Humans are bad. The Constitution is good. Deal with it.

I just have a few things to say. We do not live in a utopia. On this side of eternity, the world that surrounds us is a hellish and savage place. Humanity itself is a tragic farce, a global joke; for all our protestations, complaints and self-righteousness, we must face a simple fact: we are feckless and wicked. Such is the fallen state of man that Thomas Hobbes classified life on Earth as "nasty, brutish, and short." I could not agree more, and for several millenia, since the Garden of Eden itself, humanity has been on the decline. In the Third World today, children live in indescribable poverty, abject misery. More than a third of the world's population lives on less than a dollar a day. Children stitch soccer balls with their teeth for cents a day because their oppressive governments will not give them free enterprise or basic opportunity. Cruel tyrants in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea starve their citizens for the glory of the state and the shininess of the ruler's palace. Corruption runs rampant and genocides are omnipresent, even in the "illuminated," "progresive," 21st century. In short, man is not, by his nature, compassionate. Man is not, by his nature, generous. Man is not, by his nature, moral. Man is the weakest of all creatures, for he alone has a higher purpose, and he alone fails in his sacred duties. We are wretches by the simple fact of our species. The founding fathers knew this. The framers of the American Constitution understood this basic truth. The nascent principles of the United States center around this crucial perception of mankind: we are evil, we are corrupted by power, and our appetites for authority must be limited. And so, with their sobering insight into the human psyche firmly in hand, the great patriots of our Founding consulted their contemporary philosophers, culling wisdom from wherever they could find it. Thomas Jefferson leaned upon the musings of John Locke and his revolutionary doctrine of natural, God-given rights. John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison poured over the wise script of Montesquieu, Adam Smith and even the pessimistic Hobbes. They consulted all corners of the ideological spectrum to help them establish something which was truly extraordinary, something which was utterly mystifying to the imperialist policies of the 18th century. The framers of our Constitution, the progenitors of our Union, made it their most sacrosanct mission to unleash the buried goodness in every human soul. As Ronald Reagan's tombstone reads, "I know in my heart that man is good." What did he mean by this? Surely the Gipper was a Christian. Surely he sensed that his race was sinful, fallen, and flawed. Surely he, the stalwart leader who stood up to the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union, knew what ie meant to confront depravity and crush despotism. No, what Reagan's epitaph drives at is the underlying theme of America, the country he described as "the last best hope for mankind," and which Lincoln called "a shining city on a hill." Reagan, like the Framers, suspected that man can be good only within fenced boundaries--he also guessed that, when these limits are appropriate, the achievements of our nation would be limitless. The same rule applies to government. I'd like to suggest here that fences are starkly necessary for the advancement of human nobility. Without the guidelines and teachings of religion, the moral longings of our conscience would find no expression. Without eternal consequences for our actions, we have no incentive to control our animalistic passions. In the same way that religion dictates what actions we may take in our private lives, the Constitution dictates what actions the government may take in its public life. Our framers enumerated specific powers in the Constitution because they feared both monarchy and mob rule with equal disgust. They saw the ugly inclination of mankind to ignore its responsibilities, either to rise to totalitarianism or to descend into anarchy, both of which are antithetical to the betterment of the human race and anathema to common decency. The framers knew that man must have limits if his goodness is to be revealed. He must be fenced in order for him to run free. And, perhaps most importantly, the fences which restrict his actions must discourage wickedness but never impede prosperity and liberty. Truly, they walked a fine line. But these men were not mental midgets. They were smart. And they got it right. In order to preserve the balance of stability and freedom, John Adams argued that our Constitution will only work for a "moral and religious people." This means that it is our responsibility to abide by the rules we set for ourselves and never to forsake them in the blind pursuit of pleasure. Today we see that our culture has forgotten the meaning of responsibility. What we desire is license, not liberty, for we abhor the obligations that come with a free society--in license--, no obligations are present. Today, we do not understand that unlimited human nature is as dangerous as unlimited government. Today, we are "girly men" (to credit the Governator). We are ignoring the intentions of our framers, the men who made this a nation of laws, not a nation of men. I worry when I watch Washington ignore its specific, mandated duties and spiral into a tailspin of unauthorized, unconstitutional socialism. This foolish trend has to be reversed. We face a striking danger as a nation, in my opinion. We are already forgetting the humility and caution toward government control which established this country. In our mad desire for more government goodies, we are becoming dependent on their largesse; we are becoming indentured to their every whim. If we ever forget that man is inherently wicked and that government is inherenly fallible, we'll soon have an all-powerful welfare state and a population of lazy, whining drones, fully dependent on "safety-net" assistance. Take responsbility. Understand the downfalls of your humanity and recognize that government is never the answer to our problems...government IS the problem. Remember the principles which founded this country, the conservative tenets which chained man's wickedness and unchained man's creative genius. We have institutionalized free markets and the rule of law in America. Our Constitution represents this. Our Constitution does NOT represent the nanny state. Let me tell you something: it's not generosity when you're redistributing money that never belonged to you in the first place. You can't be charitable with someone else's money. That's not generosity. That's theft! We must understand the limits that have curbed government and emancipated the human spirit in this majestic land. We should not set fire to the document that has made us the envy of the world. The magnamity and decency of America is such that, in the last century, with foes on four continents, two world wars; inumerable police actions, and countless air strikes, in decades rife with terorist attacks and Communist revolutions, we, as Americans, have not conquered an acre of ground. We have established no empires. We have colonized no countries. We have enslaved no man, black, white, or brown. As Colin Powell eloquently stated, "the only land we have ever claimed in war are the gravesites of our fallen." I am proud to be a citizen of this venerable country. This is America, a nation of hardworking people, not benevolent government. We are a nation of individuals, not serfs. We are the worldwide superpower and global economic leader. Did we get here by chance? Or is our success due to the principles which founded this country, the principles that trust the individual over the group, which trust the citizen over the government, which trust law over coercion and liberty over tyranny? I think we can guess the answer.