America
Constitutional or Militarist
by
Rodney J. Marshall
by Rodney J. Marshall
"Gen.
Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon
of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution
will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government."
~
Interview
John O. Edwards, NewsMax.com Friday, Nov. 21, 2003
The
day the United States of America discards the Constitution, America
ceases to be America. The militarization of America would betray
every American and any public figure that does not condemn it flirts
with treason. True citizens of the land of the free and the home
of the brave must resist the hubris of generals and politicians
that would steal the liberties they are sworn and paid to defend.
But do Americans understand the meaning of liberty and justice for
all? When the twenty-first century American cries FREEDOM he may
sound like Mel in plaid but only because he experienced it in the
theatre not because of his understanding of and passion for the
inestimable right of self-government. Traditional Americans that
understand will stand up for real American liberty and oppose a
military government as un-American.
Tradition
When
a traditional American cries, "FREEDOM" he cries out consistent
with the founder’s original intent of liberty under God, an idea
that is virtually unknown to his modernist counterpart. The traditionalist
knows America is not presently functioning as the constitutional
republic designed by the framers but he will never give up that
ideal to statists. The traditionalist stands for noble principles
based on unchanging truth inherited from his fathers while the modernist
seeks to guard his material comfort without regard to this inheritance.
The modern American whimpers for defense of his personal peace and
prosperity and will purchase it with his freedom. No matter how
much testosterone is pumping while a modern screams for militarization
he is not thinking or behaving as an American.
The
framers of the American republic understood from historical figures
like Augustine what kind of country would be necessary for the preservation
of liberty. When Augustine explained the nature of a country to
Roman readers of the fifth century in City
of God he explained that for a people to become a civil
body beyond a family they must develop concord or unity. A country
is not simply a political-geographic boundary circumscribing whatever
and whoever dwells therein. Rome became Rome when each family took
its individual family god and figuratively placed it in a pantheon
with the gods of other families thereby producing a sort of religious
concord or at least a form of religion and agreement beyond the
family hearth. Later Rome literally gathered all the gods of conquered
peoples into The Pantheon in Rome. They sought to enforce concord
through an artificial polytheistic religion held commonly by all
Romans. In addition to shared gods they commonly held a set of folk
values later referred to as civil virtues. Livy popularized these
in his moral histories. Rome had achieved a form of concord no matter
how imperfect. The framers sought to establish union in the light
of the Augustinian idea of concord.
However,
Augustine further posited that in order to have true concord a civil
body politic must have justice. Rome could have defined justice
in terms of its civic virtues during the height of the Republic.
However even under the Republic a large portion of Rome consisted
of slaves and was ruled by an aristocracy consumed by its self-interest.
After the Republic fell justice was defined in terms of the Emperor.
Even under Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "good emperors,"
Christians were brutally persecuted and the slaves were oppressed.
Rome never did define justice in terms of written constitutional
law. Augustine concluded that Rome was never a City because it never
really exercised justice in the biblical sense. The American framers
understood the need for justice to enjoy unity.
The
United States of America
 The
American Constitution defines the United States of America as union
for the purpose of establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility,
providing for the common defense and preserving liberty for its
people and their posterity. The traditionalist interprets the goals
or principles of the American republic in terms of the original
definitions or original intent of the Constitution. The commentary
offered below is consistent with that intent and describes unifying
principles of concord worth defending to the death. If America would
return to these founding principles not only would she reject a
military form of government, but she would bind herself with cords
so tight no enemy could tear them apart.
The
Constitution of the United States of America
We
the People of the United States, in order to:
- form a
more perfect union
The
Americans that framed the Constitution designed a union or concord
more perfected than that under the Articles of Confederation.
They did not mean a powerful centralized nation-state but rather
a union of free states under God with a federal government with
strictly enumerated and limited powers. They agreed the federal
government was designed to establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general
welfare to secure the blessings of liberty under God. This limited
constitutional republic was to leave all other functions to the
states and the people as clarified in the Bill of Rights in the
tenth amendment. Over time modernists have redefined perfect union
to mean an absolute centralized nation-state. The framers sought
most ardently to avoid such centralization after grinding under
the absolute and totalitarian monarchy of George. Union based
on concord over certain limited governing needs was to provide
a land of exceptional liberty. I wonder if General Franks would
surrender this kind of a Constitutional government. A military
form of government must be resisted in our public discourse to
defend America no matter who advocates such a monstrous idea.
-
establish
justice
Apparently
the framers understood justice in the Augustinian sense since
it followed union or concord as the second purpose of the United
States Constitution just as it followed concord in City of
God. But Justice must be understood in the language of the
day to motivate Americans to defend it against those that forfeit
it to militarize the state.
