By Nancy Oliver
”We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams - Founding Father and 2nd President of the United States .
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2013/08/13/mark-levin-discusses-liberty-amendments
I want to correct a recent statement made by Mark Levin. Look I like Levin and agree with some of his proposed “Liberty Amendments” but he made a false statement that is very misleading. It goes hand in hand with the popular movement of term limits. Levin said on the Hannity special this weekend kicking off his new book that our Founders never envisioned career politicians. HUH?
So that leads us to believe our Founders just fell off turnip wagons? Indeed there was not the time of some politicians serving today on the Hill that our Founders had in Federal Government. But, they were involved for decades in colonial government. It took experience and knowledge to give birth to the most perfect nation history had ever encountered, nurturing it to get off to a healthy start when all was against its survival.
Our Founders were not simply average Joe's off the streets. Ben Franklin for instance was a great man of knowledge and even he had experience although he might have been one of the least interested Founders in politics per se, but he was always a great philosopher and diplomat. Still others like Jefferson and Washington from their young adulthood to their death beds kept a hand in politics, one way or another. What were they? But well rounded individuals with plenty of experience and knowledge. They got it done because they knew how to.
WE have heard Governor Perry talking about states being the laboratories of innovation…Well California has term limits and look where they sit today because they lack much needed experience. http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_1104BCRB.pdf
http://political-heat.blogspot.com/2010/10/idea-of-career-politicians-democracy-in.htmlI want to correct a recent statement made by Mark Levin. Look I like Levin and agree with some of his proposed “Liberty Amendments” but he made a false statement that is very misleading. It goes hand in hand with the popular movement of term limits. Levin said on the Hannity special this weekend kicking off his new book that our Founders never envisioned career politicians. HUH?
So that leads us to believe our Founders just fell off turnip wagons? Indeed there was not the time of some politicians serving today on the Hill that our Founders had in Federal Government. But, they were involved for decades in colonial government. It took experience and knowledge to give birth to the most perfect nation history had ever encountered, nurturing it to get off to a healthy start when all was against its survival.
Our Founders were not simply average Joe's off the streets. Ben Franklin for instance was a great man of knowledge and even he had experience although he might have been one of the least interested Founders in politics per se, but he was always a great philosopher and diplomat. Still others like Jefferson and Washington from their young adulthood to their death beds kept a hand in politics, one way or another. What were they? But well rounded individuals with plenty of experience and knowledge. They got it done because they knew how to.
WE have heard Governor Perry talking about states being the laboratories of innovation…Well California has term limits and look where they sit today because they lack much needed experience. http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_1104BCRB.pdf
Above is just another blog but let's examine a bit of it, at least what I can find on the web to back my statements as well as this other blogger. But, first let's think about what corrupts politicians more so than anything. It is power and money. Our Founders made little money for their work in the nations capital no matter where that was located. Our first President Washington wanted no pay in fact, but the congress made him take some.
I recalled my English teacher actually in High School telling us that Washington had to be kept in padding for his calves as that was a status symbol, false teeth and whiskey. In all my years study of Washington I find no evidence men even padded their calves in a fashion statement. The macaroni was popular but in our songs we know what Yankee Doodle did with the macaroni wig..."Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni." I recall wondering in my early years if that was with or without cheese? Fake symmetricals came into popularity in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Riding horses a lot I know how muscular that can keep the legs and our founders indeed rode horses much of the time. Coaches they did use but in the case of George Washington after he left the presidency he took his tours of the plantation aboard the back of a horse and in fact, he caught his death while taking his last tour of Mount Vernon in the snow. False teeth Washington rarely wore as they made his mouth sorer. In fact, he is not known for smiling as his teeth plagued him most of his adulthood. Whiskey? Well our early colonial history is filled with drink and smoking but that hardly suggest to me as some want us to think our Founder's were drunks or high on wild marijuana most of the time.
Moving on let's get back to term limits. The other factor unlike today was the power of the Federal Government was minimal. But, today we have taken the power from the states and put it much in DC. That we do need to address and Mark Levin I was happy to hear what he had to say on that, however, he is not the first to write or talk about the power of the Tenth. Governor Perry brought it to the last Republican Presidential Primary and I have heard him jump and down on the Tenth so many times I cannot count them. Today, the government is so powerful, with so many opportunities for influence, financial opportunities, and corruption, it attracts the very worst sorts of people. Michelle Obama's salary, for example, tripled after the first year her husband became a Senator.
The corruption is our problem and that is what needs to be addressed. For as long as we send those to DC who find the luxuries, they will stand the great chance to accelerate the corruption in the shortened time term limits gives them. We will be filled with Freshmen congressional leaders that mostly will get little done as well. The more experienced will still be lacking in well...EXPERIENCE. Look at such as California...they have term limits:http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_1104BCRB.pdf
It's true you are not going to find on the Internet how our Founders thoughts were about term limits...it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack. But, the easy way out is not what we should be seeking. Things won't change over night so we have a lot of work to do for a very long time. Just to get one of Levin's Liberty Amendments passed into law will be a tremendous feat and so we should tackle what we can when the public is the most informed...for that I applaud Levin. His book is something to really think on. In closing...let's go back to the top...our Constitution is an instrument for a moral and religious people...inadequate for any other. That goes for our voters and our politicians. Let's find those who speak more truth than just power point political rhetoric the most glamorous of political advisers hand them. After all they are superficial and tell us nothing about character, wisdom or experience.
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