Publicola

Harry Browne has a piece up called Pay No Attention To This Day

"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.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Susan B. Anthony Day, when we pretend to be politically correct.
• Memorial Day, when we pretend that we live in a free country because of all the people who were killed in the government’s senseless wars.
• Flag Day, when we pretend the government is America.
• Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day, when we pretended that World War I made the world safe for democracy).
• National Teachers Day, when we pretend our children are getting an education.
• Earth Day, when we pretend that making the government more powerful will make the environment cleaner.
• United Nations Day, when we pretend to believe all those inane statements about world peace.
Today doesn’t seem to come anywhere near those days in importance.
You see, today is supposed to be Constitution Day. And no one really cares about the Constitution anymore."

Read it.

Now read this & please note the similarity between Mr. Browne's ideas of what will be taught concerning the Constitution.

For example, from Mr. Brownes piece:

"Those conservatives who still care about the Constitution say that it should be taught in the schools. As though government employees will emphasize the original purpose of the Constitution in restraining government. Instead, they’ll give snap quizes on such weighty questions as 'How many years in a Senator’s term?' or 'Who appoints the Supreme Court justices?"

Now compare that to this excerpt from the NARA's Constitution Day Activities section

"Following ratification, the next task was implementation. Analyze historic documents and determine the extent to which the Constitution provided for the reestablishment of the Navy."


If you'll look here I think you'll discover the problem:

"The half hour program will begin with President George W Bush leading all the 120,000 schools in the nation in the simultaneous recitation of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution broadcast by Fox News."

See? If only they could get passed the Preamble & read the rest of the thing!

At any rate, Happy Constitution Day, or what's left of it at least.