Opinion: US's Constitution was a mistake

There can be a difference between what a person likes and what they are willing to force on others.

Most of my preferences lean conservative: liberty, family, and keeping government out of my life.

The difference between me and political conservatives is that I don’t believe it’s ever ethical to use government or legislation to force my preferences on others. Therefore, I can’t be politically conservative.

Another difference is I’m no fan of the Constitution. A fatal mistake was made when the founders established a political government where liberty had existed before.

For many years I was desperate to believe in and support the Constitution, and saw it as the greatest achievement in human government. Only after I stopped believing in political government of any sort could I see the Constitution clearly.

The Constitution was presented as a gift, but once unwrapped turned out to be worse than a lump of coal. It may have been the sneakiest Trojan horse in history.

I won’t criticize you if you still believe in Santa or the Constitution, though.

The Constitution utterly failed to protect liberty from government; it is useful only as a measure of how deeply criminal the federal government has become.

Even conservatives seem to like the Constitution only when it aligns with their cause, ignoring it when it doesn’t. Most of them happily sidestep the Constitution for their political preferences, which they want imposed by government.

They generally want immigration control, drug prohibition, federal law enforcement, an abortion ban, a permanent military, and other things that are not permitted under the Constitution. Those big-government programs are as far from “conservative” as you can possibly get, yet they see no conflict and throw the Constitution under the bus when it gets in the way of what they want. How can they criticize the other side for doing the same thing?

The only justification for government is to protect the rights of people. Yet government is the only real threat to our rights in normal life. When something doesn’t work as advertised, dump it, and learn from the mistake.

At least I’m honest when I call the Constitution a mistake and point out it’s a dead issue since the federal government refuses to be constrained by it.

I’m often harder on political conservatives than I am on the statist Left. I believe conservatives ought to know better and I’m disappointed when they don’t.

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at:

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