Why after all of this time and supposed progress we are still talking about issues of rabid nationalism, racism and sexism. How is that that Europe, Australia and New Zealand have surpassed us by leaps and bounds when it comes to defending social justice and equal rights?
Obviously by reading entries such as the diary LaAbogada wrote earlier today let us know that it isn't the shape, knowledge and body of the citizens who inhabit our country. Yet instead the problem is more elusive and lies instead in the static and antiquated power structures within our form of government.
We were the first democracy and it was an experiment at that. Adams and Jefferson assumed that we would revisit our constitution every fifty years to improve upon it.
Coincidentally, both Adams and Jefferson died on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th 1826.
Such a strange coincidence.
Was it thoughts and intense feelings of pride that they both were instrumental pieces in the foundation of our country that killed them? Or was it shame and regret that expired them on that anniversary as they realized that they did not end the largest moral infraction that existed in their society within their lifetimes: slavery.
How many other imperfections in our Constitution did did they count over the period of their lives? Even if they weren't counting their faults they still left a back door for future generations to fix the Constitution. Surely one can't assume that they would want us to be living under a Constitution that they wrote in the 18th century to be the standard for future American societies for centuries to come.
John Adams envisioned a great society educating itself and improving itself and evolving into the future when he first penned the Constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was so admired that he was allowed to pen it in whole at his own discretion and desire he wrote the following,
Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.
Reading this the other day, I was left asking myself, "why aren't things like this written into our Constitution?" and "Is this why Massachusetts is America's educated and liberal haven?"
It was things like this that were left out of our Constitution that would have changed the world. All of the countless compromises that divided up power in such an awful way that it managed to preserve the union while also not permitting an easy path for progress. Today we do not suffer from the question of Federalism vs. Anti-Federalism. We will never know what the closed door sessions of drafting the Constitution was like or what sorts of rights and laws were left out because unfortunately the founders kept closed door sessions with few to no records.
Maybe the Federalist and Anti-Federalist question needs to be revisited. How many states would have to secede in order to start a new chapter in the American history and legacy? The French have been through several Constitutions and they are on their Fifth Republic.
So the final question is what would it take for us to Constitutionally put racism, sexism, and all of the other "-isms" behind us? To ensure that programs that serve the public have importance and that they are put into place? We are nearly the last advanced democracy without universal health care and free higher education.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. - Abraham Lincoln
Something needs to change. Of that one fact I am sure. If we live in a society that continues to prove that it is not a society worth preserving and we have the means to change it then certainly we must find new means to change it.