Justice
is "The virtue which consists in giving to every one
what is his due; practical conformity to the laws and to principles
of rectitude in the dealings of men with each other; honesty;
integrity in commerce or mutual intercourse. Justice is distributive
or commutative. Distributive justice belongs to magistrates or
rulers, and consists in distributing to every man that right or
equity which the laws and the principles of equity require; or
in deciding controversies according to the laws and to principles
of equity. Commutative justice consists in fair dealing in trade
and mutual intercourse between man and man." (Webster’s 1828)
This
justice precluded arbitrary judgments by the Federal government
against the states and the people. It precluded the federal government
from confiscating from some (excessive taxation) in order to redistribute
arbitrarily to others while creating a privileged class inconsistent
with the principles of equity. Nor would Justice permit forced
common support of ventures requiring unjust acts by the agents
of the state in foreign lands. If justice can be redefined then
the powers of the state can be redefined as well. Today justice
might be defined in terms of central commercial or political priorities
rather than equity for the states and the people. True Justice
is worth defending so a military state and its advocates must
be resisted to defend America.
-
insure
domestic tranquility
Under
the Constitution the federal government is required to prevent
states or factions from warring against or committing criminal
acts against another state, faction, business or person thus trampling
their liberties. This provision did not envision and does not
allow for a centralized state to encroach on the rights or within
the jurisdiction of an individual state or section. Alexander
Hamilton clearly argued that individual rights should be protected
by the individual’s state. Even so, Patrick Henry argued for a
Bill of Rights to protect individual rights from the historic
impulse of government encroachment.
However,
now in many parts of America our own citizens fear to walk the
streets of our cities because of a lack of domestic tranquility.
The innocents are killed daily without protection because a Federal
court overrode state laws against abortion. Naturally born or
naturalized citizens should expect the shores and borders of the
USA to be secured. Instead of securing our geographic border the
federal government has used the US military to extend and defend
limitless commercial borders for the profit of limited mostly
corporate and global business interests. The US does need domestic
tranquility so our wives and daughters and the weak and the unborn
can live in the land of the free while protected in the home of
the brave. A military form of government is not needed to accomplish
this purpose. Rather, America needs a government that comes home
and does it job as articulated in the Constitution rather than
squandering its inheritance in limitless actions abroad.
-
provide
for the common defense
COMMON,
adj 2. Belonging to the public; having no separate owner. The
right to a highway is common. 3. General; serving for the use
of all; as the common prayer. (Webster’s 1828)
DEFENSE,
n. 1. Any thing that opposes attack, violence, danger or injury;
any thing that secures the person, the rights or the possessions
of men; fortification; guard; protection; security. A wall, a
parapet, a ditch, or a garrison, is the defense of a city or fortress.
The Almighty is the defense of the righteous. Ps. 1ix. (Webster’s
1828)
The
states needed and still need to bind themselves together to defend
the union or even a state or section within that union from outside
attack from nation states or from terrorists. The perspectives
of the age would have hearkened to the Augustinian concept of
Just War for a doctrine of defense. This concept of defensive
warfare prevents the federal government from waging offensive
or preemptive war, conquering or occupying and controlling foreign
nations, interfering in civil wars and disputes of foreign nations
or focusing her military might on defending the commercial interests
of some while exposing the whole USA and its descending generations
to the ire of billions. The Federal government is rather required
to provide for the preservation or defense of the union as a whole.
It does mean to control the shores and borders from illegal penetration
and immigration. It does mean to provide an effective defense
from the attack of foreign powers. It does mean to assure the
peace of its states and its citizens. The American military must
be redesigned as the finest defensive military organization in
the world rather than the most threatening offensive military
ever seen in the history of warfare. Our resources must be used
to defend ourselves from other nation-states and terrorists, while
closing our borders from illegal permeation, and insuring domestic
tranquility for our own citizens. If this is accomplished a military
form of government would never be considered. We need a major
realignment of the purpose of the military or that military might
be used against us and become the state itself as described by
General Franks.
-
promote
the general welfare
Promoting
the general welfare did not and does not mean favoritism for a
particular state or section or promotion of a particular industry,
ethnicity, group or individual over others but that welfare general
to all the states as a union that allows the people in those states
to enjoy the blessings of liberty. The general welfare does not
give license to create an elitist welfare super-state through
unjust taxation and redistribution of wealth for purposes defined
by a few. If the tax-and-spend democrats and republicans would
back off and allow Americans to control their own wealth rather
than spend it for us American would regain the inestimable right
to self-government intrinsic to its original purpose.
-
and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity
The
blessings of liberty are best defined in terms of the original
intent of the word and its limited enumeration in the Bill of
Rights.
LIB'ERTY,
n. [L. libertas, from liber, free.]
1.
Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to
the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty, when
not confined; the will or mind is at liberty, when not checked
or controlled. A man enjoys liberty, when no physical force
operates to restrain his actions or volitions.
2.
Natural liberty, consists in the power of acting as one thinks
fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws
of nature. It is a state of exemption from the control of others,
and from positive laws and the institutions of social life.
This liberty is abridged by the establishment of government.
3.
