A Constitution of Convenience

By William L. Garvin

There is a curious awakening among the radical left in this country. After years of assaulting the U.S. Constitution as an outdated and outmoded document, after years of impugning the character and wisdom of the Founding Fathers, they are now expressing a newly discovered appreciation for constitutional content. Do not be fooled; their socialist goals remain unchanged. In true Alinsky Rules for Radicals tradition, they are merely abandoning personal principle for a short term political gain.

There are two obvious and transparent examples of their hypocrisy. First is their newly found appreciation of our Founding Fathers wisdom in creating freedom of religion. For years, leftist forces have done their best to eradicate formalized religion and ban any religious reference from public life. The ACLU and their complicit minions have attempted to expand “freedom of religion” to “freedom from religion” which, for all intents and purposes, promotes atheism. They continually file costly and time consuming lawsuits to ban prayer in school, ban the Pledge of Allegiance, ban the words “In God We Trust” from our currency, ban the Ten Commandments from our courthouses, nativity scenes and even the word “Christmas”!

Now they are zealously trumpeting freedom of religion in regard to the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. The GZM has never been a question of a right under the Constitution; it has always been a question of propriety. Leftist thinkers in the media aid in this distortion by highlighting anti-Muslim activity but ignore the fact that there is much greater anti-Semitic hate crime. Several years back, they were highlighting the burning of black churches all the while ignoring the burning of white churches. This is not accidental.

They deliberately try to build a moral equivalency between disparate events. For instance, they like to build a false premise that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was a “Christian terrorist.” Actually, he was a self professed agnostic and said “Science is my religion.” Other than taking last rites prior to execution, a cynical attempt to hedge his bets, he had no substantive connection to Christianity. Furthermore, there is no Biblical justification for his actions. In short, it is another leftist canard used as a basis to 1) slander Christianity, and 2) build a false moral equivalency, to wit: they didn’t ban Christian churches from Oklahoma City so they shouldn’t ban Muslim mosques from New York City. This is pure intellectual dishonesty based on outright lies and results in extremely shoddy propaganda. It’s rubbish.

The second area of blatant hypocrisy is the left’s new adoration of the 14th Amendment in relation to both gay marriage and birthright citizenship. Radicals have for years fostered a concept favored by leftist judges of a “living Constitution” that should be modernized along the lines of “international law” and “contemporary morals and mores.” Again, this is a pattern of assault against the Judeo-Christian values and the influence they had on the framers of our Constitution.

Leftist thinking now seems to exalt the brilliance of the writers of the Constitution in demanding equal treatment for all in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. This of course means that the traditional definition of marriage should be expanded to include same sex couples (and such other combinations as a permissive and “non-judgmental” society will likely condone down the road). The mantra is everyone should be treated the same. However, they have no problem confiscating increasingly larger amounts of private property via a graduated income tax. They have no problem advocating “tax cuts” to those who paid no taxes in the first place. These rebates are nothing more than shameless bribes but such is the modus operandi of this particular Congress. In their radical lunacy, they have no problem with inconsistently advocating for keeping the Bush tax cuts for the middle class but allowing them to expire for those who make more than $250,000 per year.

Leftists also conveniently drop the international law comparison when it comes to birthright citizenship since no European country has such a practice. The only thing that is consistent with leftists is their situational inconsistency. Their “born again” reverence for the Constitution is one of convenience not of principle. Expect them to continue their assault on Judeo-Christian values and the family unit in their pursuit of a socialist utopia. It’s the “passive revolution” that Gramsci Marxists and Alinsky acolytes are weaving. They are persistent, opportunistic and they believe their end justifies their means. Be vigilant.