Lathan Watts writes for the Federalist about the impact of popular ignorance of the U.S. Constitution.
Americans should realize it isn’t only the kids about whom we should be concerned.
The New York Times recently published an article entitled, “America’s Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” A simple “no” might suffice, but the fact that a major news outlet in this country would even ask the question is symptomatic of a national amnesia of the principled foundation of our republic. The only danger associated with the Constitution is the popular ignorance of its precepts and consequently the election of too many officials with no fealty to them. As the prophet Hosea lamented of the Israelites, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Of course, the Constitution is not holy writ. But just as the fortunes of the Israelites waxed and waned in correlation with their drift from knowledge and obedience to ignorance and apostasy, Americans cannot reasonably expect to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity” without understanding and respecting the document that makes it all possible.
If the Constitution is viewed as a covenant between the governing and the governed, how can the covenant be justly enforced if neither party understands or respects it? If “we the people” are unable to defend the Constitution, then the Constitution is unable to defend us.
President Ronald Reagan, speaking of his political opponents, once joked, “It’s not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” Perhaps the only threat to liberty comparable to not knowing what is in the Constitution is “knowing” things that are not in the Constitution.
Today we often hear pundits and politicians, such as Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, frame the First Amendment right of free speech as inapplicable to speech some might find offensive. Subverting one individual’s right to speak to another’s fragile emotional perceptions inevitably leads to calls for the government to silence the “offending” party. This so-called “hate speech exception” is constitutionally apocryphal.
