September 17 is Constitution Day. Today, we celebrate 223rd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) are holding a Constitution Week from today, September 17 through the 23. Constitution Week was actually adopted by the U.S. Congress and made Public Law 915 on August 2, 1955. President Eisenhower signed the act into law, that was advocated by the DAR. My, how times have changed.
Once a revered document of Liberty, the Constitution has been beaten up over the years. Many people, like President Obama, think of it not as means to secure freedom, but as a restriction on what government can do. Nancy Pelosi was recently asked if a piece of legislation was Constitutional and she responded by thinking the question was a joke. As if the Constitution had no meaning or relevance anymore. She’s not alone, as other Congressmen and women have also made statements the past 2 years that Congress can do what ever it wants regardless of the Constitution.
But one group of citizens have recently begun wearing the Constitution on their sleeves. The Tea Party movement has spurred a resurgence in the study and respect for the U.S. Constitution. So much so that the Liberal Media, and even Progressives in law enforcement, consider anybody who carries or quotes from the Constitution a crazy kook or a potential terrorist.
I often think of the old, original ‘Star Trek’ episode, “The Omega Glory”, where Captain Kirk enlightens the leaders of the Yang Tribe that the Constitution was not meant solely for chieftains. “Look at these first three words, written larger than the rest. With a special pride never written before or since. Tall words, proudly saying WE THE PEOPLE…” Even Kirk knew that the Constitution was meant for every citizen to know and cherish.
The Tea Party has been lighting a fire under the feet of our political class, reminding them how the Constitution is supposed to limit the power and authority of our government. It is not a floor mat nor an ink blob. The Constitution is the Law of the Land, and must be respected by everyone, especially by members of our government.
So hats off to the Tea Party and the Daughters of the American Revolution for celebrating Constitution Day and Constitution Week. Shame on those who think it’s a ‘negative rights’ document or even totally irrelevant this day and age. The Constitution is immortal, because We The People are also immortal. We’re not going anywhere and we’re not going to allow the Constitution to be trampled upon.
Related Articles:
What’s today? It’s Constitution Day
We the People: Constitution turns 223 years old
September 17th, 2010 at 7:02 am
Need I remind you that “The Constitution” was a PROGRESSIVE idea at the time the founding fathers wrote it. It “is” and “never” was a “CONSERVATIVE idea”.
September 17th, 2010 at 7:24 am
Need I remind you that “The Constitution” was a PROGRESSIVE idea at the time the founding fathers wrote it.
“Progressive” meaning revolutionary and forward-thinking, sure. It doesn’t contain a whiff of movement progressivism though. The Constitution is pure classical liberalism, which today is called libertarianism in America.
Nancy Pelosi was recently asked if a piece of legislation was Constitutional and she responded by thinking the question was a joke.
Pretty pathetic for someone who actually takes an oath to “uphold the Constitution”. This is why judicial “activism” doesn’t bother me; because enforcing the Constitution has somehow become “activist”. The judicial branch is the only one of our three branches that still actually takes our Constitution seriously.
By the way, I hope the people who are all high and mighty about the Constitution are as bothered by the Drug War and the PATRIOT Act as they are the deficit and the TARP bailouts. Otherwise, they are selectively defending the Constitution, which is just as bad as what everyone else is doing.
September 17th, 2010 at 8:35 am
[...] See the article here: Constitution Day Celebration – Right Pundits [...]
September 17th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Jeff Lawton is right.
Constitution Day was the cause of Democrat Robert Byrd to remind people of what the Constitution actually says (as opposed to what many want it to say).
So much so that the Liberal Media, and even Progressives in law enforcement, consider anybody who carries or quotes from the Constitution a crazy kook or a potential terrorist.
This is more wishful thinking. Constitution Day came from one of the most liberal Senators. It is the conservative kooks who think Christianity is mentioned in the constitution, who think health care is incompatible with the constitution, who have never even read the document.
Thank you for highlighting Robert Byrd’s holiday, and I do hope everyone here actually reads the Constitution today. The discussions would likely shift dramatically once you conservatives realize what’s actually written there.
Incidentally, with all the talk of “elitism” on this site, the membership requirements of “Daughters of the American Revolution” is inherently “elitist”, isn’t it? I’m out of links for this post, but you can go to their site and see– you have to check a “pedigree chart” to make sure that you’re genetically related to an ancestor who fought in the American Revolution. So inclusive!
