LETTER: Constitution under attack

America is a nation of individuals, different from one another in what is important. Skin color is only a facade. The framers of the Constitution knew from experience catering to a group or individual’s needs and desires would, over time, destroy America’s social fabric as surely as a Redcoat’s musket ball.

The Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government. It was not written giving courts the power to create and enforce by fiat equal outcomes for a group or individual at the expense of another group or individual, nor reduce America to a Third World country, a la Obama, and sacrifice its culture and Christian roots to make the USA on par with the rest of the world.

America’s system of laws is based on common law and we are a Judeo-Christian nation and our laws are based on that philosophy. Activists courts have appointed themselves stewards and enforcers of “political correctness” to right the wrongs, real or perceived, from America’s distant past and must neuter the Constitution to achieve their agenda.

Thomas Jefferson was concerned the activist U.S. Supreme Court was usurping power from the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. His quotation regarding the activist decisions of the Marshall court (1801-1835): “The Constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which may twist and shape it into any form they please.”

The Constitution is very clear: the federal government has only the powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution — and all other powers belong either to the states or the people themselves. In the 1952 Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer, Supreme Court Justice Black wrote: “the purpose of the Constitution was not only to grant power, but to keep it from getting out of hand.” His concern, as was Thomas Jefferson’s, is courts are expanding their authority and are not subject to the checks and balances of the Constitution as the other co-equal branches of government.

Americans may not like politics or think it’s a waste of time and ignore it. However, it will be their children who will pay the human and financial cost of political correctness.

When the Constitution was signed by the Founding Fathers at Constitution Hall in Philidelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked as he was leaving by a woman, what kind of government do we have? He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Think about it. —John H. Rallis, Columbia Falls