Many times people don’t stop to think about the historical documents of our country. There are two at the very top of the list, and they did two very different things.

The Declaration of Independence declared the United States of America as its own sovereign force, independent of the governance of England’s king. It established us as a nation, and we celebrate our nation’s birthday every July 4.

The United States Constitution sets up the authority by which we govern ourselves. Just to make the point, technically we could change the form of government we have in place. We could — if we were hit collectively by the biggest Stupid Bomb ever invented.

Today, Saturday, September 17, is the day we celebrate the birthday of our nation’s form of government. The Constitution wasn’t adopted until over 11 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That should give you some insight into the thought, debate, and work that went into it. No wonder we have the oldest continuous government in the world except for Switzerland!

Today, Constitution Day, causes me to reflect on what Conservatism and Liberalism really mean. As defined on the open-source directory DMOZ.org:

Conservatives holds that civilizations are complex and organic rather than reductive and mechanical, and that the judgment of a person or a school during a single lifetime is fallible and unreliable. Therefore, the instigation of new policy is fraught with the danger first, of unintended consequences that undermine society, and second, of fallacy.

Bottom line is, Conservatives like rules, and they like those rules to be followed. We like to take time to think things out — it took Conservatives 11 years after the Declaration of Independence to adopt the Constitution! That’s why Conservatives have such a hard time with judicial activism. It upsets the balance of power to allow the Judicial branch of our government to say that laws mean something that our elected representatives in the Legislature never intended for them to say.

Publius Rendezvous has an excellent analogy obtained from World Net Daily:

Imagine that tonight, in stadiums all over the United States, Major League Baseball games are disrupted by an invasion of football players, running by dozens and hundreds out onto the diamonds.

“We want to play, too!” the game-crashers cry.

“But this is baseball,” a pitcher points out. “It’s a totally different game.”

“Not fair!” the invaders insist. “We demand that you let us play! And here – use our ball. Re-line the field. And play by our NFL rules!”

“It won’t work,” says a shortstop. “You can’t pitch pigskin.”

“Foul!” scream the footballers to ESPN cameras. “Unsportsmanlike! Boycott baseball!”

The crowd grows restless and bellows their deafening disapproval. The umps’ thumbs are flying: “You’re outta the game!” But the helmeted Huns dig in their cleats.

“These fans are narrow-minded!” they yell. “These umps are bought and paid for! Where’s the justice? What are these ballplayers so afraid of?”

“Football-phobics?” read the morning sports pages, featuring photos of outraged outfielders, shaking their fists at runningbacks spiking balls at home plate.

While Publius Rendezvous and World Net Daily use it in the context of arguing against homosexual marriage, it applies to almost any Liberal position these days.

Our Constitution has words. As has been said over and over, “Words mean things”. As a counselor, I know that communication is paramount in understanding others, and that any human intercourse entails a relationship — whether brief or lasting, friendly or adversarial, superficial or involved, it is a relationship.

We, as fallible humans, need a set of rules to help us along. Allowing judges to say what they think a rule means rather than forcing them to say what it actually means is Liberalism, pure and simple. Liberals like it when judges do this, because they cannot get laws passed through the normal means of proposing legislation. The reason that that is true, is because the majority of Americans do not hold Liberal positions.

We must elect representatives who will insist on doing their legislative duty and reign in the judicial activists — the job of a judge is to interpret law, not to make new law. The United States Legislature has it within its power to do exactly this, if it only will.

If they will not, it is up to “we the people” to see that our current representatives are returned to their former private sector jobs, and new representatives who are capable of enforcing the will of the people are sent to Washington.

If we do not, we consign our Constitution to mere relic status, to be gazed at when we visit the National Archives, and to tell our children and grandchildren, “See, we don’t use it much anymore, but that’s the Supreme Law of the Land!”

The Armed Forces of the United States are our shield against tyrants and despots. How would you like to be governed by those of a like mind to the September 11 hijackers? Our men and women in uniform insure against that. Please watch this tribute, to be placed permanently in my sidebar under “Media”.

TD