When the US Constitution was ratified by the 13 original states in the union to be, the Bill of Rights was not included because of disagreements among the states. After our Constitution was drafted by 39 delegates representing the 13 colonies,now called states or commonwealths,much more was required to establish our Constitution as the foundation of a government "by, for, and of the people".
Today, most of us do not realize that the Constitution and particularly specific Amendments in first ten, referred to as the Bill of Rights, were added by Congress nearly 3 years after the Constitution was ratified.The 39 educated and pioneering founders and framers could not agree on adding a Bill of Rights because of strong differences of opinion. They left this task to the Congress after it first convened in 1789. Two years later Congress ratified the first ten amendments, our nation's Bill of Rights. The progression from the drafting of the Constitution until ratification and inclusion of the Bill of Rights took approximately 15 years from the Declaration of Independence to the final inclusion of the Bill of Rights. Our nation's foundation was created, and the world's first experiment of government based upon the peoples ability to exercise reason and truth was established.
The Federalist's who opposed the constitution, led by Alexander Hamilton, believed that such a form of governance was futile and unworkable because the general population was stupid and ignorant and could not be trusted nor were they capable to govern. Thomas Jefferson, who was neither a Federalist nor did he call himself an anti-Federalist, realized that this new form of government was premised upon the belief that reason and truth could prevail, but he admitted that this was an experiment. It was the first experiment of its kind in the recorded history of humankind on Earth.
Today, I believe that we are on the brink of destroying this grand experiment, known as democracy. We are no longer capable of exercising reason and truth and necessary according to Jefferson for establishing a true democracy. Can a significant fraction of our people reason or distinguish lies from truth when so many barely graduate from high school and many drop out and are essentially totally uneducated? Can we be expected to apply reason and truth to the solution of problems when even higher education has become degraded by overspecialization and trade school mentality?
The 39 original founders and the early Congress were problem solvers who were capable of applying reason and truth since they were all educated and very literate. If we had to start drafting a Constitution now it would take at least a century and probably be resolved by another Civil War. We are now a largely illiterate, unreasonable, and untruthful population of lemmings who grasp at lies as truth and have lost whatever reasoning power we once had as a nation. Where has reason and truth gone? Without these two vital cornerstones our Nation's grand experiment is doomed to collapse. Can we rebuild these essential cornerstones or is collapse inevitable?
1 comment:
Gradually, and ever so slowly, like the Polar ice-cap melting away, we are losing our democratic way of life. The American citizen is less free today than he was fifty years ago. His privacy has been invaded, and he can no longer be safe in his own home from the ravages of the outside world. Yes....our way of life is collapsing and will ultimately end "not with a bang, but with a whimper."
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