Today we examine our history, and our constitutional form of government, through 3 commentaries. Enjoy!
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First They Came For Our History…
Even in the best of times, government is not your friend.
BY: J.B. Shurk, The American Thinker (September 27, 2026).
Government is not your friend. It cares about its own preservation, not yours. That’s why citizens who resist the government’s authority are tried for treason, while governments that resist the people’s authority award themselves immunity. Ostensibly, governments are formed to protect the lives and liberties of citizens. In practice, governments sacrifice their citizens’ lives and liberties whenever expedient (see, e.g., open borders and mass migration, COVID lockdowns and experimental “vaccines” that are neither safe nor effective, the “global warming” hoax and “green energy”-induced inflation, and the reckless European push for WWIII against the Russian Federation).
Over the course of human history, there have been “good” governments — which is to say, there have been governments remembered more for their accomplishments than for their crimes or failures. Even those governments included venal, mendacious, immoral, and outright murderous officials among their ranks. But when the right historical conditions arise — when the ingredients of culture, virtue, legal tradition, and circumstance come together — governments are remembered for leading their countries through calamity, war, depression, and heartbreak.
Every once in a while, governments accomplish something that inspires not only citizens but also people around the world. When kings, presidents, or prime ministers unite their countrymen in common cause — whether that be resisting Nazi conquest or voyaging to the moon — their governments are often remembered as “good.” Governments that conjure dreams for their people to pursue are sometimes even remembered as “great.” But for every Camelot, there are a hundred Iron Curtains. Both dreams and nightmares spring from the same place: a government’s “best intentions.”
As Americans, we used to know this. Our schools taught young students about the political virtues of our Founding Fathers. Our towns celebrated personal freedom and condemned government tyranny. Local self-government allowed every citizen’s voice to be heard, while regulation and bureaucracy were widely despised. Americans understood that the best government is the one that governs least. Why? Because liberty exists in the space between personal sovereignty and government jurisdiction. The more that governments control, the less that we do. Governments do not build rights; they build prisons. Governments do not brighten freedom’s light; they dim that light with every law and regulation.
One of the things that long separated America from the rest of the West (those nations founded on the civilizational pillars of Athens and Jerusalem) was an inherent distrust of government. Whereas Europe celebrated its various monarchies, America celebrated the defeat of kings. There was nothing scary about this proposition. Members of Congress and local officials of all political stripes walked in Fourth of July parades commemorating revolution against government tyranny.
Citizen militias were as common as high school gun clubs because self-defense was correctly understood to include defense against government overreach. In fact, the Second Amendment’s protections for an American’s God-given right to self-preservation has always been an instrumental check on government’s natural impulse toward tyranny. A well-armed citizenry makes it more difficult for a government to ignore its constitutional restraints by infringing upon the rights and liberties of its citizens. (If citizens of the U.K. were well-armed, the British government would never have been able to arrest sixty-five thousand people for “speech-related offenses” over the last five years.)
For most of the last century, successive generations of American politicians have quietly deconstructed what it means to be an American and replaced it with something foreign. Instead of recognizing that American families inherited their freedoms from ancestors who fought and died for them, politicians have reinvented America as just some nebulous “idea” available to anyone in the world. But America is much more than an idea; it is home to a people whose ancestors risked everything — again and again — to build the greatest country in the world.
What Americans did on this continent has never been done before, and it will likely never be done again. Our ancestors built the foundations of self-government that enabled them to reject the bonds of empire. Their self-rule, self-reliance, self-resilience, and personal ingenuity put America on the path toward unprecedented prosperity. Our American ancestors crossed mountains, rivers, and uncharted territories to settle a dangerous frontier. They fought against nature, hostile enemies, and each other as they connected the continent from coast to coast — one stream, trail, and railroad at a time.
For two centuries, people left their home countries for the United States of America because it was the one place in the world where a person’s grit and determination could forge a new destiny. This is real history involving real people who matter. Of course America is a land of ideas and ideals, but it is also the product of blood, sweat, and tears.
But we don’t hear that anymore, do we? Outside of President Trump’s energetic efforts to celebrate America’s two-hundred-fiftieth birthday this year, politicians never recognize the Herculean achievements of past Americans. The Founding Fathers were probably the most intelligent, virtuous, and wise collection of men to come together at any critical point in human history. Without them, there is no declaration to the world that all men are created equal and endowed with God-given rights that include life, liberty, and the pursuit of spiritual happiness. Without them, there is no American system of economics that values innovation and production over government-created monopolies, slavery, conquest, and central bank money-printing. Without them, America is just Canada, a part of the British Empire with subjects who still bow down to a king.
