Understanding
Published Thu, Jan 8 2009 11:39 PM
When I was growing up, I was taught that the Constitution of the United States was the supreme law of the land. Do they still teach that in school these days? Sometimes I wonder whether they teach about the Constitution at all. As I understand it, most American citizens couldn't pass a civics test.
Our Constitution mandates that the President swear an oath (or make an affirmation) to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. How can the President preserve, protect, and defend a document he doesn't understand? Or in the case of our President-Elect how can he preserve, protect, and defend a document that he feels illustrates a fundamental flaw in our founding? One that he feels is too restrictive to allow the social change and redistribution of wealth that he desires to accomplish?
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1.
The President is not the only elected official bound by oath to support our Constitution. Every Senator is bound to support it (Did you get that Mr. Reid? How about you Mr. McCain?). Every Congressman is bound to support it as well (Do you understand that Speaker Pelosi? How about you Mr. McDermott? Mr. Jefferson?). Every State Legislator is bound by oath to support the Constitution as well. The same is true for every Governor (How about it Governor Gregoire? Governor Blagojevich?) In fact, just about every elected official at the state level and up is bound by oath to support the Constitution.
Not just elected officials are bound by this though. Appointed officials as well are bound by oath to support the Constitution. Executive appointees are bound to support the Constitution. Judges are as well.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution
— U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Section 1.
So, how well are our elected and appointed officials doing? Not very well if you ask me. According to the same study that found that the average American citizen couldn't pass a basic civics test elected officials do worse on average than the average American citizen on the same test.
More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33 question test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an “F.” Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an “A.”
How, I ask you, can our elected officials support the Constitution when they don't even understand it? Speaking of understanding the Constitution, how about understanding the law? I'm sure by now that you've heard the old adage that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow.”
— James Madison (likely), Federalist No. 62, 1788
But, isn't that exactly the situation we have today? Congress enacts thousands of pages of new laws every year. Do you recall the (thankfully failed) Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007? It was huge. In fact, as printed by the Government Printing Office, this bill alone took seven hundred and ninety pages! Most of the people that discussed this abomination never even bothered to read it before declaring that “it's not amnesty.” Senator McCain and President Bush denied that it was amnesty, so I guess that was good enough for them. I read the entire thing. It took me a considerable period of time, fighting through language like this…
9 (a) ASYLUM.—Section 208(b)(2)(A)(v) (8 U.S.C.
10 1158(b)(2)(A)(v)) is amended by striking ‘‘or (VI)’’ and
11 inserting ‘‘(V), (VI), (VII), or (VIII)’’.
12 (b) CANCELLATION OF REMOVAL.—Section
13 240A(c)(4) (8 U.S.C. 1229b(c)(4)) is amended—
14 (1) by striking ‘‘inadmissible under’’ and insert
15 ing ‘‘described in’’; and
16 (2) by striking ‘‘deportable under’’ and insert
17 ing ‘‘described in’’.
Wade through enough of that and your brain gets numb. Especially if you're trying to figure out exactly what the bill is supposed to be doing. In order to do that, you've got to have access to the U.S. Code and read the sections that the bill is going to amend too. According to anecdote, most congressmen and Senators don't even bother to read the bills they're voting on. And yes, I read the entire thing. And it WAS an amnesty bill, at least according to the definition of the word.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse?” With that kind of process, ignorance of the law is inevitable. And that's just “statutory law.” Let's not even get started on the “common law.” You know what that is… it's law made by judges out of whole cloth. Oh sure, they start from statutory law and from precedent, but it's nothing more than the judge's opinion.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” but it is inevitable. Apparently even in our elected officials our executive officers, and our judges, presuming they actually care about the oaths they take. We already know that some of them, like the President-Elect don't.
Good luck following the law. If you can understand it.
