President Obama, Professor of Constitution? Which One?

             I long suspected that President Obama’s appointment as an adjunct professor of constitution was a sham, a staging prop for his political ambitions.  Now I am convinced.   His commencement speech at Ohio State is definite evidence of the fact that he does not understand, and perhaps has never read anything dealing with the founding.

             He told the students to reject the voices that say that government is the source of the problems that beset us, voices that warm us that tyranny is just around the corner, voices that say "we cannot be trusted." 

              The founders all knew that tyranny is always just around the corner.  How could he not know that?  Did he read Thomas Paine? "Government is a necessary evil."  And “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."

              Did he read Benjamin Franklin:  "We've given you a Republic, if you can keep it."  Did he read George Washington: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." 

           Did he read John Adams?  "The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." And those powerful jaws are devouring us, taking “from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” (Thomas Jefferson).  We can no longer call terrorism terrorism, but it is justifiable to all Christians “incredibly well funded gangs of fundamentalist monsters.” 

           Barack’s warnings were the absolute antitheses of philosophical foundations of The United States of America.  It is incumbent on our citizenry to always have a healthy distrust of government.  Now I am not suggesting armed rebellion, although Thomas Jefferson did say that without a revolution every twenty years we would be in danger of tyranny. 

             I am suggesting, however, that politicians who tell people to trust them and “reject other voices” are the most dangerous kind and should be greatly feared, politicians who think they are the only ones with the right answers, politicians who warn that if they can’t get their programs passed through congress they’ll do it through executive order.  Samuel Adams warned us of that.  "If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

                George Washington also envisioned a country in ruins, but his warnings were of a different stripe: that our government depended on a moral and religious citizenry.  He didn't specify a religion, but he said over and over again that when we lose the notion that our rights are given us by God, we are in danger of losing our liberty.  "I agree to this Constitution ... and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."