The Dangerous Constitution

As an update to Saturday's post about the NYT asking whether the Constitution is "dangerous," ("And so am I, very dangerous," said Gandalf), a reader on Twitter points out that this has been a constant theme there lately.


Free speech and inquiry are important values, so I don't object to them publishing such things; but by the same token, one should pay attention and take note of it as well.

3 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

To them "Democracy" means "we get to be in charge." I am not just being flip or cynical when I say that. They are so convinced that what they want to do is so much better for everyone, and "protects the rights" of everyone that their rulership would in fact be closer to democracy, even though it would um, technically be a benevolent(ish) dictatorship.

It all becomes clear once you know what they mean by democracy.

E Hines said...

It even runs to the Progressive-Democratic Party's Second Lady wannabe.

Gerald Baker talked about the ex-teacher Gwen Walz' "teacher voice" moment:

It unintentionally captured the Democratic idea of the polity they seek to lead and reshape. It spoke to how they view themselves—and us. They are the teachers, equipped with the knowledge and authority to direct their hapless charges. We are the students, naive and ill-informed, sometimes attentive but too often insubordinate, with minds that need to be shaped and disciplined.

I go a bit farther, which should be no surprise. This is the contempt in which Progressive-Democratic Party politicians and the Left hold us average Americans. It continues the contempt one of the founders of the modern progressive movement had toward us. In Herb Croly's own words:

…the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

I think Tex once said that they want to turn America into the security zone of an airport: only the authorities are armed, everyone else has everything dangerous taken away from them, and you can be arrested at once for raising your voice to an official.

Public schools are run like that too.

I have always argued, since I was myself a public school student, that our public school system is terribly designed for educating a free people. Raising children until they are (almost) 18 in an environment in which their rights are restricted at the whim of government officials, they are punishable for just upsetting those same officials, they are constantly subject to search and seizure without warrants, etc., etc., trains Americans to be exactly the opposite of the free, independent, self-governing citizens we need. The public school system is both corrupt and corrupting.