A New Constitution for a Nation in Ruins
If you won’t serve America, don’t presume to steer it
From the files, c. 2030…
Greetings from the world’s worst-kept-secret location, where we labor grimly to revise poor old America. I’ve sworn not to report from here, our mission is so hush-hush, so when I’m done I’ll push Save instead of Send. That way I can imagine I’ve been heard and understood, which is most of a writer’s paltry pay. At best our words are a crummy translation of our thoughts: words, like clothes, both disclose and disguise what they hide. But we keep hoping for that eventual eager reader who might interpret our words curiously, with an open mind. “What was this guy trying to say?”
I’m not sure why they invited me to attend the Second Constitutional Convention. I guess I checked off boxes – white, male, old, has pondered these questions, was loathed by the late unlamented Nameless One. The real honchos here are those with worldly, not wordly power. Every delegate promotes their selfish interest while insisting it’s the common interest. Maybe I do too, unwittingly. I keep dreaming of the first Constitution’s “more perfect union” and how to get there. It’s impossible, of course, but we’ve got to try.
The problem with the old United States is it performed too well. For two and a quarter centuries this jalopy rumbled along, outpacing all competitors. We won wars, gobbled our neighbors, got rich, innovated to beat the band. America performed so reliably we quit paying attention to her, assuming she was indestructible. Our first Constitution’s framers knew this new form of government was a dicey proposition, so they did all they could to build it right. And what a job they did – only twenty-seven Amendments in all those years, seventeen really, because the first ten, the Bill of Rights, were really an eighth article appended to the initial seven. The wonder is not that the framers got things wrong – they weren’t Merlin – but that they got so much right.
What they failed to foresee was the eventual neglect of their beloved ideal. Sure, folks sang songs and flew flags, but few understood or cared about the golden goose that had laid all these golden eggs. We the people were like the great-grandchildren of founders of great fortunes: the wealth had always been there, why worry?
The fox awaits its chance to invade the henhouse, as any farmer knows. The rapacious rich – a tautology, I fear – saw their opportunity to steal good old America by taking advantage of its citizenry’s ignorance and distraction. Poor stupid Americans elected their destroyer as their savior. How could we have been so foolish, many wondered. “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” Mencken supposedly quipped.
Our revised America, in my view, should be directed by its participants: call it a “participatory democracy.” To drive a car, you need a license. Ditto, to drive a democracy. And you must demonstrate your devotion to our nation by serving it – as a soldier, candidate, volunteer, teacher, voter – by involving yourself. Town board meetings are seldom boffo entertainment, trust me, no match for Netflix, but if you’ve never attended one, how can you understand how we make laws and maintain order? In the anguished words of a great American playwright, “Attention must be paid!” America is not an E/R, available when we need it, but our home, which requires constant vigilance and maintenance. If you don’t want to serve America, no problem, enjoy its privileges and protections, but don’t presume to steer us!
That’s my two cents, which folks here smile at because I’m old, but hey, I’ve had my say.
Jalopy was a word I first read in a Hardy Boys book and I thought it was a brand name of a car. Funny how a word can awaken a memory from fifty plus years ago!
I help a Chinese student with conversational English. I was explaining to him how in the U.S. anyone can be in the government without any relevant education or experience. He was shocked because in China with its Confucian heritage, government service is highly revered and one has to prepare and be tested by peers before entering government service and assuming power.
He was also shocked when I explained that many Americans do not trust nor respect their government to the point of electing political leaders tasked with destroying it. Selfish libertarianism is a totally foreign concept to collective Confucian cultures. Perhaps the founding fathers doomed us from the start by using the populist revolution as our national foundation.