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Christopher Hamilton responded with:
ablur responded with:
 | The constitution has lost its glamor under the weight of the legislature. With billions of pages of law written and some even standing in conflict, we need some kind of reboot. |
Perri Nelson responded with: Reboot?
 | “We need some kind of reboot,”
Now there's a scary thought. Some of my recent reading suggests that we're only one or two states away from approval for a Constitutional Convention. If that happens we've got real trouble ahead, because everything is on the table. A convention could scrap the entire document and all of the amendments turning our liberties into historic footnotes and our republican form of government into Constitutionally mandated socialism. I wouldn't put it past the politicians that would make up such a convention to do something like that. When they don't understand the basic principles on which our nation was founded there's little chance they'd respect them or incorporate them into a new Constitution. Our only hope then is that three quarters of the states would take forever to ratify the replacement. I hope we never see such aa thing in our lifetimes, or even our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes. |
Karma responded with: Studies
 | Perri I hate to remind you but when you went to school you were in all the smart kid classes.LOL While the rest of us were learning the bare basics of history. There were a few of us that took "higher learning" classes in the things we were interested in. Now they teach to the leave no child behind routine and how to pass those test. There is a heck of alot left out now. |
Perri Nelson responded with: Studies
| Ah, but Karma, you should recall that I was a rather indifferent student of History in those days. The "smart kid" classes I took were all mathematics and science classes. It wasn't until years after I left college that I acquired an interest in our government and its founding principles. That's actually a part of the issue I think. So many of us were and remain indifferent to these things. We truly end up with the government we deserve. I just hope that I and a few others like me can do something to reverse that trend. The American people really need to know what our foundational principles were and how far we've strayed from them if we are to ever regain our liberties. |
ablur responded with:
| The constitutional congress is a total purge not a reboot. We only need to strip away about 50 years of bad government and an equally bad justice system.
Purging the entire system would be an end to this nation. It is a horror of unimaginable consequence. |
Perri Nelson responded with:
| Stripping away 50 years of bad government isn't likely to happen any time soon. Both parties are up to their necks in it now. The Democrats have been at it since the late 19th century, and Republicans have “compromised” their principles for decades. The Republicans are now dominated by moderates and “centrists” that are afraid of asserting our foundational principles. President Bush and the 108th and 109th congresses in general moved us further away from those principles. The 110th congress, despite being run by the Democratic party essentially did nothing, which is a good thing. That is until the financial house of cards the feds started building during Jimmy Carter's presidency finally came tumbling down. The 111th congress, run by the Democrats again is shaping up to be very partisan and very ready to move everything to the left unopposed (since they've essentially blocked everything the minority has been able to do since 1994). The President Elect has no respect for the Constitution and has promised us several trillion in deficit spending for the foreseeable future. Assuming there's ever a chance of a soft reset like you're describing, and assuming your starting point, it looks like it will be 58 years of bad government we'll have to purge. Still, that's a lot better than the nightmare alternative that I see if Ohio and maybe one more state decide to assent to the call for a convention. Like I said, I hope we never see such a thing (the convention) in our lifetimes, or even our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes. I'd much prefer the soft reset you're talking about. |
David responded with:
 | "supreme law of the land"? In some senses, perhaps, but it was only after the 14th Amendment and its broad misapplication that so many abuses of the Constitution gained overwhelming force.
Congresscritters don't understand that which they are pledged to uphold? *duh* Mr. "I may be a plagiarist, but I am a Senator and a Constitutional lawyer" Biden didn't (and likely to this very day doesn't) have the foggiest clue about the Constitutional duties of the vice president as president of the Senate, nor apparently that the section of the Constitution that defines the vice president's legislative duties and responsibilities is found in the section that (*duh*) defines the role of the legislature.
Typical of our Congresscritters, I have little doubt.
And statutory and common law (as well as legal precedents in court rulings) are just the tip of the 'berg. Most of the "laws" we are ruled by are bureaucratic fiat, flying under the false flag of :interpreting" statutory laws. |
David responded with:
| BTW, two data points. I took the quiz:
"You answered 33 out of 33 correctly — 100.00 %"
No surprise (if this had been during my late adolescent college years, I probably would have handed such a quiz in with a snarky, "Here's your key"). I'd be ashamed to be in a class where a prof/teacher gave such a lame quiz.
