Principles over Party

After Respects Human Life, the next thing I like to take into account when forming political opinions, is the relationship with the topic at hand and the Constitution. As the Supreme Law of the United States, the Constitution lays the groundwork for what separates the US from the rest of the World. As Americans, it is what guarantees us our freedoms and limits the government in their ability to interfere with those freedoms. But determining if something is consistent with its laws is anything but simple.

Full disclosure, I am no constitutional scholar. Outside of a government class I took in high school, I have had no other official constitutional teachings or classes. My understanding of the constitution is only in its very beginning stages. I have read it and do know/understand the basic fundamentals of it. But deciding if a specific topic or person is consistent with its purpose is a complicated process I am new at, and learning as I go.

So far, the observations and experiences I have had with studying the Constitution have taught me one important thing. The Constitution may have been written to say one thing, but it is often “read” to say another. This has been true from the very moment it was written. Claiming to believe “All Men are Created Equal”, while also defining the right to trade and own people like a commodity.

The Founding Fathers, as well intentioned as they were, wrote into law the protection of basic and fundamental rights, while then denying those rights to a portion of the population at the same time. Luckily, the Founding Fathers were ahead of their time and knew amendments to the constitution would need to be made as the nation grew and intellectual capabilities expanded.

The point I want to stop and make here is this, just because I am evaluating a topic based on its adherence to the Constitution, doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with it because it does. History shows us the accepted way is not always the right way. Adhering to the Constitution and adhering to what is right/moral can be at odds with one another. A lesson we were shown from the very beginning of its creation. In fact, this is why Adheres to the Constitution is my second principle, behind Respects Human Life.

The Constitution might not have been perfect when it was written, but its plan for governance has lead to the creation of a system like no other. A system that is designed to limit those in power. A system that is designed to fight for each person’s individual rights as well as cater to the will of the collective. Unfortunately though, no system is free from corruption. Especially not corruption that comes in the pursuit of power. Power does not like to be limited and the Constitution is designed to do just that. Because of this, it is continuously under attack.

The biggest power we have as Americans is our constitutional protected right to Freedom of Speech. This right is so important to our freedom, it is constantly a target. The highly polarized and tribal like political environment today is ripe for attacks on freedom of speech. People simply do not want to hear from someone with an opposing view anymore. It can become such a trigger for them, they openly advocate to take away the right of their “opponent” to say, believe, or think the way they do. Most importantly, they forget our greatest influence in protecting our own right to our opinion, is to protect, with the utmost importance, the right to the opinions of those who disagree with us.

Anytime a proposed law, politician, government policy, or anything at all stands against or tries to limit our right to free speech, it should send up an immediate Red Flag. Of course no one would ever step forward and proclaim.. “I am against the right of Freedom of Speech”. Instead, attacks on this right are typically sold to be in pursuit of a perceived greater good.

Even in todays digital world where we have access to information from around the world available to us in seconds, our rights to free speech are increasingly being limited. Globally speaking, steps backward toward a more controlled and limited form of free speech are becoming more dominate. Leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have both taken drastic steps to censor social media and control local media outlets. Those with opposing or perceived “radical” views are often jailed or worse.

Locally, cries for censorship on social media are becoming more and more common. Anything deemed “offensive” must go. Alex Jones is outcasted because he was “offensive”. Small and independent news outlets have their pages suddenly disappear, they were “offensive”. Women showing pictures of themselves breastfeeding, can’t have that, its “offensive”. Your opinion on abortion, whatever it is, guess what.. to someone, it’s “offensive”. The problem with “offensive” is, it’s way too subjective of a term. It means something completely different to almost everyone.

Once we start down the path to non-offensive speech, it is only a matter of time before speech pertaining to our government is deemed “offensive”. Once we lose our right to petition the government with our freedom of speech, we have lost our freedoms all together. This is the reality for a large part of the world. And sadly, America is not far from joining them.

The constitutional protected 1st Amendment of Free Speech will be the start of every assessment. The Founding Fathers placed it at the top for a reason. The Amendments that follow are all just as important and also commonly under attack. In my lifetime so far, Citizens United has been the biggest ugliest attack on our Constitution yet. I look forward to spending a whole post on this.

Abiding by the Constitution is my number two principle for many reasons, most importantly though, it sets the groundwork for the beliefs our Country was founded on. It is far too important of a topic to not be considered every time you are forming your opinion on any political topic. I look forward to continuing the discussions laid out in this post and to explore other topics and their relationships with the Constitution in later posts.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share these thoughts with the world. Should you find yourself here, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions as part of an open and respectful dialogue aimed at gaining a better understanding of ourselves and of one another.