Does 4th of July Still Matter? TS

Does Constitution Still Matter?

By THOMAS SOWELL
Posted 07/01/2011 06:11 PM ET

The Fourth of July may be just a holiday for fireworks to some people. But it was a momentous day for the history of this country and the history of the world.
Not only did July 4, 1776, mark American independence from England, it marked a radically different kind of government from the governments that prevailed around the world at the time — and for thousands of years before.
The American Revolution was not simply a rebellion against the King of England, it was a rebellion against being ruled by kings in general. That is why the opening salvo of the Revolution was called "the shot heard round the world."
Autocratic rulers and their subjects heard that shot — and things that had not been questioned for millennia were now open to challenge. As the generations went by, more and more autocratic governments around the world proved unable to meet that challenge.
Some clever people today ask whether the U.S. has really been "exceptional." You couldn't be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document by opening with the momentous words, "We the people."
Those words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as human livestock, destined to be shepherded by their betters. To this day, elites who think that way — including many among the intelligentsia as well as political messiahs — find the Constitution a pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and presumptions on the rest of us.
More than 100 years ago, so-called "Progressives" began a campaign to undermine constitutional limits on government that stood in the way of self-anointed political crusaders imposing their grand schemes on the rest of us. That effort to discredit the Constitution continues, and the arguments haven't changed much.
Time magazine's July 4 cover story is a classic example of this arrogance. It asks of the Constitution: "Does it still matter?" A rambling essay by Managing Editor Richard Stengel is a toxic blend of the irrelevant and the erroneous.
The irrelevant points out in big letters that those who wrote the Constitution "did not know about" things in the world today, including airplanes, television, computers and DNA.
This may seem like a clever new gambit, but it rehashes arguments made long ago. In 1908, Woodrow Wilson said, "When the Constitution was framed there were no railways, there was no telegraph, there was no telephone."
In Mr. Stengel's rehash of this argument, he declares: "People on the right and left constantly ask what the framers would say about some event that is happening today."
Maybe that kind of talk goes on where he hangs out. But most people have enough common sense to know that a constitution does not exist to micromanage particular "events" or express opinions about the passing scene.
A constitution exists to create a framework for government — and our Constitution tries to keep the government inside that framework.
As for the erroneous, Mr. Stengel says, "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so." Apparently he has not read the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Perhaps Richard Stengel should follow the advice of another Stengel — Casey Stengel, who said on a number of occasions, "You could look it up." Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.