"Average score for this quiz during January: 74.3%
Average score: 74.3%"
Hmmm... have you sent a bunch of your readers that way and skewed the curve from the 49% cited above? (Yeh, yeh, I know a self-selected test group will be abnormal.)
Now, the old (former, as of October 2008) US citizenship exam questions were slightly better, largely because there were no multiple choice options, although when I went through them not long back (for an acquaintance who's studying for the--now new--exam), I was surprised by a couple of WRONG answers that are considered correct (and yes, one dealt with the late unpleasantness of The Great Unitarian-Baptist Shootout *heh*). Still, since testing of this sort is just a game I was able to get those answers "right" by answering them wrongly, in accordance with current historical revisionism.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm
Personally, I'd like to see every person elected to public office be required to be examined orally, in public, to ascertain whether they have a firm grasp of the constitution or charter (Fed, State or local) under which they must serve, and for each incorrect answer, a very public slap in the face with a dead cod. Heck, we might run out of both cod and politicians before we find a quorum for a legislature... And that'd be a Good Thing, IMO. (Notsomuch the running out of cod... but it might be worth that to run out of politicians.) |
Glenn Cassel AMH1 USN RET responded with:
 | "Support and Defend the Constitution of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Straight out of the Oath of Enlistment.
Thing is, we actually stood by that statement. If you didn't, the UCMJ could be a cruel and just thing. |
Always On Watch responded with:
 | Just this past Thursday, I had my American Government class read Article II out loud in class. One of my students, a sophomore, is particularly politically aware and made the same observation about how so many of our politicians don't take seriously the oath of office.
I'm off from work on Inauguration Day because of the gridlock expected here in the D.C. area. I plan to watch a portion of the Inauguration on television. I want to hear how BHO intones the oath of office. I hope that the cameras are close enough for me to see his facial expressions. If he breaking into that wide grin of his, I may have to shoot the television. |
David responded with:
| "If he breaking into that wide grin of his, I may have to shoot the television."
Don't shoot the messenger...
(No that was NOT an incitement to violence against anyone/thing else.) |
Stanford Matthews responded with:
 | My first exposure to history in school was the fourth grade. Looking back, it was very limited. Mostly it covered the time before there was a US Constitution. Later in high school the only history was folded into a general 'social studies' class. Anything I know about history was sefl-taught. So what you ask?
The civics literacy test, the more general reading and comprehension measure of the US population, the culture and daily life in America are evidence we have become a collection of strangers in which only a small percentage care enough to focus on concerns larger than those related to self.
I suggest it all begins with what one learns in the most basic human group, the family. If it does not start there little chance exists it will be corrected through public institutions such as schools. An individual must want the knowledge to pursue it. The seed must be planted early.
With one parent deceased and the child raising burden left to the other I am eternally grateful for the guidance. One of the first significant gifts was the encouragement to read. Many resources were supplied to support and foster an appetite for reading. I took to it right off and spent a great deal of time reading.... and learning.
Like I said, the seed must be planted early. The primary reason for dismal performance of the population in reading and overall knowledge stemf from missed opportunities early in childrens' lives and not fostering self-reliance and personal responsibility to achieve rather than allowing the what's in it for me attitude that dominates. |
Angel responded with:
 | I'm reading Medved on the hx of the Constitution..libs have it all distorted! |
Layla responded with:
 | I sprained my right wrist Perri so forgive the to the point shortness of what I write. I am in a lot of pain.
I understand the Constitution. In college I majored in Constitutional Law. I believed in it and I still do and always will. I also minored in journalism. Not that anyone cares now.
But what I am painfully trying to type here is that the law of the land no longer is important to many Americans, especially our youth whom liberals have robbed by stealing our great nations history right out of our school books.
God help us after the 20th. Freaking CVS is selling Obama hats...heh! Kiss my what? Makes me sick, and Perri forgive the off topic, when I am in pain I have a hard time focusing.