September 17th, 2010 at 8:52 am
@ Jeff & “Me”
WRONG AGAIN! The Constitution was a “Liberal” idea in the classical sense of “Liberalism”, which in Europe is known as Liberal and in America known as Conservative politics.
Madison was clearly leaning far more towards ‘Jeffersonian Liberalism’, i.e., small-limited government, than any other political philosophy.
September 17th, 2010 at 8:55 am
[...] Visit site: Constitution Day Celebration – Right Pundits [...]
September 17th, 2010 at 8:57 am
@ “Me”
Robert Byrd is one of the most “liberal” senators??? Talk about revisionist history! I suppose in that he was a former member of the K%K that he was “Progressive” since he believed in racial and ethnic purity and eugenics.
September 17th, 2010 at 9:05 am
The Constitution was a “Liberal” idea in the classical sense of “Liberalism”, which in Europe is known as Liberal and in America known as
Conservativelibertatian politics.Fixed that for ya. But yes, it is based on classical liberalism. A quick refresher for those conflating classical liberalism with modern-day movement progressivism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Jeff Lawton is right.
Me, can you name one single clause in the US Constitution that could be described as “progressive” according to the modern-day political meaning? If Jeff is so right, please point out a couple sections to support this thesis.
Again, if you’re using an apolitical definition of “progressive” meaning revolutionary, then sure it’s progressive. But it is certainly not politically or philosophically “progressive” as the term has come to be used.
September 17th, 2010 at 9:05 am
IS IT NOT TIME TO FREE AMERICA FROM OBAMA ISLAMIC MARXIST RULE?IS IT NOT TIME TO BRING AMERICA BACK ON ITS FEET AND PUT REAL AMERICANS IN WHITE HOUSE?IS IT NOT TIME TO CRUSH AGRESSIVE ISLAMIC ACTIVISTS SUBVERSION?
September 17th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Hey there rightpundits,
Excellent post! I am linking to it at teriobrien.com and my wordpress blog conservativewarrior princess.
Can we exchange reciprocal links?
Keep up the great work!
Teri O’Brien
September 17th, 2010 at 9:11 am
@ Rhayader
Thank you, Rhay, I stand corrected and I accept your definition. The truth is that the Constitution is most closely aligned, politically, with Libertarian principles than any other.
September 17th, 2010 at 9:22 am
@ “Me”
As to your complaint about ‘elitist’ and ‘pedigree’ requirements to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, I’ve looked over their requirements and they do not seem all that ‘elitist’ to me. One does need to establish an ancestor whom had served either with the military or with a governmental organization during the Revolutionary War.
http://www.dar.org/natsociety/content.cfm?ID=145&hd=n&FO=Y#service
I wouldn’t necessarily refer to being a descendant of a Minuteman an ‘elitist pedigree’. An ‘honored pedigree’ perhaps.
September 17th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Rhay;
“Progressive” meaning revolutionary and forward-thinking, sure. It doesn’t contain a whiff of movement progressivism though. The Constitution is pure classical liberalism, which today is called libertarianism in America.”
Bingo.
cant believe some a-hole actually thinks todays definition of progressivism is what defined the constitution.
“It is the conservative kooks who think Christianity is mentioned in the constitution,”
what a bunch of sht…again.
Find me a quote from anyone on the right who says specifically that Christianity is mentioned in the Constitution.
What your trying to spin is the fact that us on the right believe Judeo Christian values influenced the framers but those values also gave the right to worship or be free from any religion.
“Year of our Lord” is the only reference to Christianity and “lord” itself is debatable. This was simply meant as a dating convention, not some ideological statement.
September 17th, 2010 at 10:22 am
No, the DAR and the Tea Party have nothing in common.
There are some black people in the DAR.
September 17th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Robert Byrd is one of the most “liberal” senators??? Talk about revisionist history! I suppose in that he was a former member of the K%K that he was “Progressive” since he believed in racial and ethnic purity and eugenics.
I was going to write “AND… cue K%K comment…”, but for some reason decided not to. I know as a conservative you probably want to claim his old racist believes… but of course he disavowed any such beliefs and all that nonsense decades ago. But you know that.
