Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Do You REALLY Know Your Constitution?
Audio Transcripts
09/26/07
[Start Program]
(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)
Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.
Well it is the end of September… we’re going to soon be wrapping up the year, so now is probably a good time to get some of the little things out of the way.
First, all through October I’m planning a new mini-series that will fit right in with the spirit of Halloween. It’s called “The Worst Fears”, and the thing about this miniseries that will stand out is that it won’t be a bunch of rants, but rather little narrations describing those worst fears and why they would qualify as such. Long time Brutally Honest supporters pretty much know what to expect since I’ve done these kinds of specials before, but this will be the first time that I’ll actually be doing a whole string of them.
Second… for those of you who haven’t been tuning in over at the Brutally Honest blogs or haven’t been reading the transcripts, you may have been missing out on some really great commentary over at ShockNet Radio. For the past few months I’ve been doing a special segment over on ShockNet Radio called “The News Pundit Report with David 2”, which is my take on various news stories of the week. My segment is part of a weekend show called “American Heathen®” which is hosted by my friend RJ Evans every Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11pm Eastern Time, and I URGE you to PLEASE tune in over at ShockNetRadio.com and give a listen. Seriously. Please listen in…
Because… Third… I’ve got some SERIOUS changes in store for the audio rants for 2008! The biggest of the changes will obviously be the audio format. Real Audio will be a thing of the past. One way or another, I’m taking this show to MP3 format. That means a larger audience base.
NOW… what other changes are in store will depend on you guys. That’s why I need you guys to tune in over at ShockNetRadio.com and listen to the “News Pundit Report”! Listen in, join the online discussions there, and let folks know that you’re there because of Brutally Honest.
Okay, on with the show…
There was a certain celebration that I’m sure many of you didn’t realize was going on. It happened on September 17th.
Now WHAT happened on that day, you wonder? Well if you don’t know then you failed history… and I mean RECENT history!
You see, back in 2004, someone in Congress realized that September 17th was the day that the United States Constitution was officially ratified back in 1787. Rather convenient of them to remember it THEN, don’t you? I suppose it’s better late than never. So they passed a law… or rather they had a law get WEASELED in… that declared that day to be Constitution Day and REQUIRED that any school that gets federal funding teach their students about that day and what it means.
Still drawing a blank? Not surprised. I mean, we have a few other more important things going on around this time! We have school just starting up for students, we have that HUGE federal holiday called Labor Day, not to mention the accompanying telethon. And then we have that huge neo-con pseudo-sexual gratification day… what is that called? Oh, wait a minute, Bill O’Reilly comes on the air EVERY day, doesn’t he?
I hope that you weren’t thinking that I would even DIGNIFY that other date by linking it to the neo-cons. No, I’m sorry, but they don’t deserve that date, and they certainly have no right to capitalize on that date by using fear and terror to remind us of what happened.
Needless to say, it’s sort of understandable that people wouldn’t really give a care about when the United States Constitution was ratified, given all of these other things going on around this time anyway.
Understandable… but not acceptable… or, for that matter, forgivable.
You know, there isn’t a week that doesn’t go by when some barely functional person… be they a janitor, a shyster lawyer, a used car salesman, or even a tenured college professor… writes a letter to the editor in some newspaper publication and complains about free speech and proclaims that our founding fathers NEVER INTENDED to protect speech that was offensive! Or, for that matter, protect speech that INSULTS someone in our government!
And every time I come across these barely functioning people, I am absolutely amazed about how utterly CLUELESS they are! Seriously. I mean, if we were talking about simply uninformed rednecks or geriatrics suffering from Alzheimer’s, then maybe I could cut these folks some slack. But we’re talking about people who are supposedly educated, or in some instances WELL-educated, and they are speaking as though they personally KNEW what our founding fathers were thinking.
Oh and by the way, this little discussion didn’t just spring up overnight just because of MoveOn.org’s ad about General Petraeus the other week. This argument has actually been festering for several years now. You’re not supposed to be criticizing our president, or the Republicans, or conservatives in general. Or there’s not supposed to be violence or nudity on the airwaves, or people aren’t supposed to use so-called “hate speech”. Our founding fathers “supposedly” wouldn’t have allowed it.
So that makes me wonder… have these people ever actually read a little document called the Declaration of Independence? I mean actually READ it from start to finish. I have. Our founding fathers had some pretty choice words about King George III of England. They gave a long list of crimes that ol’ George was guilty of committing, some of which weren’t even true, and then accused the king of actually being UNFIT to wear the crown.
