The Original Constitution? Utter Nonsense!
Posted By Eric Ethington (Author) on December 28, 2011
As I’m reviewing the 2011 Utah political history, I’m struck by how often I hear people such as Carl Wimmer, Stephen Sandstrom and Mike Lee spouting off about only supporting the Constitution in its original form. I an only say, “What utter nonsense and lack of vision.”
Do you have a dollar bill? Take it out right now and look at the back. Notice the seal with the pyramid? It’s unfinished. That’s what our country is and how we should treat it: unfinished.
The United States of America is not a perfect nation, but rather a Great nation striving for perfection. Our successes come through research, public discussion and debate, while our failures tend to derive from a close-minded sense that things “used to be better.”
Things did not “used to be better.” In this great experiment called America we are constantly refining our way of life in that great hope of achieving something better than what we have today.
Government is the voice and tool of the people. Government is how we look out for one another, and build our futures. Are there confines which should be placed around this tool in order to ensure equity and justice? Certainly; for this tool can be used for both good and evil, and has. But that does not, nor should it, create the animosity towards the very basics of government which we see arising from the Tea Party and their candidates like Mr’s Wimmer, Sandstrom and Lee. In fact, those who tear down and rant against government should consider themselves unpatriotic and thoroughly un-American.
Our nation is a vision. A vision which I am constantly saddened to see our Republican Representatives in Utah fail to grasp and take delight in as so many others, including myself, do. They seem to place an almost deity-level of admiration upon the founders of our great country, and praise them for creating a “perfect” document in the Constitution. But let me tell you, I think that Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues would be horrified at that suggestion. What arrogance our dear Republicans seem to believe the Founders must have had to have believed that they had created perfect, unalterable laws which would last throughout eternity despite any changes in the world.
For certain these were brilliant and wise men, but they were not gods, nor clairvoyants, nor seers. They could not know what new events, principles, truths and circumstances we were to face in the future, and the guiding document they provided was just that, a guide. A structure, foundation and framework upon which we could build our country into the great nation that it is today.
It is time for us to take hold of the Vision once again. We must capture that lost sense of Grandeur within the halls of our Capitols, and once again make them a sacred place of serious discussions and honest public debate. We must leave behind us the rancid and worthless bickering over message bills and move this Country forward as a light to all the world.
"Eric, trying to have this (civil rights) conversation with you is ultimately like trying to teach a pig to dance, it just annoys the pig. So Eric, sorry to annoy you."
-Paul Mero, The Sutherland Institute.
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