President Obama’s Comments at Selma

By Zac Nickerson

President Obama made a telling comment in his speech in Selma, Alabama on Saturday. While commenting on the tragic events of that day in 1965, and the commemoration of its fifty year anniversary, he said,

“What greater expression of faith in the American experience than this? What greater form of patriotism is there? Than the belief that America is not yet finished. That we are strong enough to be self-critical. That each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals.”

This is our Chief Executive’s explanation of why he constantly sees fit to step out of the bounds of the Constitution and reign over us with his ‘pen and phone’. It is because he believes in an American ‘experience’ not the American Dream. He does not look at America as having deviated from the course of a Free Society that the Founding Fathers had intended, but rather he sees it as something not yet finished, something to be changed and molded to fit his views and ideals. He also believes that he has the power to make that change.

He shares these views with a growing minority of Americans who are diametrically opposed to the founding principles of America. They possess the erroneous view that America is a malleable system that can be bent and molded to fit what they think it should be, regardless of what the Constitution establishes and mandates.

This trend of thinking can largely be attributed to years of propagating the false claim that America is a democracy or that democracy is a founding principle of our society. This leads these misguided and misinformed Americans into thinking that by gaining the majority, or at least gaining the acquiescence of the majority, they have the right and power to force this country into what they deem is ideal.

But an historical look at how some of the Founders of this country viewed democracy will show us why they went to such great lengths to prevent it.

President James Madison said of Democracies;

“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” The Federalist Papers, No.10

John Adams said, in a letter to John Taylor;

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

The Constitution was designed to restrict the power of government, prevent the people from usurping power over each other, and establishing a lasting system of Law that protects Liberty. The actions of the Obama Administration have made clear that the Principles of America and the authority of the Constitution have not only been dismissed, but are directly against President Obama’s highest ideals.