For such an extraordinary group of men, isn’t it strange how infrequently our politicians discuss their lives, their accomplishments, and their religious and political beliefs? For something as historically significant as the American Revolution, isn’t it equally strange how few television shows and movies have been produced about America’s most consequential war? It is almost as if the political Establishment and the media Establishment would prefer for Americans to forget that their country was birthed in the spirit of liberty and the rejection of Big Government tyranny. It is as if the political and media
Establishments would prefer for us to forget all the American heroes who built this country, fought and died to secure it, and bequeathed it to those of us charged with protecting it today. If you take out the people and their sacrifices, it’s much easier to repeat the mindless refrain that America is “just an idea” open to everybody.
These increasingly less subtle attacks on our heritage make sense if the goal is to make America weak enough for globalists to destroy. For years, Independence Day celebrations have become more about fireworks than defeating empires and tyranny. Now the political and media Establishments have pushed the celebration of Juneteenth into direct conflict with the Fourth of July. Just as the “1619 Project” was advanced to rewrite America’s origin story from one of liberty to slavery, Juneteenth was promoted to divide Americans against each other and erase Independence Day altogether. If the Fourth of July is just a “white” holiday, then the celebration of freedom’s triumph over tyranny is recast as a racist celebration of “white supremacy.”
Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came” confessional admonished his fellow intellectuals for their complicity with the Nazi Party. The Nazis came for one group after the next, and those who stayed silent realized only too late that there was nobody left to speak out for them. But it’s not just disappearing people that should worry us. We should be equally concerned when governments come for our weapons, founding principles, common history, secure borders, and free speech.
If we are not careful, America will follow much of the West in recognizing — only too late — that we allowed government tyrants to take our freedoms. The only answer to globalist tyranny is to treat every day as Independence Day.
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How Nationalism Conquered States’ Rights
BY: Mark Lewis (September 27, 2026).
“Gentlemen may cry, ‘peace, peace,’ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
– Patrick Henry, 1775
With these stirring words, the great Patrick Henry tried to move the 13 American colonies to action against England. Henry didn’t do it by himself, of course, but his words live on in American history as one of the battle cries that led America to independence. America was born. What did our Founders create? Let’s look further at this issue of states’ rights versus national government power.
After the Independence War, the 13 states wrote a Constitution, surrendering some of their powers to a national government, powers they thought could be handled better collectively than individually. For example, they didn’t want a single state starting a war with some country and perhaps dragging the rest of the states in with it. But the states, in that Constitution of 1789, jealously guarded their powers — they delegated very few powers to that united government, and then, just to be sure, wrote a Bill of Rights telling that national government what it could not do. Even then, Patrick Henry didn’t like this Constitution. He thought it gave the national government too much power. He did not trust government, any government, but especially a national one. That was the “slavery” he feared — not individual, chattel slavery.
Let me emphasize this remarkable thinking in the mind of Henry and America’s Founders: “Is life so dear, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Our Founding Fathers believed that submission to a tyrannical government was slavery. To Patrick Henry, if government has all power, and gives and takes every citizen’s “rights” (as per Virginia Sen. Tom Kaine), that’s not freedom. That’s slavery.
But the tsunami wave of history was against Mr. Henry and those who feared a too-powerful national government. Understanding history is critical to understanding why national governments, everywhere, are now dominant.
Nationalism had been a growing phenomenon over the previous few hundred years, and today has become the accepted philosophy — the “zeitgeist” — for governments and people worldwide. There were myriad “nationalist” movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, and they affected American thinking as well. They weren’t, however, overpowering in 1776, which is why our Founders wrote the Constitution they did, i.e., strictly limiting the power of the national government and putting most powers in the hands of the states and people. Nationalism was growing, but not foremost — yet.
But…growing. In England, in the 1640s, when Parliament and King Charles I had their civil war, Parliament, of course, won. They put the King on trial for treason. “What are you talking about?” Charles responded. “Treason is rebellion against the King!” And, traditionally, historically, he was right, which is why his head had to come off. Treason was not rebellion against the country, but against the king.
But the tide was against Charles, too. England increasingly was a “nation,” not a “kingdom.” The same thing happened in the French Revolution. The king was beheaded, and France started its march to “nationhood.” Europe continued to drift in that direction. In the 1860s, Germany and Italy accepted the nationalist philosophy and formed united countries with dominant national governments. Asia (Japan, Korea, China) caught the bug, as did the Middle East and Africa in the late 19th and 20th centuries. “Colonialism” became anathema. And the “nationalism” idea, as noted, is universally accepted today around the world. “Treason” is rebellion against the nation and its national government.