Hope you are well now my friend! |
Perri Nelson responded with:
| I'm well Layla, considerably better than I was. Take care of your wrist and don't make it any worse. I still believe that we can make a difference. Educating our fellows is a part of that process. The more people we can explain our foundational principles to, the more people we can show what the Constitution actually says rather than what they think it says the better off we'll be as a nation. My dad has a pretty good technique for it. He carries a pocket constitution with him all the time. When he's with people that don't have a clue what it means he challenges them on it. And he backs it up by presenting what it actually says. This may or may not change the things that people think regarding left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative, but a better understanding of what's there is a starting point. In the ISI study I mentioned above one of the findings was that self-identified liberals scored on average 49%, while self-identified conservatives only scored an average of 48%. Moderates scored better than either group with a 51% average. These are all abysmal scores, but to find that, on average, conservatives understand civics less well than liberals is a fair indicator that we've got a long way to go in educating people. |
Marshall Art responded with:
 | As I recall, I was required to take a Constitution test during my junior year of high school. As it was my most drug-addled year, I can't for the life of me recall that I actually took the test, much less passed it, but both was required to get a diploma, which I did get. So, perhaps it was a multiple guess test and I guessed well. I truly can't say. I'd hate to be tested now. I recently bought a copy of the Federalist and I have to take it at a slow pace. I intend to get through it with a far better understanding of intent behind it all. Then, I'll seek out a pocket Constitution myself and have some fun.
I'm also working my way through a bio of Ben Franklin (the man, not the store), after which I'll read on another from our founding. I'm fascinated with that period of our history, and it's becoming clear that each founder is likely spinning in their graves as we speak...or type. |
David responded with:
| Constitutional (and general American history--especially of the country's formative years) literacy certainly ought to be A focus point in encouraging historical literacy, we need to do much more.
Example: I read a post by Eric Amblewr over at the Huffington Post recently, and I was struck by the enormouys historical illiteracy of some of those attacking Mr. Ambler's position deriding the "climate changists" and their disingenuity. For example, one commenter dismissed Mr. Ambler's position with a defense of Mann's egregious "hockey stick" graph that showed, among other things, that late 20th century was the warmest period during the last 1,000 years. Now, while there've been some serious mathematical deconstructions of Mann's math demonstrating he was full of particularly odiferous fecal effluvia, a simple "Then why was Greenland a net exporter of dairy goods during the Medieval Climate Optimum?" should be enough to dispense with Mann's lies.
But simple historical illiteracy (both among climate chagists and the general public) allow liars like Mann and others the get away with their scams because, as probably most of us can remember, instead of learning about the broad implications of the Medieval Climate Optimum, pubschool classrooms are filled with the BS about LIef Ericson's "scam" presenting Greenland as... green, fertile farmland to entice settlers to its cold bitter shores... which were, in Lief's time, perfectly good, green, fertile farmland, though in today's colder climate the dairy farms of his day are largely under glacial ice (and the Nova Scotia "Vinland" settlements by the Norse disappeared because of the end of the Medieval Climate Optimum and the onset of the Little Ice Age).
Little things like the entire Anthropogenic Global Warming/Chasngism meme could easily be dispelled by historical fact, were the public even moderately historically literate.
So, yes: promote Constitutional literacy, but lket's not neglect the rest of historical record. After all,
“In a democracy (”rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom
...is really more or less a condensation of but ONE of the reasons Plato records Socrates deriding democracy for as a form of government. (And you can count on it that pubschool--and now most college and university--educated sheeple haven't a clue what Socrates noted about democracies, or he'd be revered as a prophet today.) |
David responded with:
Stanford Matthews responded with:
| Socrates? Is that a new hip hop artist or an LG cell phone? When I listen to the younger demographic speak the delivery of words like, 'like' say it all. Ya, you know, like, that is what everyone is, like, doing, like, they all, like, know what it's all about, like, its, like, awesome.
Like when Leno, like, does Jay Walking, like, and asks, like, people on the street if they, like, know who the President and VP are and, like, they don't have a clue.
With no grip on current events or believing the Civil War took place in 1965 there is no hope remaining that they will ever learn history of any kind. Except for being able to recite the complete discography of their favorite recording genius. Oops, maybe instead of discography it is now mp3phy.
That is why I absolutely loved the title of the moronic sitcom, 'Just Shoot Me'. |