September 17
This day isn’t important.
There are far more significant days in the year:
• Labor Day, when we pretend to care about other people’s jobs while
frolicking at the beach.
• Election Day, when we pretend we’re making a difference by voting.
You see, today is supposed to be Constitution Day. And no one really
cares about the Constitution anymore.
What It Was
The Constitution was supposed to spell out what government can do and
what it can’t do.
The Transformation
But by the end of the 1800s, too many Americans had lost their fear of
government and politicians.
And so government was transformed in the public mind from a
necessary-but-dangerous evil into "the great fiction, through which
everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else," as Frédéric
Bastiat described it.
Where Do We Go from Here?
If the American people are to learn the importance of limited,
Constitutional government, we have to teach them ourselves.
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