So tell me, are you seriously questioning whether or not Byrd was a liberal? Really? Let’s forget his entire voting record, just watch, as I did live, his speech on the eve of the Iraq War.
Constitution Day is a non-partisan holiday we owe to a great liberal senator.
Me, can you name one single clause in the US Constitution that could be described as “progressive” according to the modern-day political meaning? If Jeff is so right, please point out a couple sections to support this thesis.
I don’t think the Constitution is a partisan document, but I do think there are many parts of it that reflect what would today be considered a liberal world-view.
* Separation of powers
* Citizenship to those who are born here.
* The existence of a house of representatives, not just a house of Lords. The people’s house.
* Incentives to promote the useful arts and sciences (OMG! the constitution cares about science!)
Much of it is contained in the bill of rights.
* The right to free speech.
* The right of the people to assemble
* Freedom of the press.
* The prohibition of a national religion.
I could go on and on. These were radical secular, anti-authoritarian concepts. Today you see so-called “liberal” groups– ACLU, Amnesty International, etc. who fight for these ennumerated rights in our country.
What I don’t see the Constitution:
* we’re a christian nation
* gays can’t marry
* we shouldn’t teach science/evolution
* we should have prayer in schools
* corporations can poison and pollute the citizenry without repercussion
* you shouldn’t build mosques near “hallowed ground”
* gays can’t serve in the military
etc. etc.
Again, I’m not saying the Constitution is a liberal document. I was agreeing that at the time of its writing it was certainly progressive as in forward-thinking as in something Glenn Beck would have opposed as being “radical” and anti-God.
September 18th, 2010 at 2:58 am
“Constitution Day is a non-partisan holiday we owe to a great liberal senator.”
Umm, no, we owe the holiday to the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR are the ones who pushed for it.
September 18th, 2010 at 3:05 am
@ “Me”
Speaking of things I do not see in the Constitution:
Health care, Social Security, Medicare, MedicAid, Federal funding of education, student loans, unemployment insurance, food stamps, S-CHIP, the whole War of Drugs, hiring quotas based on race/gender/etc., forcing banks to make bad loans, fighting wars without a formal declaration from Congress (you know, like Korea and Vietnam)….
The list goes on and on…
September 18th, 2010 at 8:18 am
” I was agreeing that at the time of its writing it was certainly progressive as in forward-thinking as in something Glenn Beck would have opposed as being “radical” and anti-God.”
Obviously you’re only listening to the moonbat hacks who try to frame Beck as some kind of zealot.
Hes on record many many times cherishing the religious freedoms the constitution upholds
September 18th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Oh, also, if you’re somehow implying that those who believe in God are not “forward” thinking I suggest you look into where most of the worlds inventions came from. They most certainly did not come from countries like theocratic rules in the middle east or where religion/God is not tolerated such as Cuba, the USSR, or China. More like the USA and Israel.
“The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600302/posts
Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.
The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.
The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis… ”
Those “forward thinking” dudes who wrote our constitution were for the most part, God fearing men.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Umm, no, we owe the holiday to the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR are the ones who pushed for it.
Just look up “Constitution Day”, pretty much anywhere on the net. It was Robert Byrd’s holiday. That’s not even controversial.
I wouldn’t necessarily refer to being a descendant of a Minuteman an ‘elitist pedigree’. An ‘honored pedigree’ perhaps.
(eyeroll).
And for my finale, I’d like to rip micky apart again. Now I have many relatives in Israel and have been there several times. Israel has a lot of very smart people and many things have been invented there…
BUT. I don’t like lying.
There’s an email flying around which credits Israel for a ton of things they didn’t do. You just copy/pasted from that email (reproduced on freerepublic)
I won’t go through every item on the list.. they’re mostly wrong and/or very misleading. But to address just the ones you quoted…
Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.
This is completely untrue. Both were primarily developed in Redmond, Washington in the US. The major architect of NT was Dave Cutler, who worked for Digital Equipment Corporation. NT is a derivative of DEC VMS, an older American operating system. See more about Dave Cutler on Wikipedia.
The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel
Israel does play an integral role in chip design, but Intel chips are designed by global teams located around the world, including Arizona, California, Oregon, and Israel. Blaming the Pentium 4 MMX on Israel, notoriously the crappiest processor line Intel made and the one that caused Intel to decline in market share for the first time in its history, isn’t fair.
Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
It was invented by Gordon Matthews of Plano, Texas in 1979. (http://www.everyvoicemail.com/vm-history.htm. (I have more links to suppor this, but I only get two per posting…)
Here is the patent:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=22&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=Gordon.INZZ.&s2=Matthews.INZZ.&OS=IN/Gordon+AND+IN/Matthews&RS=IN/Gordon+AND+IN/Matthews
Oh, but this says “developed” in Israel. Well, maybe some version of some kind of voice mail technology was developed in Israel at some point. Which can be said for pretty much every country in the world.
Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.
Just google “Microsoft” and “R&D” to see this isn’t true. Microsoft has R&D facilities all over Europe.
The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis…
That’s not true either. You’re thinking of ICQ. The omnipresent AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is not ICQ. They are two separate systems. Since being acquired by AOL, ICQ has fallen out of favor, supplanted by AIM. ICQ was popular for a time and did make significant contributions to online chat, but was predated by many other peer-to-peer Internet messaging systems.
To demonstrate how totally irrelevant who-created-the-IM-system is, compare ICQ with Skype. The Skype IM system, which was developed by engineers in Estonia (21% of the population of Israel) has supplanted ICQ in popularity. It’s encrypted, has VOIP built-in, and is more popular than ICQ ever was. It was bought by eBay for 2.6 billion with targets that would increase the cost to 4.1 billion dollars, as opposed to ICQ’s 287 million purchase price.
Again, I suggest you do some research. But you don’t do that. You are a copy/paste ditto monkey that doesn’t question anything. American “exceptionalism” is self deception, and so is Israeli exceptionalism. We’re not entitled to be exceptional just because we’re Americans. We have to work hard just like the generations before us, and if we bury our heads in the sand and just repeat how great we are all the time, we will eventually have a very rude awakening. America IS the greatest country in the world in many ways, but it’s not by accident or providence. If we don’t react to a rapidly changing and more competitive world, and if we don’t acknowledge our deep problems and paper over it with flags and buttons, we’re screwed.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Oops I missed one:
“The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
No it wasn’t. According to about.com (http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/martin_cooper.htm) and other sites online, the cell phone was first conceived by AT&T in 1947, a year before Israel even became a state. It was finally invented by Martin Cooper for Motorola in New York. (http://www.cellular.co.za/cellphone_inventor.htm)
Motorola’s has 25,000 developers with development centers in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Illinois, India, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Russia ,South Korea, Japan, and yes, Israel.
(http://www.motorola.com/content/0,,6640-9278,00.html) I was unable to ascertain whether Israel’s is actually the largest, although the claim of “largest” doesn’t specify– largest in size? Most employees? Biggest budget? I wouldn’t even know where to begin here.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:40 am
so, basically what you’ve done whether your sources are credible or not, is to reafirm that Chritians and believers in God are in fact very “progressive” “forward thinking” people.
Thank you.
Now, to address your credibility. (Or lack of)
“Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
It was invented by Gordon Matthews ”
This is how you play, like every fcking moonbat out there. You think you can win by changing words or playing pedantic sematics.
Theres a huge fcking difference between “DEVELOPED” and “INVENTED”.
I claimed devolopement.
I am truthful, right.
And you’re wrong
September 18th, 2010 at 10:48 am
” We’re not entitled to be exceptional just because we’re Americans. ‘
Oooh, that gets under my skin.
F.U.C.K. You.
Of course were exceptional, and are entiltled to that much more than you marxist punk thieves who think you’re enitiled to everyones wealth.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:59 am
“BUT. I don’t like lying.’
Then you should refrain from posting.
Or at least realize that you lied when agreeing with Lawton that our consitution was a “progressive” idea. Then Rhayader set you straight and you squirmed and back peddeled like a greasy worm by changing it to “forward thinking ” men of the time and bla bla bla.
The forward thinkers were Christians, like it or not. And by refering all inventions/developements from Israel to the U.S. you only confirmed my point that Christians (U.S. is mostly Christian)forward thinkers are in fact Christians and not just you secular progressive weenies
September 18th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Oooooh Raaaaaah Devildog! “Looking good like you should, ought to be in Hollywood…”