The Bedrock of Democracy

You can tell a lot about a person by the way she speaks of the Constitution. I've noted four general ways that people respond to mention of the document when it comes up in conversation. I refer to them as Affirmative, Objective, Indifferent, and Hostile.

An affirmative response usually comes from a person who has some knowledge of the Constitution and enjoys talking about it.

Objective responders typically have a neutral response. They usually understand the general importance of the Constitution but don't think about it unless some part of it directly affects them.

Those who are indifferent really couldn't care less. Mention the Constitution to them, and their response will likely be something like, "Oh, yeah, that. Whatever."

Then there are those who actively believe the Constitution is a bad thing, usually because it gets in the way of something they want to do, or the way they think things should be. These are people you don't want to know. Police often fall into this group, as do some politicians.

In the present day, the unpresident of the United States and probably most of his Cabinet is firmly in this camp. This is an unprecedented and dangerous situation. The Constitution is the only thing that stands between the ordered society we know and a power-mad would-be tyrant. Or, if you like, between order and chaos.

The first time I visited the Constitution at the National Archives was almost a religious experience for me. It came to me that those few pieces of parchment, faded and wrinkled as they are, represent a pinnacle of accomplishment in humankind's long search for a means of just government.

Since at least the third millennium BC rulers and peoples have sought to establish codes of law that would provide order and protection. Some of them were successful. Others were unbearably severe. Many included practices we consider absurd, and punishments so horrid that we can scarce imagine them. Yet they were all needful experiments leading to the document that gives our society order.

Donald Trump wants to be a supreme autocrat with nothing controlling him but his own whims. He does not want to be limited by a system of laws that will prevent his becoming a dictator. Were it up to him, he would replace the Constitution with the occultist and libertine Aleister Crowley's mantra: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

The Constitution of the United States may not be a perfect document. It may not be the last word in the search for and perfection of a just system of laws. Yet it is our system, bought with the blood and sacrifice of our ancestors. We must defend it against Donald Trump, a thug and a pig of a man who already dismisses and dishonors it, and would destroy it if he could.

Four pages of parchment are the bedrock of our country. They must remain inviolate.


--- Diogenes, 9/3/2020