Editorial:
From
Ignorance
to
Tyranny
9/04/98
A poll released this week by the National Constitution Center found that the vast majority of American young people, aged 13-17, are woefully uninformed about their government. This would be worrisome in any case, but in a representative democracy whose leaders have shown over the past several years a willingness to trade constitutional principles for political expediency, it could well portend disaster. While nearly three of every four teens could identify Al Gore as the Vice President, the same percentage could not name even one right enumerated in the fifth amendment, and only two percent of the 600 teens queried could identify James Madison as the "father of the constitution" or William Rehnquist as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Constitution of the United States of America was written for the purpose of limiting the power of government and making it accountable to the governed. This notion, that the governed ought be concerned with, and in control of, the actions of government, was not predicated upon some set of circumstances particular to the time; in fact it was based upon a deep understanding of both human nature and power itself. And the truths that applied then have not changed in the intervening 200 years, nor are they likely to change in the thousand to come. But no constitution, nor any written protection against tyranny no matter how old or how revered in the abstract, can ever protect the inalienable rights of men and women unless those men and women are watching closely over those given the privilege of power. And in order to be watchful, one must certainly understand that which is being watched. Not just for a single generation, but for time immemorial. It is therefore the sacred responsibility of each generation to teach its successors not only about the primacy of liberty and of the sacrifices made by their forefathers to achieve it, but about the mechanisms of government itself and of the terrifying ease with which that liberty, so hard won, can be lost again. But teaching citizens, much less teenagers, about the inherent corruptibility of power and the dangers of allowing it to operate outside of the strict supervision of the governed, is not in the interest of those doing the governing. And in case you are tempted to believe that I overstate the case, or that I misjudge the character of those whom we have elected, I invite you to try a little experiment. Call your elected official, your congressional representative will do nicely, and posit the following: "Hello madam legislator, I am a member of your constituency and I am troubled about my child's education in the public school as it relates to the United States and its government. I am a patriotic American you see, with a long and proud family tradition of military service, and I want very much to know if you believe that our young men and women should be taught to trust, or to distrust our government?" Listen closely to the answer that you get. Is it the same one that our founders would have given? Our kids, the ones who cannot identify their constitutional rights, are growing up in an America where, thanks largely to the Drug War, such niceties are increasingly becoming irrelevant. Drug-sniffing dogs roam their schools; curfew laws forbid their appearance in public for all but a few hours between the end of the school day and the onset of night; doors are kicked in as a matter of course based upon the flimsiest of evidence obtained from the shadiest of characters; property is seized upon mere suspicion of wrongdoing; private, consensual conduct is widely banned; the military is deployed domestically; the chemical composition of one's urine or blood or hair is the business of the state; purveyors of the arts and of entertainment are beseeched by the government to parrot the accepted ideology; citizens who have never harmed a soul save themselves sit in cages for long years with no discretion allowed the sentencing judge; children are urged, directly and indirectly, to turn in their parents; patients are forbidden their choice of treatment, their doctors threatened, spied upon and harassed; juries are forbidden from learning that they have the right to disregard the law if they feel that the outcome under its dictates would offend justice; and politicians and bureaucrats continuously urge that we, the people, give them even greater power so that they might protect us from each other. But who will protect us from them? The constitution is but a yellowing piece of paper without a citizenry engaged and informed enough to demand that its principles be adhered to. Look where we are. And look at the ignorance of large numbers of the generation to follow. Can we honestly say that things will get better? If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, is the legacy that we are leaving our children rich enough to afford it? Or have we squandered the fortunes won and left to us by generations before, leaving our progeny doomed to oppression and want? Tyranny comes cheap. To earn it, one need only turn away. Adam J. Smith
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