Is there anything that defines what a specific country values? Something one could reference for the core principles that a country holds, apart from those held by other countries? Is there even a place to find a set of principles that the country, as a whole, at one point in time, agreed upon? Contrary to the radically different viewpoints held by various members of the same country, there is such a document: the country’s constitution.
Many countries have constitutions, bodies of fundamental principles that constitute the country’s laws and government. While some constitutions look similar, they each maintain the central principles of the singular country over which they govern. There is much more than simply a document containing the country’s main principles that differentiates countries, but one could argue that the fundamental soul of a country is rooted in its constitution, reflecting what the society values apart from other countries and societies.
Yet, with so much weight being placed on a country’s constitution, what would become of the country that loses sight of its constitution? What happens when the document that captured the country’s essence is completely ignored by politicians and forgotten by citizens? What if the country begins to pass laws contradicting the constitution with the very power granted to it by the constitution? Is it still the same country it once claimed to be?
I fear that, for decades, the US Constitution has been slowly fading out of relevance to those it should matter to the most, until it will one day be disregarded as history. The greatest fear concerning this situation would be the devastating condition our country would be left in. With no foundational constitution (and by that I mean the core values expressed in the constitution, not simply the document itself) to unite the country, what prevents it from breaking apart?
America has faced a similar concern before, but not one that originated from within it.
What I hope at least all Americans know about the conflict between Britain and America just before the Revolutionary War was that America was being taxed without representation in British Parliament. The interesting aspect of this is that taxing British subjects (which the colonists were considered at the time) without representation in parliament was a violation of the British constitution. This unjust contradiction of the British constitution by British Parliament in order to gain profit from America without granting it the protections of equal treatment is what sparked America to fight a war for its own sovereignty.
America was fully capable of controlling and governing itself without British interference and, among other political and economic conflicts that had been causing strain between Britain and America up until that point, taxation imposed by the British despite their lack of any American representation in British Parliament was the ignited flame.
America fought the Revolutionary War in order to distinguish itself from the country that had been contradicting its own constitution. And now, not only two centuries after the Declaration of Independence was signed, America is violating its own constitution. Instead of Britain violating its Constitution by taxing America despite lacking American representation in Parliament, America is now using a large amount of the taxes from its own citizens to fund organizations whose practices violate constitutional rights.
Threats of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxes from being used to fund a large percentage of abortions, being dropped permeate the Senate. If it is dropped, as now our president is advocating for, then the right to life stated in our founding documents has lost all meaning and application. Already freedom of speech has been under attack along with freedom to bear arms and freedom of religion. We are becoming the society that we distinguished ourselves from through war.
In a recent episode of Bishop Burbidge’s podcast “Walk Humbly,” he and interviewer Billy Atwell briefly mention what the Hyde Amendment being dropped means for the country. Atwell stated: “I was reading a news outlet, and one that they offered was, quote, ‘The Hyde Amendment prevents programs like Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program from using federal money to cover abortion.’ The irony that a Children’s Health Insurance Program would fund abortion demonstrates the very problem that we have in front of us.”
Today’s modern politics are bursting with contradiction. Tax money used by the federal government to fund murder, which is illegal under the federal government. Destruction of the most innocent of human beings justified under the name of “women’s rights.” If we’ve lost all sense of what human rights encompass and what a human being is, then we have forgotten our constitution. We have become a worse country than the one we fought a war to distinguish ourselves from.
However, I know there are more than a handful of Americans who hold true to the constitutional values and morals that America was founded on. The Texas heartbeat bill just won the support of the Supreme Court, making it illegal to have an abortion in Texas past six weeks—once the heartbeat is detectable. This limits abortions by a massive amount in Texas, and hopefully, other states will take up similar positions in the future. The constitution is in danger, but it is not gone while still a great number of Americans are united under the will to protect it along with the most foundational principles of what makes America the best country on earth.