Public Education II

II. Constitutional Conviction

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (3)

What you just read was the presidential oath of office. With it’s utterance one of the most powerful men in the world is sworn into office. Yet too often the words spoken are ignored in light of the magnitude of the inauguration itself. At the core of what we as members of the CP believe about education and other issues is covered in that brief statement. We are committed to, “Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States…” This means that everything we do seeks to be in line with the constitution. Many of the problems in our country are a result of ignoring certain constitutional restraints and dictates. I’ll deal more with that in future articles but for now it’s enough to know that we hold to a “strict construction” view of the constitution. This means that we only want to allow that which the constitution explicitly permits. We get this view in part from the Tenth amendment, the last amendment in the Bill of Rights which says: “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.” It is partly, (although not solely) on this basis that we derive the view that the State can only do what it was given explicate permission to do. Yet, a cursory glance at the Constitution will show that there is absolutely no basis for establishing something on the scale of a federally mandated public education system. Under the current laws the State has the power to outlaw the teaching of whatever they find threatening, because they control the educational standards. Under current law the State determines who can teach, because they control the certification standards. They can even take kids away from their parents if they think they are being mistreated, intellectually or physically. The main difference between the totalitarian regimes of history and America today is the extent to which our leaders have used their powers. The whole purpose of the Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights is to bind the State and limit its power. Yet the shackles have been loosed! Not by the hobnailed tread of a foreign power, or the careful plotting of some evil nemesis, but rather by the passivity of the American people! Unless we as a people once more bind the State with the Constitutional limits established at our founding we cannot hope to maintain the Republic.