I have often suspected that many Americans see their Constitution as a ‘sacred’ document, written by ‘prophets’.
I have now seen it admitted on a semi-public social site – this person said they had always believed the founding fathers to be divinely inspired. To be fair, this person re-defined “divinely inspired” to simply mean “idealistic”, but there is no denying that many Americans have an idolized (and pathological) attachment to their Constitution, Founding Fathers, and The Office of The President (and with it, the White House).
What about separation of church and state? Don’t you believe in that too? That seems to be a concept either lost or forgotten for at least some (a very vocal some, it seems). Those of us who are not American see a different perspective: I daresay all the other free countries have no such reverence for their governments. A healthy skepticism is a good thing.
Newsflash: the US Constitution is NOT sacred. The founding fathers were HUMAN.
Granted, collectively, they were pretty bright, but the constitution would never have seen the light of day if it had been created in any kind of democratic way. It was written by a group of like-minded men. For a country of 13 states.
The world was a different place then.
Here are just a few examples:
In 1776-1800:
- NO telegraph (invented in 1831)
- NO refrigeration (invented in 1805)
- NO sewing machines (1833, meaning all clothes were made by hand)
- Single shot firearms (revolver invented in 1836). Think about THAT in the context of the implications for the 2nd amendment – what the FF might have thought about firearms in 1791 and what they would see today.)
- NO baseball (I don’t get it myself, but it seems to be important to many Americans)
- NO phonographs or radios
- NO cars or telephones.
- Oh yeah, and there was still SLAVERY (not abolished until nearly 100 years later)
In 1776, people were “making a new life in a country with no infrastructure” – this is key.
A Constitution is not a sacred document. It *should* be a living document that gets re-examined and adjusted to match the times. The US Constitution was an amazing document in its time, but a lot has changed in the more than 200 years since it’s inception.
Now, to be fair, there have been 27 amendments since 1776, BUT:
- 11 of them were put in place by the first government (the Bill of Rights)
- many of the rest have to do with the running of the government as opposed to anything to do with the people they are governing.
The American obsession with its Constitution and Founding Fathers is one of the things keeping them from developing into a civilized country.
Any notion that either of these things is somehow sacred (or divinely inspired) puts you in the same category as many of the people you claim are evil. They think theirs is sacred too.
