52 words

Fifty two words: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.''

What follows are several articles setting out the mechanisms for electing and removing representatives, divisions of power, allocations of responsibilities, and twenty seven amendments correcting, modernizing and otherwise making more (or in some cases less) perfect this experiment in government. You should read it, it takes less than an hour and can be found in any library in the country and about twenty six million places on the internet.

Since ratified, this document, more than any created before or since, has been scrutinized, dissected, pored over, mulled, modeled, muddled, misconstrued and manipulated. It has been used to further and beleaguer the same issues, to ascribe rights by inference and deny them by constructionism. Liberals and conservatives, the fearful and the fearless, solace seekers, religious zealots and atheists, businessmen and unionizers all frequently point to the same article or amendment to press their case. Indeed, its very existence solicits these debates with the implied promise that each decision rendered regarding the broad, and deliberately vague it seems, words within, will make incremental steps toward that 'perfect union', so unattainable, yet wished for so devoutly.

But it seems to me that so many of these debates miss the main idea and forget a critical point. Those fifty two words, which I was required to memorize in the fourth grade, are not just the 'preamble' to the Constitution, they are the soul of it. Everything that follows those fifty two words are just the sausage of lawmaking; the meat and potatoes the founders created in order to implement the ideals and goals so nobly and simply advanced at the outset.

Raging now is the debate about healthcare reform. Outrageous lies fly carelessly about in a maelstrom of partisanship. Each histrionic syllable is breathlessly reported by an increasingly flaccid Fourth Estate, which has overthrown responsibility for ratings, and rushes past reasonable discourse to get to the most contentious and least illuminating sound bite. Creeping Socialism, Death Panels, higher taxes, hidden agendas, birthers, do nothings, abortion squads, Medicare killers, these are all code for the right wingnuts (yes, I do mean wingnuts) to try to cobble together the remains of what was once a party that honored those fifty two words, into a mean-spirited cabal of embittered, racist, fear mongers. I don't use these terms carelessly; words matter, lies matter, truth matters and these words reflect what I believe to be true.

Lest anyone think I'm just another leftie posting an anti-conservative screed, I should tell you I'm a Republican. Or at least I was. Now I guess I'm a republican-one who favors the republic form of government-soon to be no longer a member of the Republican Party. When I change my affiliation back to Independent it will be done wistfully, wishing that the Bill Buckley's of today's party, if any are still out there, would have the backbone to call out, expose and excoriate the misanthropes that have hijacked and held hostage my party. They are killing thoughtful conservatism, and in the process, strangling those precious fifty two words.

Surely it is not just, that the most vulnerable among us perish at the doorsteps of insurance companies for want of affordable healthcare, any more than it was just that children should labor at dangerous machines for long hours during the industrial revolution. That was wrong and our government made it illegal over the vociferous objections of business owners, yet our Republic survived, thrived even, as an example of enlightenment.

The common defense is not just about wars and rumors of wars, but about enemies within and without. When the Constitution was written little was known of disease, medicine had little or no scientific basis, and food born illness was only a vaguely formed theory. But these were, and are enemies within. We as a nation commonly defend our citizens against disease, regulate foodhandling and purity and devote billions for the relief and reconstruction of the ravages of disasters natural and man made. How is defending our population from illness on an individual basis through health care suddenly creeping Socialism? It's not, purely and simply.

The general welfare and the blessings of liberty are not free. Civil war was waged (and in some quarters is ongoing) over civil rights. The opportunity to vote as a person of color or as a woman required repairs to our founding document's articles, but not to it's ideas. However this debacle over health care resolves, whether with justice and dignity for all citizens or as a lingering albatross around our collective necks, is yet to be resolved. But I believe in those fifty two words. They are why I fly the flag. They are why I get sentimental at parades and put my hand over my heart to say the pledge. They are why I thank members of the Armed Forces for their service. They are why I decided to start this blog. They are what set forth the most precious tenets of our Republic. They provide the working definition of what it really means to be an American.