Growls

Thomas Sowell has an essay posted today at Investor’s Business Daily about the U.S. Constitution being a “big barrier to (the) liberal agenda.” Playwright David Mamet called Sowell “our greatest contemporary philosopher” in a March 2008 essay for the Village Voice, and this essay by Thomas Sowell leaves no doubt.

Sowell explains that the Constitution “was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.” He goes on to write that it was the Progressive Movement that started in the late 19th century “who began saying that the Constitution needed to be subordinated to whatever they chose to call "the needs of the times." Sowell explains:

“Nor were they content to say that the Constitution needed more Amendments, for that would have meant that the much disdained masses would have something to say about whether, or what kind, of Amendments were needed.

“The agenda then, as now, has been for our betters to decide among themselves which Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary government power should be disregarded, in the name of meeting "the needs of the times" — as they choose to define those needs.

“The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson.

“Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but "interpret" it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet "the needs of the times," were made by Woodrow Wilson.”

Then, Sowell writes the following about the elites who are part of what Angelo Codevilla calls America’s”Ruling Class” in this great American Spectator essay:

“How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?

“To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America.”

Thank you, Mr. Sowell, for your fine “must read” essay.