America, in Western civilization, was perhaps the last great holdout against nationalism. Folks, remember, we rebelled against a national government; submission to it was slavery. But…that tide of history was in nationalism’s favor, and indeed, it is that philosophy that influenced Abraham Lincoln to go to war when the Southern states seceded. “Treason” against the national government. The South held out and defended the anti-nationalism of Patrick Henry and most of America’s Founders. Few Americans — very, very few — understand this today. Whatever else it was, America’s Civil War — War
Between the States — was, philosophically, a battle between nationalism, the new philosophy of our national government, and states’ rights. We know who won, and we know who now dominates American power, where the ultimate power lies.
The Union’s victory in the internecine struggle of 1861-1865 obviously has implications for America today. We have what we have now because the North won. Nationalism got its grip after 1865, and has not loosened its hold one bit — for good or ill — since then.
Americans today are nationalists. Because of 1865, that’s the terms we now think in. The vast majority believe that what the Southern states did in 1860-1861, even excluding their defense of slavery, was treason. “They used states’ rights to defend slavery and Jim Crow laws.” True. Just like the national government today uses nationalist principles to defend abortion, uncontrollable debt, and incalculable other constitutionally dubious actions. That knife cuts both ways.
States today, of course, can do certain things. But the national government can override, by Congress and/or the Supreme Court, not by constitutional amendment as the Constitution requires (i.e., asking the states for more power), any law a state passes. The states can, in effect, only do what the feds allow them. That, of course, turns our Constitution on its head. For good or ill.
I’m making no judgment here. I’m only telling you the history. And consequences. We live with them now.
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Turning the Constitution on its head
Which is the most destructive amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Here is a strong contender.
BY: Robert Curry, The American Thinker (October 3, 2026).
Over at Townhall, Mark Lewis discusses the enormous central government that has replaced the one designed by the American Founders.
States today, of course, can do certain things. But the national government can override, by Congress and/or the Supreme Court, not by constitutional amendment as the Constitution requires (i.e., asking the states for more power), any law a state passes. The states can, in effect, only do what the feds allow them. That, of course, turns our Constitution on its head.
Originally, the states controlled the federal government by design; today, not so much. Lewis again:
After the Independence War, the 13 states wrote a Constitution…in that Constitution of 1789, [the states] jealously guarded their powers — they delegated very few powers to that united government.
Those few and defined delegated powers are what the Constitution was all about. Here is James Madison in Federalist 45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Those “few and defined” federal powers were to be limited by the responsibilities of the new federal government. In every other way, the states retained their sovereignty.
As I have written elsewhere, the invention of America required the states to give up their power to make war and to negotiate treaties with foreign states. The Founders argued that Americans would be safer and better represented in the world by a federal government than by many individual states operating independently and perhaps at cross-purposes.
However, the state governments would not be giving up control of those powers. They would retain control of them by means of the Senate. According to the founding bargain, senators would be chosen by the state legislatures, and the Senate would control those powers delegated to the federal government. That’s why the Constitution gives the Senate power over treaties, over the declaration of war, even over the people the president selects for his Cabinet.
But in 1913, America broke the founding bargain, setting in motion the ongoing process of progressively overthrowing the Constitution. This action is the source of the mess we find ourselves in today.
The 17th Amendment was the single change that did the most to undo what the Founders had accomplished by means of the Constitution. It provided for the direct election of senators, the system we have now. The state governments would no longer control the Senate. The state governments’ base of enormous political power within the federal government was taken from them, putting an end to the federal system of the Founders.
Lewis does not discuss the 17th Amendment, but it is the key to understanding how the Progressives did it. The American people were tricked by the Progressives, who presented the 17th Amendment as a needed “reform.” That “reform” in effect repealed the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Americans in 1913 would no doubt have opposed repealing the 10th Amendment. But by means of the 17th Amendment, the Progressives accomplished something even more far-reaching: They removed the central pillar of the Founders’ federal system.
The Founders, men of honor, would certainly have opposed breaking a bargain so honorably and deliberately made. And they would also have understood that the change would throw the system completely out of balance — precisely as it has done.
The central government is no longer a federal government primarily focused on Madison’s “external objects.” Because the state governments no longer control the Senate, our post-constitutional central government intrudes in every area of American life once reserved to the governments of the states. The government in Washington, D.C. dictates in ever-increasing detail what we as individuals must do and what we may not do, what we must have and what we may not have. It has been transformed into something that would astonish and horrify our Founders.
GFK
