Finally, we have a constitutional crisis in America, not from Republicans or Democrats, but from historical reckoning and not subject to a temporal solution: The Constitution that our Founding Fathers designed is now too good for us who live today; we are now just too corrupt to live by the idealism and innocence that launched America.
The Constitution was written when the new nation was fresh and its population hopeful and rational. Our generation today is hopelessly dark and its character inexplicably violent and crazy. The ideals collected in the Constitution are as alien to present America as Rip Van Winkle waking up today on Wall Street, in Hollywood or at Donald Trump’s White House. Constitutional America and our America today are like square pegs and round holes. The Constitution was a roadmap written for the Children’s Crusade, full of dreams and faith, and it is cruelly taking the children to Sin City led by the Pied Piper from Hell.
We, as Americans, have outgrown the original hope and our national character is no longer decent nor wholesome enough to live by what the Founders intended to create and preserve. “The Shining City on a Hill” that was envisioned is now “The Great Satan,’’ loathed by our adversaries. The Framers saw a Garden of Eden in America, full of good labor and reward; today their descendants are minimalist with their labor and maximalist with their reward. Eden is now a Garden of Evil where everything that grows is just mean and stupid.
The Constitution assumed human beings were infinitely perfectible; give them a free and just society, the framers assumed, and they would be as perfect as any of God’s creations. But given the nature of our lazy body and corrupting social influences, only a total devotion to a work ethic and to a working democracy could accomplish the perfectible humanity and the ideal society. Today, we assume people are inherently corruptible; give them anything their selfishness desires, so say our idea-spinners, and they will become infinitely gullible and childish.
Today, in our military-corporate empire, we resemble neither the “perfect Union” that was envisioned for posterity, nor the innocent republic that aspired to imitate noble Athens, not decadent Rome. John Adams worried that the new democratic republic would work only if Americans remained “a moral people” who would aspire to build an ideal republic. But, just now, the Constitution is too idealistic and too innocent to be a living commandment for a nation that is ready to welcome a fascist government.
Having inherited a Constitution written for an innocent nation and a God-fearing people, we are futilely trying to put the square peg of idealism into a round hole of corrupt reality. The Constitution, conceived for a moral nation, cannot survive as a living guide to a generation too preoccupied with themselves and too stupefied with mental consumption to believe in anything idealistic, whether for themselves or for their nation. As we currently witness in American politics, only chaos and idiocy prevail. We opened up the Garden of Eden to speculators and investors and they are busily destroying Eden’s goodness and innocence: Eden’s inhabitants are now unhappy workers by day and consumers who purchase happiness by night; few believe in hard work as a reward unto itself.
Recently the Supreme Court of the United States made a monumental decision on free speech, as protected in the Constitution. A 14-year-old girl, upset that she didn’t get promoted from junior varsity cheerleader to varsity, posted her wrath, “F- the school,” “F-cheer,” F- everything.” The school suspended her for disruptive behavior and she and her parents went to court, claiming free speech. The Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that her “speech” was protected under the First Amendment.
Alex Jones, a radio populist and defendant in a civil suit for arguing that the Sandy Hook massacre was a federally concocted hoax staged by “actors,” defended his outright lies as constitutionally protected free speech.
The Framers of the Constitution expected Americans to be honest and honorable with the words they spoke, and on that expectation they simply guaranteed free speech, not personal cusswords or lies, for all Americans. Today, we are neither honest nor honorable, and the words we speak have become empty of meaning and heart. Politics speaks with a forked tongue and advertising Sirens with fake love, thus creating more distrust and cynicism toward the old document, which was created for a moral people, yet is being abused by an immoral generation.
The American Republic, unlike other nations grown from a tribal origin with emotional and subconscious bond, is a fragile association that cannot survive unless the bond is deliberately nurtured. Regretfully, the Founders, in an era of simplicity of intentions and motivations, did not anticipate such an evil turn of its descendants. In the ringing ideals of the Constitution, all was hope, sweetness and honor. Were the Founders simple sentimental fools? Or, are we just unspeakably corrupt and evil?
Perhaps the famous “American Experiment,” obviously unsustainable, should have never been started. We are now tearing up our noble Constitution and abjectly degrading its spirit. And how absurd that we thought we were exceptional!
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and Professor Emeritus, lives in Greenfield.