Grateful for the 227th anniversary of the Constitution, and hopeful for many more.

This Constitution Day, marking the 227th anniversary of the signing, September 17, 1787 - September 17, 2014, I'll keep it short. I was given a 'challenge' to post for five days, three things that I was grateful for. Rather than follow in the example of the challenge, praising inexpressible wisdom and love for friends, family and furry animals, I chose to be grateful for what secures the ability of each of us to pursue our own conception of what we are, and hope to be, grateful for.

And there's no need to repeat it for five days - I'm grateful for it every day.

Here ya go:

 1) For this day in particular, September 17th, I'm grateful for the wisdom expressed in the words of our Constitution which define the making of laws and their limits, harnessing our best intentions and worst inclinations, towards securing the lives liberty, and ability of our people to pursue happiness.
 2) Grateful for the ability to reflect on what is valuable in life, and the liberty to make the decisions necessary to pursuing it.
 3) Grateful that those who disagree with my choices are still not, quite, able to force me to live in accordance with theirs. 

BTW WaPo, your ability to answer 13, or 1,300 trivia questions about the Constitution, is no indication of whether or not you understand it well enough to be grateful for it.

Try reading it, reading the arguments for, and against it, and considering what would happen if we should lose the last vestiges of it. Or if you're not quite up to that, one of the best tools I've ever found for considering and reflecting particular parts of the Constitution, is the site "The Founders Constitution". Scroll down on the contents page and you'll find it goes through the Constitution clause by clause, and each is supplied with a list of links to relevant portions of not only the Federalist Papers, but to documents which the Founders had in mind when writing the Constitution, what the Anti-Federalists objected to (this is particularly helpful in understanding the arguments For the Constitution which the Federalist Papers make), as well as early Supreme Court opinions and judgments relevant to that clause, and commentaries by early Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (which are fantastic).


Constitution of the United States and the First Twelve Amendments 1787--1804

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

9/11: Never again... or for ever more? Dave McArthur's bloody truth

There were two calls in to Dana Loesch's radio show on the afternoon of September 10th, which bracketed the issues we are still facing this September 11th, 2014, and which are the same issues that we have been studiously attempting to turn away from ever since September 11th, 2001.

The first call came in from someone identifying himself as an Army Ranger, in response to President Obama's earlier calls to contain and manage ISIS; he asked in frustration:

"How do you defeat an idea?"

Which is a question that our govt and intellectual leaders have unfortunately given very little consideration to (certainly less than they've given to the more Politically Correct ideas of how our culture can go about accommodating all ideas).

The second call came in from a popular local bakery owner here in St. Louis, Dave McArthur, who pointed out that central to our waging WWII was our publicly, explicitly, identifying America's enemies to the American people. To that end propaganda posters filled our cities to remind us of the ugly business we were engaged in, reminded us of the brutal realities that such a war entailed and reminded us of the very real reasons why we were at war with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Propaganda can of course be, and usually is, misused, but that was actually one of its few legitimate purposes it has, and it spurred Americans on the home-front on to victory; to a victory which was understood to be necessary, and a victory which would require us to devastate our enemies in Japan, and Germany to the point that they totally, unqualifiably, surrendered.

IOW we had a strategy which meant that "We win, they lose".

Why did victory require the devastating defeat and unqualified surrender of our enemies? Because, as with our world today, WWII was not about issues that could be negotiated, it was not about simple border or trade disputes, but about the violent and expansive imposition of absolutist political schemes in order to dominate some or all of the world.

WWII was not fought for things, but for ideas, ideas of liberty or tyranny. And as long as we desired to remain free, there was no possibility open for bargaining with such enemies of liberty, only their total defeat and surrender (It's also worth noting that after winning WWII, in fewer years than we've expended since 09/11/2001 to today, we had not only imposed a government and a constitution upon both Axis powers, but they had become, and have remained, actual allies of ours ever since; something the Paul Bremer-Bush admin kinder gentler coalition would never achieve in Iraq).

What Dave McArthur said about defeating the islamists of ISIS - and all the rest of those who wish to impose islamic rule upon the world - that it requires total war, is something that is horribly, painfully and exactly true.

There is no alternative - other than "We lose. They win", that is.

How do you defeat an idea?
The first caller asked exactly the right question:

"How do you defeat an idea?"

And the answer is, if it is an idea that people are not open to discussing, an idea that will not tolerate reasonable alternatives, an idea that requires your death or your submission, then the answer to that question is a very simple one:

You cannot defeat an idea.