(HOORAY! The Cultural Bill of Rights ebook is now available for purchase!)
A Constitutional Blueprint for Keeping Faith with America’s Founders
Just before the 2016 Presidential Election, radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote in a plea to conservatives opposed to voting for Republican nominee Donald Trump, “After another four years of a Democrat in the White House, the country called the United States will still be here, but America as envisioned since its founding…won’t.”
Of course, Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, but the danger of America’s breaking faith with the values of its Founding Fathers – of America’s ceasing to be America in all but name– remains. What’s worse, the threat of this cessation comes from the judicial branch of American government – that branch of government over which, thanks to its unelected character, the public at large holds the least sway.
We are only ever one Supreme Court Justice away from America’s losing what it means to be America. We saw how the Supreme Court can make sweeping changes in the character of our nation most recently with the 5-4 decision Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized gay marriage in all 50 states. Another such 5-4 decision is always just over the horizon. Tomorrow it could be gun rights on the table. Or the death penalty. Or limits on eminent domain. Or marriage yet again – this time some other longstanding commonsense barrier that five “enlightened” Justices wish to cast aside as rank bigotry.
President Trump has shown his willingness to appoint Justices who will keep faith with the Constitution and the values of the Founding Fathers who penned it. But Donald Trump will not be President forever. In a short time the White House may change parties again, and a Democratic President may appoint Justices whose antipathy to the Constitution and America’s founding values and traditions is stronger than any previously seen. Moreover, even now there are challenges to those American values and traditions percolating up through the courts – some challenges winning, some losing, but all serving as reminders that the courts have enormous power to change the character of American life – the unelected few speaking for the nation as a whole, over any and all protests. We cannot leave the future of American culture teetering on the razor’s edge of further 5-4 decisions. Just as the Founding Fathers were not willing to leave fundamental rights at the mercy of the government, and passed a Bill of Rights to ensure the government would be restrained from violating those rights, neither can we, in this present generation, allow our culture to rest on the precipice, waiting for a final judicial push over the edge. We need to pass a Cultural Bill of Rights.
The Cultural Bill of Rights I am proposing consists of twelve Constitutional Amendments that will guarantee America’s culture keeps faith with the original social and political culture of the Founding Fathers. These Amendments, which are explained in detail at the links provided, are:
CBOR-7Y – THE SEVEN YEARS AMENDMENT
CBOR-RF – THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AMENDMENT
CBOR-2A – THE NEW SECOND AMENDMENT
CBOR-CP – THE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AMENDMENT
CBOR-ED – THE EMINENT DOMAIN AMENDMENT
CBOR-17 – THE SENATE RESTORATION AMENDMENT
CBOR-SC – THE SUPREME COURT AMENDMENT
CBOR-QV – THE QUALIFIED VOTERS AMENDMENT
CBOR-AR – THE ANTI-REPARATIONS AMENDMENT
CBOR-GS – THE GENDER STANDARDIZATION AMENDMENT
CBOR-MS – THE MARRIAGE STANDARDIZATION AMENDMENT
CBOR-PM – THE PROTECTION OF MINORS AMENDMENT
With the exception of the Amendment restoring the Senate, none of these Amendments are intended to turn back the clock or be revolutionary in character. Rather, they are intended to cement the cultural status quo and make sure that America stays America – i.e., that the United States of America keeps alive and strong the culture of its Founding Fathers for decades, and hopefully centuries, to come, recognizing that for America to be saved from total ruin, the challenges it must face and overcome are not just military and economic but also cultural. It would be a shame to save America from its enemies abroad and from financial insolvency only to see its culture overthrown from within by judicial overreach.
Likewise, it would be a shame not to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime Constitutional opportunity before us. A quick review of the Amendments at the links provided above will reveal Congress will never approve the passage of certain of these Amendments, as no federal bureaucracy wishes to curtail its own power or make itself more beholden to the states. What is required to pass these Amendments, then, is not an act of Congress, but an Article V Convention of States – and, it just so happens, such a convention is approaching. The Convention of States Project has garnered the approval of over a dozen states to hold a Constitutional Convention for proposing Amendments to the Constitution without the need for Congressional approval. Nearly two dozen more states’ approvals are required to begin an Article V Convention, but I believe that this Convention will eventually take place. When it does, among the Amendments proposed and dutifully considered and debated in that Convention should be those contained in this Cultural Bill of Rights. We may never again have the opportunity to give America the cultural bulwarks it requires to thwart the tyrannical decisions of well-meaning, “empathizing”, unelected judges who would further redefine American culture in whatever ways they believe will further the best interests of the poor, unwashed masses – namely, We, the People. As the Convention of States attempts to save the American people from the hazards of military and economic decline, let it also stand firm against the rising tide of nihilism in our country and declare that American culture, too, is worth saving and preserving for future generations.
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