Now do you REALLY THINK that our founding fathers would make such accusations about the King of England… APPOINTED BY GOD according to the Divine Right of Kings… and then favor restrictions against others from using that kind of speech? Remember, our founding fathers, simply on the allegations they presented in that document alone, not only committed an act of treason against the lawful government of the time… but they also were guilty of BLASPHEMY because they challenged the authority of one who was supposedly appointed BY GOD and also served as the leader of that government’s official religion! Do you REALLY think that they would commit these crimes, put them to paper, put their futures and the futures of their families on the line, and then turn around and say “well, we only support peaceful and respectful conversations”? Do you REALLY think that our founding fathers were a bunch of two-faced hypocrites on a scale that would make the hypocrisy of today’s politicians pale in comparison?
You know, I’ll be the first one to admit this: our founding fathers weren’t perfect. They weren’t gods or anywhere near to being gods. They were human. They had plenty of faults and failings. They talked about freedom, while many of them owned slaves. They wanted people to have the right to vote, but only applied that to male landowners.
And you know what? There’s a LOT of things that our founding fathers would have never considered. They would have never envisioned things like railroads and automobiles. Radio, television, telephones, public schools… even INDUSTRY itself… these were things that never existed when our founding fathers lived. Would you, then, believe that the scope of the protections in the U.S. Constitution should STOP when it involves things that never existed during the time of our founding fathers? Take a look at the FCC if you need an example of what I mean.
And let’s get brutally honest here… what the barely functional in our society do when they claim that our founding fathers would or wouldn’t have intended things to happen is that they presume that our country was based on these PEOPLE. That they were based ON George Washington, or that they were based ON Thomas Jefferson, or ON John Adams, or ON Benjamin Franklin. And anything that THESE PEOPLE did or did not do in their lives would be the ONLY things that would be allowed. In other words, they believe in a government of MEN… just like the British ran things under King George III.
They don’t understand… and they certainly don’t WANT to understand… that the US Constitution wasn’t based ON our founding fathers. They were based on IDEAS that came FROM our founding fathers. Ideas that TRANSCEND time and progress! And some of those ideas couldn’t fully be REALIZED in their time!
It would take four score and seven years before the people realized that slavery was wrong, and even then it wasn’t given up without a fight. It would take GENERATIONS before people would wake the hell up and realize what Freedom of Speech REALLY means! It’s more than just “political” speech, or speech that isn’t branded as “hateful” or “offensive”. But, as is demonstrated by the barely functional, this is something that STILL needs to be actively defended!
And that’s the really tricky part here. A system of government based on IDEAS only really works when you have people willing to DEFEND those ideas. To stand up for those ideas and champion them just like our founding fathers did. Anyone can stand up and fight for a political or religious leader. Anyone can stand up and fight for a geographic area. Countless millions have done just that throughout history. But in order for our system of government to truly WORK the way that our founding fathers INTEND it to, we have to be willing to stand up and fight for the IDEAS behind it.
Clearly we have plenty of people who fail to get the bigger picture. They are so fixated on momentary threats and phantoms of what COULD happen that they forget that we’ve been down this specific road several times before. They wrap themselves up in the icons, but they have no inkling of what those icons really MEAN. And so they pervert the meaning of those icons by making them into whatever they want those icons to be. Patriotism becomes thuggery. Freedom becomes compliance. Free speech becomes “hate speech”.
That’s yet another reason why Constitution Day has been badly ignored since its inception back in 2004. We really don’t care about the Constitution anymore… so why should we bother to celebrate it, never mind teach it to our children? We have more important things to worry about in this world, don’t we? Like who will win American Idol. And did you catch the new season of shows on TV yet? And, oh yeah, what’s on Fox News?
(Computer – some appropriate stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)
You know, a few days ago someone asked me about whether or not our system of justice is color-blind. I responded that the real question is whether or not the society that SUPPORTS that justice system is color-blind, because as long as it isn’t, it certainly will not support a justice system that is SUPPOSED to be so.
Well the same answer applies to our system of government. It will only support freedom when WE do. As long as we treat freedom as just another political buzzword, then we really shouldn’t expect anyone else in the world to treat it any differently.
(Pause)
Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!
(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)
[End of program]
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