◼ The safeguard against government intrusion is a return to the Founding document - Ben Carson/Washington Times
Earlier this summer, I managed to perplex, perhaps even offend, a famous TV interviewer when I declared I wanted a federal government that followed the U.S. Constitution. Seemingly aghast, the interviewer went so far as to suggest my position was a “highly charged thing to say.”
Imagine that. A journalist who, owing to the Constitution, has the right to report freely and to speak freely, being uncomfortable to hear a fellow American swear allegiance to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers’ vision of a limited central government....
How do we reverse this creeping despair that we have drifted too far away from our founding principles? It’s simple. I think we must go back to the source of our great American experiment — the U.S. Constitution. In a little more than 4,500 words, the Framers created a vision of government that preserved liberty first and foremost and yet found a way to serve the basic needs of a republic. For 200 years, that document guided this great nation through dark times and soaring success. For most of our history, schoolchildren were taught the guiding principles of the Constitution from the earliest age, and even members of Congress with controversial civil rights histories such as the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia kept a copy of that great document in their jacket pocket to remind them of the responsibilities and limits of governance.
On this Constitution Day, a wonderful holiday created with bipartisan support just a few short years ago, let’s recommit ourselves to rereading and appreciating our Constitution and ensuring that our children and our children’s children grow up with the same appreciation we were given. Familiarity with the greatest ideas ever created for preserving liberty will breed appreciation. Appreciation will help us all overcome the ignorant political correctness of a few media elites and governing officials who seem to dismiss the fundamental principles of a government that respected liberty first and foremost.