Civil liberty, is the liberty of men in a state of society,
or natural liberty, so far only abridged and restrained, as
is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the
society, state or nation. A restraint of natural liberty, not
necessary or expedient for the public, is tyranny or oppression.
Civil liberty is an exemption from the arbitrary will of others,
which exemption is secured by established laws, which restrain
every man from injuring or controlling another. Hence the restraints
of law are essential to civil liberty.
The
liberty of one depends not so much on the removal of all restraint
from him, as on the due restraint upon the liberty of others.
In
this sentence, the latter word liberty denotes natural liberty.
4.
Political liberty is sometimes used as synonymous with civil
liberty. But it more properly designates the liberty of a nation,
the freedom of a nation or state from all unjust abridgment
of its rights and independence by another nation. Hence we often
speak of the political liberties of Europe, or the nations of
Europe.
5.
Religious liberty, is the free right of adopting and enjoying
opinions on religious subjects, and of worshiping the Supreme
Being according to the dictates of conscience, without external
control. (Webster’s 1828)
do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.
Now
that is the definition of an America and American liberty worth
fighting to defend to the very last breath. We bear the responsibility
to rescue and defend civil and religious liberties so that we can
pass them on as an inheritance to our children. John Adams said
that he understood he had to behave like a soldier so that his sons
could secure the liberty for their sons to enjoy art and culture.
Now this liberty seems be defined as the profligate life of dissipation
that produces men so insipid they would give up the liberty of their
posterity for peace and prosperity in their own day.
What
is America Today?
America
stands for something much different today. The thin folk life of
Americans pursues personal peace and prosperity for all, while its
elite seek economic domination. Both lead to the absolute rule of
the central nation-state. This is not your forefather’s America
but it is the one we live in today.
- Personal
peace and prosperity. True liberty is easily forfeited by those
inclined to make a commitment to such a thin dogma as the temporary
pleasures of consumerism. To the materialist or hedonist consumer
this time-space world is prime reality. Death brings only the
cessation of personality not eternal bliss in the presence of
the Father who is the judge of all. So why not die with the
most toys or less competitively simply enjoy the pleasures of
the moment. The unthinking evangelical just passing through
this world waiting to be plucked out before things really get
bad has no more reason to stand for the principles of liberty
than the secular materialist or the hedonist. Therefore eat
drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Never mind how the next
generation will live. After all, a people characterized by the
murder of the unborn, covenant breaking in marriage and commercial
life and hedonism of all kinds does not care about the next
generation. They will donate their minds to the state and use
the money saved for the pleasure of a boat or a ski trip now.
They will incur unfathomable personal and national debt leaving
it rather than the blessings of liberty to their posterity.
They will fight war abroad where people of a different race
or creed can die rather than defending American shores where
the insipid consumer would quickly cave rather than stand and
fight. Standing for such chivalrous principles as those articulated
in the preamble above does not fit the new American profile.
Americans will easily forfeit civil and religious liberty of
the sort defended by our forefathers because they are a completely
different people. In the end these new Americans are not Americans.
They are gladly the tax paying pawns of others that benefit
from their cowardice.
- Socio-political
and economic domination to profit those holding the reigns of
power and controlling the markets drives an elite. However,
true liberty will also be forfeited by those able to benefit
from the temporary abuse of power. The ethos of true liberty
does not live for self. Eventually even the elite who control
the reigns of power for selfish ends will also be devoured by
the monstrous nation-state they have created for temporal benefit.
- The powerful
supra-national-state. While the powerful state defends American
consumerism and the temporary control of elitists the absolute
state may become an end in itself. As it has been said, power
corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The history
of the world is replete with examples of absolute states that
no longer existed for the benefit of the people. Whether one
looks to Rome where the cult of the emperor superceded even
The Pantheon or corrupted absolute monarchies, or the totalitarian
régimes of the twentieth century the perceptive will
realize this truth. This state will not secure the blessings
of liberty because it redefines liberty in terms of its own
preservation. Only where a free people under God govern themselves
can the impulse for growth of the super state be thwarted. Those
were the first American and they are the true Americans today.
Those
forfeiting true liberty for a state-preserved personal peace and
prosperity or to support powerful multinational businesses for temporal
gain are too blinded by their own desires to see that their new
god cannot protect them any more than Brutus and Cassius could save
the Republic. It was too late to preserve the Republic because the
people and the institutions that built that Republic no longer held
its virtues. They had long since become rotten apples fallen from
the tree good for nothing but the cider press. Most Americans are
no different.
However
in the aftermath of Rome’s fall Christendom arose and therein lays
another and better chapter for us. Eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty. The education of our posterity in the principles of
liberty for the glory of God and the good of mankind will produce
servants of God to continue such vigilance. Our best days lie ahead.
Now that’s worth living for. That’s also worth dying for.
March
12, 2004
Rodney
J. Marshall [send
him mail] is President of Coram
Deo Academy.
Copyright
© 2004 LewRockwell.com
|
